Chapter 12

We begin verse 1 with the connective use of the conjunction kai which brings us into the time of the devil’s desperation, the background for the seventh trumpet. The nominative singular subject is composed of two words. The first word is the adjective megaj. With it is the word shmeion, translated “sign” but actually means a great deal more than that, “And a great sign.” Inasmuch as the Bible says it is great it is something that requires a great deal of analysis. Next is the aorist passive indicative of the verb o(raw, “was seen.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The passive voice: the subject, the great sign receives the action of the verb. It is seen. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of this sign which will in effect explain the origin of the humanity of Christ.

Next we note that this great sign is in heaven, therefore all the more reason why we should observe it, e)n plus the locative of o)uranoj. This is a legitimate sign, a sign that is going to tell us a great deal.

Translation so far: “And a great sign was seen in heaven.”

It is the word shmeion that we must stop and observe. What does a sign mean? What is the meaning of shmeion? It connotes a wonder, a miracle, that which is contrary to the usual course of nature, something extra-natural, something even supernatural; in this case, like the origin of the Jewish race at the point of Abraham’s circumcision. Hence, a sign is a miraculous function of divine origin, something that is performed by God totally apart from human modus operandi.

There are actually seven signs mentioned in the book of Revelation. This is the first of the seven. There will be a second one in Revelation 12:3, a third one in 13:13,14, a fourth one in 15:1, the 16:14 and 19:20 complete the signs. Signs, then, are miracles and these miracles are accomplished by the Lord. Signs and miracles are also said in Revelation to be accomplished by Satan in 13:13, 14. The dictator of Israel during the Tribulation performs “signs,” 19:20. The seven pur sui vant messengers which introduce and blow the seven trumpets are followed by seven pur sui vant messengers who have seven bowls or goblets of judgment which are related to the sign in Revelation 15:1. Certain demons perform signs or miracles, according to Revelation 16:14. So signs are related to both supernatural and extra-natural activity. Signs are usually connected with future events. The rainbow was given as a sign to Noah in Genesis 9:12,13, the covenant of Noah that never again would the earth be destroyed by rain. Circumcision was the sign that Gentile Abraham would become a new race, and his son Isaac would perpetuate that race. All the races of the world, of course, come from Noah after the flood. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. The Semitic line comes down to Abraham. As a Gentile at age 99 Abraham became a Jew. This was shmeion, a supernatural act. This was the newest race and it was called out so that there could be in Old Testament times a client nation to God based on one race and one culture. From this race and from this client nation and from this culture would come the humanity of Christ and our so great salvation.

The plagues against Egypt were called shmeion, signs of divine displeasure, Exodus 4:8ff; Joshua 24:17. The miracle of the first advent was called a sign to attest the hypostatic union and our Lord’s unique relationship with God the Father, Matthew 12:38. The Jews wanted signs or attesting miracles rather than doctrine. Their great problem was that when the Jews were delivered from slavery in Egypt they didn’t want doctrine, they wanted signs, they wanted miracles. Negative volition toward doctrine is often manifest by the sign movement today, especially in fundamentalist circles, e.g. the tongues movement. God does not speak to us by the use of miracles today. Once the canon of scripture was completed the age of miracles was shut down. It is negative volition to look for a miracle when God has provided the royal family of the Church Age the greatest of all miracles, Bible doctrine resident in the soul. Faith must stand on doctrine, not on miracles.

The great sign begins with Abraham at age 99 when he was sexually dead. But Abraham believed God’s promise that he would have a son and that from that son would come race and nation. Even though he was sexually dead once he circumcised himself that was the function of the faith-rest drill in the second and third stages. By circumcision, the cutting away of the dead flesh, God revived the use of his sexual organs and he had a son, Isaac. Abraham became a Jew, along with Sarah, at age 99 under the act of faith-rest, believing the promise in the Abrahamic covenant. He believed that promise and God honoured his faith.

Then we have his son, Isaac, and “in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” Isaac had twin sons. Esau, the eldest of the twins is a Gentile, but the younger son was Jacob, and Jacob is the Jew. The difference between the two, even though they were twins: one was a believer, regenerate, born again; one was an unbeliever and therefore is the father of the Edomites, the Gentile nations south of Palestine.

So we have the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ is eternal God and therefore as eternal God there is no way that He can go to the cross and bear our sins. As eternal God he can have nothing to do with sin: He cannot bear sin; He cannot receive sin by imputation; He cannot be judged for sin; He cannot solicit to sin. Therefore Jesus Christ, to bear our sins on the cross, must become man — true humanity. Furthermore, He must go to the cross as perfect humanity, and a second sign after circumcision was given. We go from circumcision to Isaiah 7:14 where we have the virgin birth. This is the sign of the virgin birth, this is the declaration that Jesus Christ would come into the world. But He had to come through a virgin birth, a miracle. Why?

We have to go back to Adam and Eve. Adam wilfully sinned, he knew what he was doing when he sinned. Eve was deceived, she did not know what she was doing but she was guilty. Therefore, the old sin nature was passed down through the man in copulation. The old sin nature is in the 23 chromosomes which the man provides to fertilise the female ovum. The 23 chromosomes in the female ovum are totally free from the old sin nature because Eve was deceived, and even though she was guilty these are the only chromosomes in the entire body that are free from the old sin nature. Therefore, man through copulation provides the basis for the old sin nature so that when human life (which does not exist in the womb) is given by God after birth and imputed to the human soul, simultaneously Adam’s original sin is imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature. The word “sign” becomes very important because when we receive life we also receive spiritual death. God does not wait until we sin personally. Our personal sins have never been imputed to us for judgment. The wages of sin is death and we are under spiritual death because Adam’s original sin is imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature. When Adam sinned originally the old sin nature was created through that sin and therefore there is perfect harmony between Adam’s original sin and the old sin nature. This also means that if anyone dies before reaching accountability he is automatically saved.

All personal sins are never imputed to us, they are to be imputed to Christ on the cross. But how can our Lord get to the cross? The only possible way is to by-pass those 23 male chromosomes which fertilise the female ovum. They carry the old sin nature. Man and woman are born into the world with an old sin nature because of copulation. Therefore, in the case of the virgin birth this is cut off and God the Holy Spirit provides 23 perfect chromosomes to match the 23 perfect chromosomes in the womb of the virgin Mary. In this way we have a virgin pregnancy and, as a result, a virgin birth. John 3:16 says that “he gave his only begotten son”, but the Greek word monogenhj means “uniquely-born.” This human life was given by God the Father because He loved the world and it was imputed to the human soul of our Lord. But Adam’s original sin could not be imputed because there was not an old sin nature. Therefore, instead, God the Father gave the prototype divine dynasphere which was imputed to the human spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. So this is the second sign — Isaiah 7:14.

The third sign is the woman clothed with the sun and the eleven stars, Revelation 12:1. This is the one that comes into focus at this time. We have the nominative singular subject of the Greek word gunh, which means woman. It is a reference to the nation Israel. We have the sign of the race in circumcision, we have the sign of salvation, the saviour of the world and the hope of Israel in the virgin birth; now we have the sign of the nation. So we have the nation Israel emphasising the nation as the source of the humanity of Christ and the hypostatic union. First it was the race: Jesus Christ is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Then it was the nation: Jesus Christ is born son of David, the ruling dynasty of the nation.

Next we have the perfect passive participle of the verb periballw which means to clothe, to wrap around, “clothed with the sun.” The perfect tense is a dramatic perfect emphasising the results of a completed action. The race became a nation. The passive voice: the woman as Israel receives the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial. The accusative singular direct object from h()lioj brings us into focus with the verb. The sun is a reference to Jacob. What is the difference? The sun is light. Jacob is one of the twins. Esau was his older brother but Esau was negative, an unbeliever. Jacob as a believer is the “light” picture and the Jewish race, therefore, begins with regeneration. Abraham was a believer, Isaac was a believer, Jacob was a believer. The Jewish race was founded on regeneration. Therefore Israel becomes very significant to all of us and becomes a major subject in the Bible, because it is the race founded by regeneration.

Jacob is the sun. There is also a feminine counterpart in the accusative singular direct object from selhnh which means moon. The moon refers to the wives of Jacob. They reflect his glory in the sense that the moon is a reflecting object, “under her feet” [under Israel’s feet] refers to the fact that Jacob had two wives and two mistresses. The twelve patriarchs came from the two mistresses and the two wives.

Next we have “a crown of twelve stars on her head.” So the woman Israel was started as the wives of Israel as the moon, Jacob as the sun. The twelve stars are the twelve patriarchs.

The sign of the woman is completed with the nominative singular stefanoj, “crown.” Sovereignty begins with the tribe and the tribe has twelve children, the twelve patriarchs, the cadre which forms both racial and national Israel.

Translation: “And a great sign was seen in heaven; a woman [Israel] clothed with the sun [Jacob], and the moon [wives and mistresses of Jacob] under her [Israel’s] feet, and a crown of twelve stars [the twelve patriarchs] on her head.”

We must remember first that the source of the humanity of Christ is racial Israel. Israel is not only unique for the fact that the humanity of Christ originated from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Judah, but both racial and national uniqueness is existing here. These miracles [signs] all add up to remind us of the uniqueness of the person of Christ, Jesus Christ in hypostatic union.

Romans 9:1, “I am communicating doctrine, I am not lying, my conscience bearing joint testimony with me in the Holy Spirit,” the information that Paul gives comes from his right lobe and it comes from that part of his right lobe called the suneidhsij or conscience. Paul had learned through reception the doctrines he is about to give us. They entered his left lobe, resided there briefly as gnwsij, and by faith they were transferred to his right lobe and became e)pignwsij, and he is now giving us from his conscience these particular principles of doctrine.

Verse 2, “I have great sorrow and constant pain in my right lobe,” which is related to Israel.

Verse 3, “For I could wish that I myself were [cherim] cursed,” but it isn’t possible. There is only one in all of human history who has truly been cherim, and He has been cherim for the entire human race. That is the Lord Jesus Christ when He was hanging on the cross. When our sins were imputed to Him by God the Father He became cherim, and God the Father then judged those sins. Our Lord was cursed on the cross for us. So Paul’s desire here is an impossible desire. That is why it is translated “wish” instead of “pray.” Paul knew better than to pray for it and so it is a wish, “separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren,” and when he says “brethren” he is not talking about the Romans, he is talking about the Jews. He is using “brethren” in its racial sense, “my fellow countrymen,” the national Jews because in the past he had served as a Pharisee, “according to earthly descent,” not according to citizenship, but according to earthly descent, the genes of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Verse 4, “who are Israelites, to whom is the adoption.” Adoption means that you are not a true son but you are adopted into the family and become one. The Jews had been adopted by God, and that is the principle here. And when were they adopted by God? When Abraham was circumcised (the first sign), “as sons and the glory.” This refers to the Shekinah glory, the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it was the light in the holy of holies, the Shekinah glory [the sign of Christ, the light of the world] as the God of Israel. That Shekinah is exactly identical with the phrase, Adonai elohenu (Jesus Christ is our God) “and the covenants and the gift of the law,” not only the laws of divine establishment but also the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and doctrine for the believer. All three categories are found in the Mosaic law, and this is the sign of authority in client nation Israel, “and the worship,” the worship of the true God in contrast to the cultic activities of the Romans during the time of SPQR and the republic, “and the promises,” the eternal heritage of any Jew who had become a true Jew, not by birth but by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ by recognising that last phrase, Adonai echad.

Verse 5, “from whom are the fathers,” the regenerate ancestry in the formation of Israel, “in fact from whom is Christ, the one who came in the flesh.” And there it is, the third line of Deuteronomy 6:4, Adonai echad, “the one who is God, ruler over all,” and that is the second line, Adonai elohenu, “extolled forever. Amen.”

Verse 6, “However, this is not to imply that the word of God has failed.” Paul stops now and makes a very important point. In every generation outside of the client nation very few Jews were born again believers, and therefore true Jews. And immediately this is an implication: Has the Word of God failed? No. And why hasn’t the Word of God failed? It isn’t the Word of God that has failed in any given generation, it is the volition of the Jew that has failed. The same thing is true today, of course, with the Gentiles; the same thing is true with us. It isn’t that the Word of God ever fails, it is that we fail by our negative volition, “for not all who are from Israel [not all who have the genes of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob] are really Israel [born again Jews].”

Verse 7, “neither because they are Abraham’s posterity are all racial Jews the children of the internal inheritance, but: In Isaac [not Ishmael but born again Isaac] your posterity shall be designated [elected to privilege, i.e.. client nation to God].”

Verse 8, “This means that the descendants of the flesh [racial Jews] are not the children of God, but the children of the promise [the born again Jews who believe in Christ] are imputed for the seed,” i.e. for true Israel.

So we return to Revelation 12:1. Since the day that Satan discovered that Israel was to be the source of the incarnate Christ Israel has been the target for the devil’s hatred and antagonism. There is an historical and eternal relationship between the uniqueness of the person of Christ and the uniqueness of Israel. The spiritual heritage of the Jew gives him the greatest possible opportunity for eternal salvation through personal faith in Christ. Everything in his heritage and culture speaks of the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Self-determination is the issue in the historical phase of the angelic conflict: he can believe in Christ and be saved, he can reject Christ and be a racial Jew which is not a true Jew. Every Jew has the opportunity, then, of believing in Christ or rejecting Him from very ancient times. The very content of divine revelation to Israel plus the ritual by which they were taught communicates this principle.

Take, for example, the Levitical offerings. There was the burnt offering. It taught propitiation, emphasising the work of Christ on the cross bearing our sins. Then there was the meal or the food offering, propitiation emphasising the person of Christ. So you have the signs, the sign of the person of Christ, the hypostatic union. Then there is the peace offering, reconciliation. Jesus Christ came as a Jew. He went to the cross as a Jew. He received the imputation of our sins as a Jew, and as a Jew provided eternal salvation. The sin offering, rebound, emphasising unknown sins. The trespass offering is rebound emphasising known sins.

The interesting thing is that all of the Jews could enter into these offerings because they had grades that went from the very expensive to the very inexpensive. If all you could afford was a pigeon or a turtledove, an inexpensive offering, you could enter into these rituals and understand the principles of the Levitical offerings.

Take, for example, the feasts or the holy days. The feasts and the holy days in Rome were designed to give cruelty the expression of sentimentality; the feast days in Israel were designed to give great spiritual emphasis to our Lord Jesus Christ. The first was the Passover, the necessity for salvation to true Israel. There was the feast of unleavened bread, fellowship with God as a believing Jew; the feast of the firstfruits the first Sunday after the Passover, emphasising the resurrection of Christ, the guarantee of the resurrection of all true Israel. The feast of Pentecost [fifty days] representing the fifth cycle of discipline to Israel as a client nation to God but the perpetuation of true Israel as a part of the royal family during the Age of the Gentiles. Then came the great gap between the feasts, from June to October. Pentecost occurred in June and then there was no feast until October. The gap represented the times of the Gentiles, the Church Age, the perpetuation of true Israel by being brought into the royal family of God, like the apostle Paul. Then the feast of the trumpets, the termination of the fifth cycle of discipline to Israel, the restoration of Israel at the second advent of Christ. Israel again becomes the client nation. Born again Jews who survive the Tribulation will enter the Millennium to become client nation to God for the last 1000 years of history. Then the feast of atonement, the fulfilment of the unconditional covenants to Israel at the second advent.

The principle of Romans 2:29, “But he is a Jew who is one by hidden birth [being born again]; and circumcision [the first sign to Israel] is that which is of the right lobe, by means of the Holy Spirit, not by means of the letter [keeping of the law]; whose approval is not from man, but from God.”

Finally, there was the feast of the tabernacles representing the Millennial reign of Christ whose perfect environment fulfils the unconditional covenants to the restored Israel, but the restored true Israel, the born again Jew.

Principle

1. No one ever had to take more time off to learn how Israel became unique than the Jews. The Jews were ordered to take time off for learning. The time off for learning was first of all the Sabbath day. The time off were the feast days — seven each year. The time off were the sabbatical years. Every seventh year the Jews were to stop everything and to spend that entire year in intense study of the Word of God as they possessed it and as it was presented to them through the ritual of the priesthood and the communication of the prophets. The continual annual sacrifices were designed to show exactly how Israel became unique. Everything in Jewish culture is really a spiritual factor. Israel has the only culture totally based on spiritual things — doctrine.

2. Jesus Christ is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is the major subject of the law and the prophets, the Old Testament canon.

3. Every ritual reveals some aspect regarding Christ, so that the Jews could not miss the point except by deliberately refusing to do so, negative volition.

4. The tragedy of negative volition toward Christ is the tragedy of neglected opportunity.

The tragedy of the Jews is that so many of them are unbelievers. But God doesn’t wait until they’re dying, God provides for them a special sin unto death and He gives them, young and old alike, but not without purpose and not without reason, the holocaust. But that doesn’t mean that we approve of any holocaust in any sense of the word or any other type of persecution of any people.

Arrogance on the part of Israel is unteachable, and even though the Jews as a race have greater IQ than almost any race they are still unteachable. While the Jews have great men of art, literature, business, and with great perspicacity and great IQ, they still cannot learn the greatest thing of all: Jesus Christ is the only saviour; He is their God. So for this reason there is a holocaust.

Genesis 37:9-11 explains interpreting the woman in Revelation 12:1 as Israel and the twelve stars as the patriarchs. Joseph received truth through a dream. This was before the canon of scripture existed. God revealed Himself to Joseph and therefore this dream is truth, Bible doctrine.

Romans 9:25, “As he has also communicated in Hosea, ‘I will call those who were not my people [Gentiles], My People’,” this recognises when the two races finally came together for the benefit of the Gentiles. The Roman people and the Jewish people both failed at the cross, their system of law broke down. But while they failed at the cross at the time that John was writing in AD 96 they had finally come together for one of the greatest periods of all of human history when Nirva came to the throne as the first of the Antonine Caesars. This brought together the doctrine of Israel [Bible doctrine] with the greatness of Roman law and administration to form the first Gentile client nation, the empire of Rome. The greatest period of history went from 96-192 AD. It brought together the Jews as the apostles, John, Peter, and Paul, as the three great ones, communicating doctrine which led to the first great Gentile client nation. The Jews provided the truth and the Gentiles became vigorous in the Roman empire.

— “and those who have not been loved [the Jewish nation during the times of the Gentiles] as those having been loved.”

That is a prophecy of the restoration of the Jews at the second advent. But before the Jews can be restored they will go through one of the greatest periods of holocaust they have ever known.

Verse 26, “And it shall be in the place [Israel] where it was said, ‘You are not my people,’ in that place [Israel] they shall be called the sons of the living God,” because Israel will be absorbed by the Roman empire and will become a part of the Roman province of Judea.

Verse 27, “In fact, Isaiah speaking in an emergency with reference to Israel, ‘If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be delivered’.” And that is true of the Tribulation. Jews will have multiplied on the face of the earth and a remnant shall be delivered.

Verse 28, “For the Lord will execute his word upon the earth,” second advent. And this is to the Jews. A remnant will be delivered at the end of verse 27, “completing what he also decreed,” the unconditional covenants.

Verse 29, “And so just as Isaiah has prophesied, ‘Except the Lord of the armies [Jesus Christ, the God of Israel] had left us a seed [the spiritual seed of Abraham], we [the Jews] would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah.” Sodom and Gomorrah were two branches of the Canaanites who did not survive. They were all killed. And the Jews would be that way too were it not for the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of the armies.

Verse 30, “Therefore to what conclusion are we forced? That the Gentiles, who did not strive for righteousness,” that is one of the big problems of the Jews. They allowed the Mosaic law to flatter them instead of challenge them, and so demonstrated that they were in the cosmic system and therefore vulnerable to flattery. The Romans did not have the Mosaic law. God did not reveal Himself to the Romans, “have attained righteousness.” How did they attain it? Because the Jew came to them and said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,’ “that is, righteousness from the source of faith,” faith in Christ.

Verse 31, “in the meantime Israel, who pursued after the law [with self-righteousness. They used the law as a system of flattery. ‘I’ve kept the law; I’m a great person], has not accomplished the purpose of the law.”

Verse 32, “Why? Because they did not pursue it by means of faith,” they rejected Christ as saviour, “but as by means of works. Therefore they have tripped over that rock [Christ],”

Verse 33, “just as it stand written, ‘Behold I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling, even a rock which arouses opposition, nevertheless he who believes on him will not be humiliated’ ”

— the origin of the Jews in the past was regeneration. The Jews are the only race that has ever been founded on regeneration.

The self-righteous Jew in keeping the law for salvation is religious without being regenerate and therefore the arrogant Jew accepts the ritual without accepting the person behind the ritual. Every once in a while throughout history this gathers up a tremendous momentum and leads to great disaster. The pattern for eternal salvation and becoming a true Jew is established by the precedent of Abraham, the father of the Jewish race, Genesis 15:6. This establishes the holiness of God as the point of contact for Israel. Cf. Psalm 85:10. This contact with the justice of God as one half of divine righteousness was manifest by the appearance of the Shekinah glory in the holy of holies.

Jesus Christ as the God of Israel is the Shekinah glory which was manifest in the Old Testament times between the cherubs in the holy of holies. But with the incarnation or the first advent Jesus Christ became the Shekinah glory in a different sense, John 1:14, “And the word became flesh and tabernacled in our presence, (and we beheld his glory, the glory of the uniquely-born one from the Father,) full of grace and full of doctrine.”

The true Jew cannot be a true Jew, then, simply because he possesses the genes of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The only way for a Jew to be a Jew is to possess the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Shekinah glory, the Lord Jesus Christ. And to become part of Israel’s eternal heritage there must be regeneration, the possession of eternal life. The Jew who rejects Christ as saviour will never see the glorious fulfilment, then, of the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic and New covenants to Israel. However, the failure of some Jews to believe in Christ does not cancel or abrogate God’s promises to the rest. Individual or collective failures never hinder the plan of God, nor the validity of the Word of God.

The term double entendre is French for double meaning. By definition a double entendre is an expression capable of two interpretations. A double entendre in verse two results from the fact that the Jews had been pregnant for two thousand years without delivering. That is the basis for this double entendre. The reason that they cannot deliver, even though they want to deliver as a group, is simply because they have failed in part and in general to recognise Jesus Christ, the God of Israel, as their Messiah. In general the Jews rejected the sign of the first advent. The first sign is the sign of circumcision. That is how the race began. The second sign is the virgin birth, the basis for fulfilment of all Israel’s covenants in the future — the virgin birth leading to the hypostatic union, our Lord Jesus Christ coming in the flesh, the God of Israel coming to Israel, the first advent. The third sign is the woman Israel, referring to the nation, for the Jews who are the only people in the world today who are both a race and a nation. In addition they are a culture. They have the distinction of having all three.

The Jews ignored the pregnancy sign and therefore God the Holy Spirit, speaking through the apostle John, uses pregnancy under a double entendre to show their problem; to show the pain of Israel, the difficulty of Israel. The Jews rejected the first advent and its sign, Isaiah 7:14. Therefore the virgin birth of Christ is the first part of the double entendre. The virgin birth was more than a sign, it was the means by which Israel could recognise the coming of Christ. Just as Mary as a virgin was pregnant, so for 2000 years since Mary Israel has been pregnant. Mary delivered a son who 33 years later went to the cross and was judged for our sins, took our place, became the saviour of the world and at the same time became the basis for the fulfilling of the unconditional covenants to Israel. Mary’s son was the son of David, the fulfilment of the Davidic covenant.

But for 2000 years Israel has been in labour pains. That is the problem. Why is the Jew different? Because the Jew is pregnant. The Jew is having labour pains and these labour pains can only be alleviated by going back to the sign and recognising that Mary delivered the Messiah, and that the Messiah has come, that He went to the cross and was judged for the sins of every Jew who ever lived. “But to the Jews Christ is not yet come”, Christ has not yet been born, therefore the sign has not occurred yet. That means the Jews are in labour pains for 2000 years. It means that every Jew is under a special stress that no one else has. The race is unique from the standpoint of its stress. The only release for the labour pains of Israel is for the Jew to personally believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The holocaust pregnancy is all pain and no delivery. To the unbelieving Jew the baby is still in the womb, he has rejected the true meaning of Isaiah 7:14. Therefore we have in this passage one of the greatest double entendres in history: the virgin pregnancy and the holocaust pregnancy.

We are studying in this passage the double entendre pregnancy. Why do the Jews become the victims of terrible persecution periodically here and there throughout the world for the last 2000 years? And then, of course, why racial persecution anyway? A free country has no rights to persecute any race or any particular group of people.

There are four approaches to this verse 12 in chapter 12: the interpretation; the exegesis; the virgin pregnancy; the holocaust pregnancy.

First of all, the interpretation of the verse. It all begins with a double entendre, a word which has come into the English from the French which means double-meaning. A double entendre is an expression capable of two interpretations. It usually results from ambiguity of meaning arising from language that lends itself to more than one interpretation. The double entendre in this verse results from the fact that the Jews rejected the sign of messiahship at the first advent. The sign that they rejected was the virgin pregnancy of Mary which was followed by the virgin birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, the beginning of His hypostatic union and His fantastic ministry of the first advent resulting in the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. Because the unbelieving Jews rejected the first advent and its sign, the virgin birth, we have a phenomenon called holocaust.

Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be pregnant [the real sign is the sign of the pregnant virgin] and she will give birth to a son [second half of the sign, the virgin birth of our Lord Jesus Christ], and she will call his name Immanuel [God is with us, a reference to the hypostatic union and the uniqueness of our Lord Jesus Christ].”

Therefore the birth of Jesus Christ is the first part of the double entendre. Because so many of the Jews rejected the sign of the virgin birth to them Christ was never born, there is no first advent. Under that sense the embryo is in the womb of Israel waiting to be delivered and in very intense pain. Hence, the second part of the double entendre is the holocaust pregnancy, all pain and no delivery. The Jews who do not accept the birth of Messiah, the first advent, His saving work on the cross, are in a perpetual state of misery: the pain of pregnancy without any relief of giving birth to the embryo. To the unbelieving Jew the baby is still in the womb because there is no virgin birth, they have rejected the true meaning of the sign in Isaiah 7:14. This sign is also recorded in the last line of their greatest portion of ritual, Deuteronomy 6:4, and it is definitely related to the holocaust:

The first line says, Shamah Yisrael. The qal imperative of the verb shamah which means “listen.” “Listen O Israel.” If ever a Jew should listen it is to the meaning of the next two lines.

The second line talks about the God of Israel under His sacred name, the Tetragrammaton, pronounced Adonai, translated sometimes “Jehovah,” Adonai Elohenu, “Jehovah [or Adonai] is our God.” That is a reference to Jesus Christ as the God of Israel, and it is His alpha glory. But that is not the source of the holocaust. All of the holocausts of history have their source in the final phrase.

The third line: Adonai echad. There is the issue: “The Lord is unique.” The uniqueness of Jesus Christ begins at the point of His true humanity. Therefore it begins at the point of His virgin birth. Mary had a virgin pregnancy; our Lord was virgin born.

The uniqueness of our Lord, the last line: Adonai echad, is the hypostatic union. Jesus Christ is both undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever. To become true humanity apart from sin there had to be the virgin pregnancy, then the virgin birth. In this way neither Adam’s original sin nor the old sin nature existed in the humanity of Christ. This, of course, resulted in the fact that while our Lord’s humanity was temptable He was impeccable because he continued to reside inside of the prototype divine dynasphere.

To the unbelieving Jew the Lord was never born; he ignores and rejects the first advent of Christ. Therefore his historic suffering will be called in this study “the holocaust pregnancy,” persecution, pain, suffering, without deliverance. Rejection of the sign of the virgin birth produces the double entendre, an analogy to the woman, Israel. Israel is in a constant state of pain, a constant state of suffering, still waiting for the coming of the Messiah. To the unbelieving Jew He has not come as yet and, therefore, we have a beautiful double entendre. All members of the human race are the products of their own decisions, not their environment. In the case of our Lord we have the 23 chromosomes, not provided by the male [that would make our Lord a sinner] but by the Holy Spirit, fertilising the 23 chromosomes in the female ovum, in this case the virgin Mary.

Though polar body and meiosis we have 23 cells that are totally free from the old sin nature — the old sin nature resides in the cell structure of the body. And so we have a virgin pregnancy which eventuated in a virgin birth and the uniqueness of our Lord Jesus Christ, Adonai echad. But unbelief cuts this off. So what we have is a double entendre in which we find Israel compared to a pregnant woman in terrible pain and torture, and no deliverance. Therefore, in this passage we have one of the greatest double entendres of history because it explains why anti-Semitism, why historically there have been so many holocausts.

But before we note the second phase of this particular verse, the exegesis, we have to have an improved translation from the Greek. We begin with the conjunction kai which begins this verse and is used here to emphasise a fact as surprising, noteworthy, and unexpected. So instead of translating it “and” the correct translation should be “Nevertheless.” Next we have a technical idiom for pregnancy, a prepositional phrase which follows the kai: e)n plus the locative of gaster. Gaster means the womb, and it is literally “in the womb.” Next is the present active participle of the verb e)xw which means to have. Literally, it is translated “having in the womb.” It is an idiom, however, and it means she was pregnant, “Nevertheless she was pregnant.” The historical present tense views the past event of the virgin birth and its consequences with the vividness of a present occurrence. The historical present is an idiom from the primitive syntax of the Indo-European branch of languages. There was a time when time relations were indicated by the context rather than by inflexions, just like in the Hebrew and other Semitic languages. Hence, there was a time in the Indo-European languages when differentiation between the imperfect and the aorist tenses did not exist. This point of syntax, the historical present, antedates it. This is why we translate a present participle in the past tense. The active voice: under the concept of the double entendre both the virgin Mary and the nation Israel produce the action of the verb.

Because the Jews have rejected the virgin pregnancy of Mary and the virgin birth of Jesus Christ they suffer the birth pangs of a child never born in their thinking. This explains the whole principle of historical holocaust related to Israel.

The participle is a circumstantial participle which is often rendered into the English by a finite verb. Furthermore, the action of the present participle is coterminous with the action of the main verb. The main verb is presented next after a connective conjunction kai. It is the present active indicative of the verb krazw, usually translated to cry or to cry out. It really means to scream or to shriek, “and she screamed.” The present tense is a historical present viewing past holocausts with the vividness of a present occurrence, that same point of pre inflexional Greek syntax; but it is also construed as a futuristic present in that it anticipates the context where the Jews at the end of the Tribulation suffer the greatest wave of anti-Semitism in all history, the super holocaust. The active voice: the emphasis of the verbal entendre now shifts from the virgin Mary to the Jews at the end of the Tribulation who now produce the action under the double entendre. The indicative mood is declarative for the historical as well the eschatological reality plus the sign of the main verb in coterminous action.

Next we have a present active participle of the verb o)dinw, and it means to suffer in labour pains. It means excruciating pain in this case. The present tense is a futuristic present denoting the holocaust at the end of the Tribulation which has not yet occurred but is regarded as so certain that in thought it is contemplated as already occurring. The active voice: the nation Israel under the principle of holocaust produces the action of the verb — the holocaust pregnancy, the pregnancy where the birth pangs continue and are perpetuated all of the way to the second advent and no birth ever takes place. The participle is circumstantial plus the fact that the action of the present participle is coterminous with that main verb, the screaming verb.

Note how the emphasis of the double entendre changes after the second conjunction kai. We go from the historical present to the futuristic present in order to change the emphasis from the first advent of Christ which unbelieving Israel has rejected to the second advent when the Jews are anticipating deliverance. But the unbelieving Jews will never have it. The Tribulation is the period of the greatest holocaust in history; it is, again, the third woe or the seventh trumpet and Satan personally leads the third demon assault army.

So far the translation: “Nevertheless she was pregnant and she screamed, suffering from labour pains.”

Now we have the final kai, translated “and,” plus the present active participle of the verb basanizw which means to torture, to be in excruciating pain. Again, the futuristic present denotes the holocaust at the end of the Tribulation, the future attack on the Tribulational Jews personally led by Satan. The greatest wave of anti-Semitism has not yet occurred but is regarded as so certain in thought that it is contemplated as already coming to pass. The passive voice: the Jews of the world in the Tribulation receive the action of the verb and this unmasks the double entendre. The Jews are the products of their own decisions. God gave Israel the fifth cycle of discipline but He does not give them, as a point of discipline, the holocaust. The holocaust is inevitably the result of their own decisions. Regardless of the holocaust, the outbreak of anti-Semitism, the pattern is always the same. First the Jews make a decision from a position of weakness and they reject the sign of the virgin birth. This means they reject Christ as saviour. But it means more than that in the double entendre, it means that the embryo is never delivered. The unbelieving Jew will not, as it were, permit Christ to come from the womb and therefore the mother, Israel, is in great, great pain because there is no delivery, there is no birth. The birth pangs have been going on now for almost two thousand years and there is no delivery. Remember that we are dealing with unbelieving Jews, they are the ones who are the victims; but they are the victims of their own decisions from a position of weakness.

So first of all the Jews make a decision from a position of weakness and enter into a double entendre: Christ is not born, there is no first advent. And a mother who cannot deliver and continues in that state then comes into a situation of great torture, that great pain in the holocaust whenever it occurs.

Secondly, in a decision from a position of weakness they lose control of their lives and as victims of their own bad decisions they suffer the pain, the birth pangs, perpetuated without relief. They become victims of some terrible holocaust.

Thirdly, the holocaust is brought on by their own decisions, and remember the principle that man is the product of his own decisions, not his environment.

This does not means that we in any way condone any holocaust, far from it. We go back to the Abrahamic covenant. We understand as believers that we are never to contribute in any way to the discomfort of any Jew, or, as a matter of fact, to any race, it is a violation of the doctrine of impersonal love, gate six of the divine dynasphere.

Fourthly, as a result the Jews lose all sense of personal destiny since they cannot relate properly to the Messianic passages of the Old Testament prophets. So they make decisions from a position of weakness, they lose all personal sense of destiny, they have no control over their lives, and with those three factors they are just like a woman who is in a stage of birth pains but can’t deliver. The pain goes on but the delivery does not occur. That is the double entendre. The participle is circumstantial.

Next and the final word in verse two is the aorist active infinitive of the verb tiktw which means to give birth, to be delivered. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety: they want it but it doesn’t occur; they are looking for the Messiah but He doesn’t come. Instead comes some form of a holocaust periodically, whenever there is a collective number of bad decisions resulting in bringing about disaster for themselves. The active voice: the remnant of Jewish believers produce the action of the verb at the second advent, they will be delivered. They will not only be delivered but they will be delivered under the restoration of Israel as a client nation to God, they will pass through the baptism of fire unscathed, they will become the cadre for the population explosion and the client nation Israel in the Millennium, and they will be the beneficiaries of the fulfilment of the unconditional covenants to Israel, the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic, and New covenants. This is the infinitive of conceived result which is assumed as the consequence of the second advent. However, only born-again Jews are delivered at the second advent. Unbelieving Jews follow the analogy of the double entendre. Their unbelief means that Christ was never born, and since Christ was never born they can never be delivered. Inasmuch as Christ is still in the womb they are never delivered as per the analogy to child birth.

Note how the double entendre makes the point in the first phrase and then fades out to give way to the interpretation that Israel in past history and Israel at the end of the Tribulation suffer terribly from anti-Semitism led by Satan. They suffer because they have never given birth to Christ, as it were. They have rejected the sign of the virgin birth, they have rejected the last phrase of something they utter on every Sabbath day: Adonai echad.

Translation of verse 2: “Nevertheless she [a double entendre which includes both the virgin pregnancy of Mary and the holocaust pregnancy of unbelieving Israel] was pregnant, and she [unbelieving Israel of the holocaust pregnancy] screamed, suffering labour pains [the periodic holocausts of history], and she was tortured [the great holocaust at the end of the Tribulation] to give birth [the be delivered from the anti-Semitism by the coming of Messiah].”

The principle

The Jews want the Millennium without the virgin birth. In other words, unbelieving Israel wants the crown without the cross. But the doctrine remains: you cannot have the crown without the cross. You cannot by-pass the cross, you cannot by-pass salvation whether Jew or Gentile. Hence, the analogy between the Jewish holocaust and the torture of the pregnant mother who cannot deliver the child. Israel cannot deliver the child but the child can deliver Israel. The child cannot be born unless the Jews of the Tribulation are born again by faith in Christ. Deliverance comes, first spiritually through regeneration, being born again, before deliverance can come physically for Israel through the wall of fire that protects them to the point of the second advent. The principle always remains: the cross must come before the crown. There is no deliverance for Israel apart from recognition of our Lord’s omega glory which starts at the virgin birth. The unbelieving Jews must learn the meaning of the last phrase of Deuteronomy 6:4 — Adonai echad, “our Lord is unique”.

Now we move to the virgin pregnancy. All the cells of the human race are contaminated by the old sin nature, with one exception. Through meiosis and the function of polar body 23 chromosomes are thrown off in the ovum leaving 23 uncontaminated chromosomes in the female ovum prior to fertilisation. This phenomenon in the female is based on the fact that the woman was deceived in the garden. The woman was the only one who took the forbidden fruit from the tree. The only way that man or woman could sin was by an act of volition. There was no immorality in the garden, there was no temptation to any form of sin related to a system of morality. No system of morality existed, everything was perfect: perfect environment and two perfectly constructed people created by our Lord Jesus Christ.

The woman broke down first under the temptation from Satan. The appeal to the woman was identical to the appeal to Satan himself in the prehistoric angelic conflict; it was an appeal to her arrogance. Satan discovered that the woman could be flattered. Arrogance makes anyone weak, man or woman. Whenever we get into arrogance we are in a state of weakness, we are involved in cosmic one, gate one, and we are now candidates for demonisation, demon telepathy or demon influence.

The woman took the fruit from the tree. She disobeyed, she was in a state of arrogance and she succumbed. But the woman was ignorant of what she was doing, she committed a sin of ignorance. Adam looked at the first woman, took the fruit out of her hand, and committed the original sin of cognisance.

The old sin nature resides in the cell structure of the body. The old sin nature is the source of temptation and the objective is for the old sin nature to gain control of the human soul. Guarding the gate of the soul is human volition. It may be a sin of ignorance or it may be a sin of cognisance but whether we know it is a sin or not is not the issue. The issue is: do we want to do it? If it is a sin of ignorance and we pass it through we are guilty of sin. All sin comes from human volition. It can be a sin of ignorance or cognisance but it makes no difference, we are responsible for our own decisions. We make a decision to sin whether we know it is a sin or not. Where the difference lies is in the original sin. The woman committed a sin of ignorance, therefore she became the child-bearer. Therefore, for the first time she had a womb, and periodically through meiosis and polar body there are 23 cells that are uncontaminated by the old sin nature. The man in copulation provides the other 23 and they are contaminated by the old sin nature. All members of the human race, including the virgin Mary, have old sin natures. That is because Adam sinned a sin of cognisance, and therefore the man is the source of the old sin nature. Whether it is a boy or a girl in embryonic form it eventually emerges and God imputes life but the fact remains that everyone gets the old sin nature.

The old sin nature comes through the male in copulation. Cut that off and God the Holy Spirit provides 23 perfect cells for a virgin pregnancy, and that excludes the old sin nature being formed with the embryo. It excludes, therefore, the imputation of Adam’s original sin.

When we are born into the world human life is imputed after birth to the human soul. Simultaneously, Adam’s original sin is imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature. That is because of the affinity factor which always exists in real imputation. There is affinity between Adam’s original sin and the old sin nature because it is Adam’s sin that started the old sin nature. The old sin nature is genetically-formed through the 23 male chromosomes which fertilise the female ovum, and so because of this marvellous device we are born physically alive and, in the wisdom of God, spiritually dead so that if we die before reaching accountability we are automatically saved. What happens to our personal sins? They are never imputed to us for judgment. Instead, they were imputed to Christ on the cross for judgment, opening the door of salvation — the saving work of Christ. We are condemned by Adam’s original sin.

When our Lord came into the world human life was imputed by God the Father to His soul. Human life resides in His soul forever, as with us. But Adam’s original sin could not be imputed because there was no male providing 23 contaminated chromosomes. Instead, He had a human spirit, He was born trichotomous. Adam’s sin couldn’t be imputed and, of course, there was no old sin nature. Through His human spirit was given the first and greatest form in spiritual life: the prototype divine dynasphere. Now the Holy Spirit, gate one, filled Him from the womb. Secondly, we have the tremendous development of His objectivity, His enforced and genuine humility, the rapidity with which He grew in favour with God and man. It is also said: “We beheld his glory, the glory of the uniquely-born of the Father”. So He moved rapidly in all of the prototype divine dynasphere, and He qualified to go to the cross because His humanity never moved out of the divine dynasphere, doctrine of impeccability. Because Jesus Christ is God he is not able to sin; because Jesus Christ is true humanity inside of the prototype divine dynasphere, given as the first Christmas present imputed to His human spirit, he was able not to sin. He was therefore qualified to go to the cross and be judged for our sins.

No one understood this better than Israel because Israel had the first sign, the clearest sign. The sign of Israel in Revelation 12:2 is that Israel ignored the signs, ignored the doctrine, ignored the message, rejected it. Yet, today Israel still says Shamah Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai echad, Jehovah is our God, the Lord is unique. They say it in ritual but they reject it, so they are just like a pregnant woman and the birth pains have begun. And they continue and they continue. She is overdue 2000 years and the pain goes on. The pain is called holocaust. The is the greatest double entendre of all time. The Jew who rejects Christ as saviour says in effect that He isn’t born. As a result he is like a woman with an embryo not born, not delivered, in pain constantly. He is uncomfortable all the time as an unbeliever, he faces terrible holocaust periodically brought on, of course, by the function of his own volition.

So we have the concept of the virgin pregnancy of Mary and the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, and there can be no efficacy to the saving work of Christ on the cross without the virgin birth which led to His efficacious, saving work on the cross. The virgin birth was the sign to Israel but the Jews rejected it so they had to become a sign themselves throughout history. The very fact that periodically throughout history there is a holocaust is because he has rejected his own sign to become a sign. The sign was a virgin birth, and so in the double entendre the birth doesn’t take place. To the unbelieving Jew, Messiah the Son of God doesn’t exist and therefore the birth doesn’t take place.

Unbelieving Israel is like a pregnant woman, uncomfortable. Then comes the time for delivery — birth pains, holocaust. In between they, of course, get shorter as delivery occurs and they are going to get shorter as the second advent approaches, they are going to come closer together in the Tribulation. But there will be periodically a holocaust, that is the message of the double entendre. The holocaust is based upon decision. Everyone is responsible for his own decisions and the Jew is responsible for his decisions. He has a marvellous heritage and yet he rejects his heritage because his heritage really begins with the virgin birth — salvation. And so when he says no to that, well, he is pregnant and trying to deliver and can’t. That is a picture of the holocaust and gives us the rest of the double entendre.

Then, the final thing in this verse is anti-Semitism, an historical fact. Satan is behind anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is the co-operation of the volition of the Jew with the Satanic plan to destroy him. There is only one other thing for us to realise as a believer: our function at gate six, impersonal love, includes Israel, and we are never to engage in any form of anti-Semitism. We do not have to glorify the Jew but we must treat him with the virtue of the divine dynasphere, that virtue-love that integrity produces, the same attitude toward him that we would have toward any Gentile.

Those Jews who have refused to see in Christ at the first advent the fulfilment of the sign are still waiting for deliverance from Messiah, and this, of course, results in holocaust.

In Revelation 12:2 we start out with the conjunction kai, used here to emphasise a fact as noteworthy and unexpected. It is translated “Nevertheless.” Next comes a technical idiom for pregnancy made up of three words: the preposition e)n plus the locative of gasthr, “in the womb,” and with it the present active participle from the verb e)xw, “having in the womb,” literally. It is an idiom meaning “she was pregnant.” Translated: “Furthermore, she was pregnant.” “She” refers to the double entendre, the virgin pregnancy of Mary and also to Israel who is the first sign in verse one. In the participle we have a historical present viewing the past event of the virgin pregnancy and its consequences with the vividness of a present occurrence. The active voice: under the concept of the double entendre both the virgin Mary and the nation Israel simultaneously produce the action of the verb. Because the Jews have rejected the virgin pregnancy of Mary and the virgin birth of Christ they suffer the labour pains of a child never born in their thinking. This leads directly to holocaust. This is a circumstantial participle which is often rendered in the English by the finite verb. Furthermore the action of the present participle is coterminous with the action of the main verb.

We have a connective kai, “and.” Then the word for labour pains, the present active indicative of the verb krazw which means to scream, “and she screamed.” The historical present views the past with the vividness of a present occurrence. This may also be construed as a futuristic present in that it anticipates the context where the Jews at the end of the Tribulation suffer the greatest wave of anti-Semitism in their history. The active voice: the emphasis on the double entendre now shifts from the virgin Mary to the unbelieving Jews at the end of the Tribulation. The declarative indicative mood is for the historical as well as the eschatological reality, plus the sign of the main verb which is coterminous with the action of that participle.

Then we have another present active participle from the noun o)dinw which means to suffer from labour pains. The futuristic present denotes the holocaust at the end of the Tribulation but it will also explain every holocaust up to that time. This has not yet occurred but is regarded as so certain in thought that it may be contemplated as already coming to pass. The active voice: the nation Israel (the first sign in verse 1, the woman) produces the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial plus the fact that, again, the action of the present participle is coterminous with the action of the main verb. Note that the emphasis of the double entendre changes after the second kai. We go from the historical present to the futuristic present to change the emphasis from the first advent to those events which immediately precede the second advent. The end of the Tribulation is the period of the greatest Jewish holocaust in all of history. It is a part of the third woe, that part known as the seventh trumpet, and Satan personally leads this all-out attack.

Then we have another conjunction kai, translated “and,” and another participle, the present active participle of basanizw referring to torture. These are all words of great pain. Again we have a futuristic present denoting the holocaust at the end of the Tribulation, the future attack of anti-Semitism. This time we have the passive voice: Jews of the world in the Tribulation receive the action of the verb. The double entendre is now unmasked, the unbelieving Jews of the Tribulation are the products of their own decisions. The pattern of holocaust, therefore, is always the same. First, Jews make a decision from a position of weakness: they reject the sign of the virgin birth. Secondly, a decision from a position of weakness means that they lose control of their lives, and therefore they will become the victims of a terrible holocaust. Thirdly, the holocaust, therefore, is brought about by their own personal decisions collectively amalgamated. Fourthly, as a result the Jew loses all personal sense of destiny since they cannot relate properly to the Messianic passages of the Old Testament. So the pattern of every holocaust is brought out by the passive voice of this participle.

The final verb in this passage is an aorist active infinitive from tiktw which means to give birth or to be delivered. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. And it emphasises the obsession of a woman in labour, the obsession to get rid of the foetus. The active voice: then remnant of Jewish believers produce the action of the verb at the second advent — the restoration of Israel, the fulfilment of their covenants. This is the infinitive of conceived result which is assumed as a consequence of the second advent.

Translation: “Nevertheless she [the double entendre which includes the virgin pregnancy of Mary and the holocaust pregnancy of Israel. In one case Mary was delivered so that 33 years later we might be delivered. In the second case there is no delivery, just a perpetual labour pain] was pregnant and she screamed, suffering labour pain [anti-Semitism since the cross], and she [Israel in the Tribulation] was tortured [the great holocaust in the last half of the Tribulation] to give birth [to be delivered by the God of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ].”

Principle

1. Only born-again Jews are ever delivered from holocaust. Deliverance for the Jew is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the first good decision, and after that all the good decisions that relate to doctrine. For the dynamics of spiritual life are never found in action, they are found in thought. Good action that glorifies the Lord is only meaningful if it is preceded by thought. The motivation must be right for the function to be acceptable to God. The dynamics of spiritual life is in thinking.

2. Unbelieving Jews follow the analogy of never being delivered. All unbelieving Jews in the last half of the Tribulation, as well as in this 20th century, go through the process of being pregnant, coming to the point of labour pains, and never being able to deliver. This is essentially the definition of holocaust.

3. The Jews want the Millennium without the virgin birth. In other words, unbelieving Jews want the crown without the cross. But the doctrine remains: You cannot have the crown without the cross. Therefore the analogy between the Jewish holocaust and the torture of Israel as the pregnant mother who cannot deliver the child. Israel cannot deliver the child but the child can deliver Israel is the message of this passage. The child cannot be born unless the Jews of the Tribulation are born-again by faith in Christ. Deliverance comes first spiritually through regeneration before deliverance comes physically through the wall of fire. In other words, the cross must precede the wall of fire that protects the believing Jew from the holocaust.

4. The virgin pregnancy and the holocaust pregnancy are the issue. Without the virgin pregnancy of Mary and the virgin birth of Jesus Christ there can be no efficacy or saving work of the cross. The virgin birth was the sign to Israel that the sign was rejected and the stubbornness of Israel results in the holocaust of Israel. Since the unbelieving Israel says that the baby has never been born they suffer the perpetual torture, the perpetual birth pangs, the holocaust of history.

Jeremiah chapter 22, the curse of Jehoiakim and Coniah.

Verse 18, “Therefore thus says the Lord with regard to Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah.”

Jehoiakim was the name given to a young prince by the name of Eliakim. He was given this by Pharaoh Necho. The world at the time of Jeremiah was a fight between the great Chaldean empire and Egypt. Between the two is Israel. The ruler of Egypt is Pharaoh Necho, a very brilliant ruler. The ruler of Chaldea is Nabopolassar, very shortly to be replaced by his son, Nebuchadnezzar. There would be a great battle on the Euphrates river at a place called Carchemish which would cause the rise of the Chaldean empire and the fall of Egypt. But the Jews often had problem of betting on Egypt and that was the foreign policy of Israel at the time of Jehoiakim. He was the second son of Josiah and when his father died in battle Jehoiakim became the client king to Pharaoh Necho, and Pharaoh Necho gave him the name. So Jehoiakim was put on the throne by Pharaoh Necho because he was anti-Chaldean in his policy.

After the battle of Carchemish where Pharaoh Necho was defeated Nebuchadnezzar came into Jerusalem. He captured Jehoiakim with the intention of taking him back to Babylon in chains. But he changed his mind when news came that his father Nabopolassar had died and that if he wanted to succeed his father he had better go back to Babylon in a hurry for he had some enemies there. So he said to Jehoiakim: “You are now my vassal king, pro-Chaldean and anti-Egyptian. I will leave you on the throne.” And he left. But Jehoiakim began to be pro-Egyptian which led to all the trouble.

In his function of evil Jehoiakim is compared to Manasseh in Ezekiel 8:5-17. He was a very petty, arrogant, vindictive ruler. One of the great ministers of the time, a prophet name Uriah, was pursued and murdered personally by the king. He also did everything he could to destroy Jeremiah. After three years Nebuchanezzar came back and took over from Jehoiakim.

Verse 19, we have the story of what is going to happen to Jehoiakim. He will have the burial of a jackass, “Dragged off and thrown beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”

Verse 20, “Go up to Lebanon and cry out,” they are going to have historical disaster. “And lift up your voice in Bashan; cry out from Abarim ...” the various areas where historical disaster will occur.

Verse 21 — “I [Jeremiah] spoke to you [Jehoiakim] in your time of prosperity.” There is the key always: the people who face death and face life successfully are those who listen to doctrine in time of their own prosperity. God gives every one of us a chance to learn the whole realm of doctrine and it is called “our time of prosperity.” If we fail and we go negative then God substitutes for prosperity disaster, our own personal holocaust. That is what happened to Jekoiakim.

“But you replied, ‘I will not listen!’ [negative volition]. This has been your pattern from your youth [negative volition, bad decisions from a position of weakness in time of prosperity]. For you will not listen to my teaching.”

Verse 22, The wind [judgment] will blow away all your shepherds [pastors],” there were teachers of Bible doctrine everywhere at that time but the people would not listen, “in their time of prosperity.”

Remember that Israel is simply a personal photograph of each one of our souls. God never allows a believer to go without a time of prosperity, i.e.. a marvellous opportunity to learn Bible doctrine and to grow in grace.

“And your lovers will go into captivity [slavery].” So whatever it is that you did when you rejected doctrine you are going to be separated from that. Part of your punishment will be to lose your pleasure. This adds up to a very simple point of doctrine: Pleasure is not pleasure without doctrine first. Doctrine becomes the basis for capacity for happiness, capacity for blessing, and capacity for pleasure.

It needs to be understood that there were three times before Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Israel he came to see them. The first time was in the year 605 BC after the battle of Carchemish, the second was in 598 BC, and the third was in 586 BC. The intervals were times of prosperity when they had a chance to recover.

After the battle of Carchemish Nebuchadnezzar took hostages for the good behaviour of Jehoiakim. So in 598 when he came back because of the Jehoiakim revolution Nebuchadnezzar returned and besieged Jerusalem. During the siege the Jews got chicken-hearted and sent a deputation out to Nebuchadnezzar and said: “We are not in this. The king made us do it. To show you our good faith we have assassinated the king and we will not even give him a burial.” And they pointed to the gate of Jerusalem out of which they came, and at a nod a corpse came over the wall and bounced on the dust. That was Jehoiakim. That was the funeral of the jackass!

They went back and made his son Coniah king. Coniah ruled for 100 days and then Nebuchadnezzar’s armies broke through and took the city. Coniah was taken back as a prisoner. Then a new man was put on the throne, the last king of Israel, Zedekiah who ruled from 598 to 586 BC. Zedekiah began in obedience to the Chaldeans but later led a revolt, and that was the time when Nebuchadnezzar came back and took everyone, the fifth cycle of discipline administered.

Verse 23, “You who dwell in Lebanon.” Why did Jeremiah mention Lebanon? Because Lebanon was where all of the wealthy people and all of the aristocrats had their summer palaces. “Who build palaces with cedars.”

Now, how can you communicate to the negative Jew that he is going to have a holocaust? This has the same connotation as Revelation 12:2.

“How you will groan when your labour pains come.”

Because Jehoiakim had made bad decisions from a position of weakness he lost all personal sense of destiny. He therefore lost control of his life. With those factors going against him he was in labour pains. Nebuchadnezzar came back in BC 598 and that was the end for him. There is the holocaust and it was brought on by the Jews, not by the Chaldeans. God used the Chaldeans to destroy negative volition in Israel so that true Israel could be perpetuated. There cannot be a holocaust without negative volition by a certain number of Jews making thousands of bad decisions from a position of weakness.

“Pain [holocaust pain] like a woman in labour!”

Jehoiakim was murdered by his own palace guards and thrown over the wall. The curse goes down to the next generation. This is a four-generation curse: Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, Coniah, Shealtiel, and the curse stopped on the fourth generation. Shealtiel will have no surviving children and he will adopt the greatest man of his age, Zerubbabel. We call this the Coniah curse because it not only has a connotation here but it has a connotation further down the line with Joseph.

Zerubbabel is in the line of Joseph legally — the line down through Solomon — but he is not the real son of Shealtiel. He is put in the genealogy as the son but he is the adopted son. His real father and grandfather are in the other royal blood line that came down from David and Bathsheba through Nathan.

Verse 24, “ ‘As I live,’ declares the Lord, ‘even though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were a signet ring [succession in the royal line] on my right hand, yet I would still pull you [Coniah] off my finger’.”

This means that Coniah is rejected as the blood line. He is still in the blood line of Christ but he is rejected; he is in the second generation of the curse. Coniah had a son, Shealtiel, who adopted Zerubbabel as his legal heir, so that Zerubbabel is the fourth generation where the curse ends because he is not in the blood line. Our Lord Jesus Christ is never associated with Coniah or Jehoiakim or Shealtiel, that part of the line is out.

In Matthew 1:12 we have the legal line; in Luke 3:27 we have the blood line, the switching of the blood line. And who was the real father of Zerubbabel? His grandfather was Neri; his real father was Pedaiah. Jehoiachin or Coniah and Neri were cousins. Shealtiel was the cousin of Pedaiah. When Shealtiel did not have an issue then he adopted Zerubbabel and the blood line moved from the Solomon side of the fence to Nathan’s side. The virgin Mary was descended from Nathan’s side, and she married the legal side as represented by Joseph. But the blood line switched at Zerubbabel.

Matthew 1:12 gives the legal line, and it says: “And after the deportation to Babylon [in 586 BC], to Jeconiah [or Coniah] was born Shealtiel; and to Shealtiel, Zerubbabel.” In Luke 3:27 we pick up the real grandfather, Neri. Who was the real father of Zerubbabel? Pedaiah, says 1 Chronicles 3:19. Neri is the great great grandson of Nathan. Pedaiah is his son and Zerubbabel is his grandson. Jeconiah or Coniah is the great, great, great grandson of Solomon. They are both royal line. But this was the legal line. The blood line was Solomon but they switched at Zerubbabel and went over to Mary’s side of the fence. Joseph and Mary eventually brought the two lines back together. But when Joseph and Mary had children outside of our Lord Jesus Christ none of those children would ever occupy the throne of David. The Lord Jesus Christ does that and, again you see, they’re out.

The holocaust syndrome

1. The Jews made a bad decision from a position of weakness where they rejected the sign of the virgin birth, which means that they rejected Christ as their personal saviour. (This is a general situation and does not refer to Jews who have personally trusted in Christ) Idolatry characterised the rule of Jehoiakim, 2 Kings 23:37. He was number one in the four-generation curse — Exodus 20:3-5. His idolatry was merely a manifestation of his rejection of Christ and his negative volition toward the doctrinal teaching of Jeremiah and other great men of that time. So inevitably the bad decision from a position of weakness is the cause of all historical disaster, whether Jews or Gentiles.

2. A decision from a position of weakness means loss of control of their lives. This means that they become the victims of some terrible holocaust. So the holocaust for Jehoiakim and his son Coniah was the terrible disaster of 598 BC, plus the four-generation curse which switched the blood line of the Davidic dynasty from the genealogy of Solomon to the genealogy of Nathan, a point which is extremely important.

3. A distinction from a position of weakness amalgamated with other distinctions from a position of weakness means a maximum number of responsible people in a nation lose control of their lives. Therefore they become the recipients of historical disaster. Remember the historical trend: people are the products of their own decisions and not their environment.

4. The holocaust is brought on by personal decisions, so that the holocaust is the product of many bad decisions from a position of weakness (cosmic one and cosmic two, Satan’s system). Holocaust only overtakes adults who are involved in the cosmic system.

5. As a result the Jews lose all personal sense of destiny since they cannot relate properly to Messianic passages, their own doctrine, in the Old Testament. By negative volition, rejection of Jesus Christ as saviour, inevitably they come to the point of the pregnancy leading to the time of delivery, and the delivery is the holocaust. They refuse to accept the virgin birth so to them the baby is not born and they suffer the labour pains of no birth, a holocaust.

6. The holocaust syndrome always follows the same pattern. It is, of course, a Jewish syndrome in part. It is also Gentile syndrome where the people of any client nation to God in the Church Age are involved. First of all, bad decisions from a position of weakness; secondly, bad decisions result in loss of control of one’s life; thirdly, loss of control of one’s life results in loss of a personal sense of destiny.

7. Therefore the holocaust syndrome is just as pertinent to Gentiles as it is to Jews.

Jeremiah 22:25, “and I shall deliver you into the hands of those who are seeking your life [Nebuchadnezzar], yes, into the hands of those whom you fear, even into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.” This was fulfilled first in 598 BC.

Verse 26, “I will hurl you and your mother who gave you birth into another country [Babylon] where you were not born, and there you will die.” Coniah was influenced by his mother, but they are going to a land where the were not born.

Why the sin unto death for Coniah? 2 Kings 24:8,9. “Jehoiachin (Coniah) was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father [Jehoiakim] had done.” According to Ezekiel chapter 19 that Coniah learned all of his evil from his mother.

Verse 27, “But as for the land [Israel] to which they [the Jews] desire to return, they will not return to it.” The only one who would return is Zerubbabel. The Coniah generation would die in slavery; with the lifting of the curse in the Zerubbabel generation he would return to the land in BC 536 and complete the temple by 516.

Verse 28, “Is this man Coniah a despised and shattered idol? A broken pot no one wants?” — even on the throne he was a broken pot.

How can you be a broken pot?

1. All you have to do is make negative or bad decisions from a position of weakness — life in the cosmic system.

2. You will therefore lose control of your own personal life.

3. You will lost your personal sense of destiny which comes from advance, from momentum, gate four of the divine dynasphere.

“Why has he [Coniah] and his descendants been thrown out [of the blood line of David] and hurled into a land [Chaldea] they have not known?”

Not only did Coniah lose the throne but, more than that, he is under a curse, the curse of being eliminated from the blood line of Christ. This curse was fulfilled finally through the virgin birth of Christ. Joseph is the legal line and Mary is the blood line descended from Zerubbabel. Coniah was cut off twice under the curse. First he was cut off with the adoption of Zerubbabel as his grandson and, secondly, the virgin pregnancy leading to the virgin birth. The virgin birth, then, completes the curse on Coniah and the cut-off which is prophesied in this passage.

Jeremiah 36:27, “Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah after the king [Jehoiakim] had burned the scroll [a portion of the book of Jeremiah], even the words which Baruch had written at the dictation of Jeremiah, saying, ‘Take again another scroll and write on it all the former words that were on the first scroll which Jehoiakim the king of Judah burned. And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah you shall communicate, “Thus says the Lord, You have burned the scroll, saying, ‘Why have you written on it that the king of Babylon [Nebuchadnezzar] shall certainly come and destroy this land,’ a prophecy of the fifth cycle of discipline which occurred in 586, ‘and shall make man and beats to cease from it?’.” This was his excuse for burning that portion of the book of Jeremiah. “ ‘Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah, “He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David,’ never again would anyone in his genealogy ever occupy the throne of David, ‘and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night. I will also punish him and his descendants [Coniah and Shealtiel] and his staff for their iniquity, and I will bring on them [BC 598] and the inhabitants of Jerusalem [BC 586] and the men of Judah [BC 586] all the historical disaster [or holocaust] that I have declared to them — but they did not listen [to me]’.”

They never do listen. There never is a holocaust of Jews or a holocaust of Gentiles without warning first. And this is the epitaph: “They did not listen to me.”

Jeremiah 22:30, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Record this man [Coniah] childless, a man who will not prosper during his life; furthermore none of his line will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Israel’.”

Note

1. David’s line through Nathan is recorded in Luke chapter three. David’s line through Nathan started out the legal line, and at the time of Zerubbabel it became the blood line. We know this from verse 31 where it says, “The son of Nathan, the son of David.”

2. In this line is Zerubbabel, mentioned in the Nathan line, Luke 3:27, “the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri.” In other words, Shealtiel adopted Zerubbabel because Neri was his true grandfather and Pedaiah was his true father.

3. Zerubbabel is also mentioned in the Solomon genealogy: Matthew 1:6, “and to David was born Solomon.”

4. Zerubbabel is adopted into this line according to Matthew 1:12. Zerubbabel occurs in both lines. “And after the deportation to Babylon, to Jeconiah [Coniah] was born Shealtiel.” But notice the next phrase, the word “born” is no longer used: “and to Shealtiel, Zerubbabel.” He adopted him.

5. Zerubbabel’s real father is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 3:19, “And the sons of Pedaiah were Zerubbabel and Shimei.”

So there is a four-generation curse — three or four, it all depends on when the hate stops. Hate has to do with involvement in cosmic two. Jehoiakim was involved in the cosmic system, that is where it began. Then his son Coniah followed in his footsteps. Shealtiel was the end of the line so that he adopted Zerubbabel, his cousin’s son, and thereby perpetuating the line. The blood line then switched. The legal line and the blood line are both found in 1 Chronicles 3:17-19. The legal line: 1 Chronicles 3:17, “And the sons of Jeconiah, the prisoner, were Shealtiel and his [adopted] son [Zerubbabel].” The blood line: verse 19, “And the sons of Pedaiah were Zerubbabel,” mentioned first. He is called the son of Shealtiel in a number of passages, Ezra 3:2; 3:8; 5:2, because Shealtiel adopted him. Also in Nehemiah and Haggai 1:1, 12, 14.

The holocaust syndrome

1. The Jews made a decision from a position of weakness when they rejected the sign of the virgin birth, which means that they rejected Christ as their personal saviour. 2 Corinthians 4:3,4, the blinding of the mind occurs in the cosmic system: scar tissue of the soul.

2. Decisions from a position of weakness means loss of control of their lives. This means that they become the victims of some terrible historical disaster or holocaust.

3. A decision from a position of weakness amalgamated with other decisions from a position of weakness mean loss of control of the lives of a maximum number of people in the nation so that they become the recipients of historical disaster or holocaust.

4. The holocaust is brought on by personal decisions so that holocaust is the product of many bad decisions from a position of weakness, involvement in the cosmic system.

5. As a result the Jews lost all personal sense of destiny since they cannot relate properly to the Messianic passages of the Old Testament.

6. The holocaust syndrome always follows the same pattern: a. Bad decisions from a position of weakness; b. Bad decisions mean loss of control of one’s life; c. Loss of control of one’s life results in loss of personal sense of destiny.

7. Therefore the holocaust syndrome is just as pertinent to Gentiles as to the Jews. It just so happens that our passage is dealing with the Jews by way of interpretation. The concept is the same.

That brings us to the vocative in Jeremiah 22:25, Eretz, eretz, eretz. It doesn’t mean earth, it means land, the land of Israel: “O land, land, land, hear the doctrine of the Lord.” That is the only way that we can be delivered.

Verse 30, “Record this man childless” the word ‘record’ is the word kathab and it has to do with making their genealogy, “a man who will not prosper during his life.” Why? Because for the believer or the person who has the opportunity [the unbeliever] lack of prosperity comes from one source only, negative volition toward doctrine. A man who will not prosper during his life, “for none of his line will prosper.” That is Coniah and Shealtiel. “Record this man childless,” then, depicts Israel both in the Church Age and during the Tribulation. Specifically it depicts unbelievers of Israel, those who have rejected Christ in the time in which we live. The unbelieving Jew has rejected the sign of the virgin birth.

The second sign [Revelation 12:3] starts with the sign of the red dragon.

We begin with the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “Then.” Then we have a nominative neuter singular from the adjective a)lloj, “Then another.” With that adjective comes the subject, shmeion, translated a sign but it means a miracle that a lot of people see and draw conclusions from. It means a miracle, something that is contrary to the usual course of nature.

We have noted that there are seven signs found in the book of Revelation, the first was Revelation 12:1. We also have noted that the Jews constantly seek signs or attesting miracles so that they are distracted from Bible doctrine, 1 Corinthians 1:22; John 4:48. The sign about to be revealed in the eschatology of Revelation is one the Jews would never constantly seek, and having found it they would never believe in Christ as a result of it. The sign given to Israel in the Tribulation is the source of all anti-Semitism. “Then another attesting miracle [sign].”

The aorist passive indicative of o(raw comes next in our passage. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, the observing of the sign. The passive voice: the subject, the second sign of anti-Semitism receives the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the second sign, the reality of terrible anti-Semitism reaching its peak in the last half of the Tribulation, the time of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation, but very much in evidence in the world somewhere in every century.

Next we have a prepositional phrase e)n plus the locative singular of o)uranoj. As we have anticipated that this sign deals with Satan as the source of anti-Semitism we should note where Satan is located when the sign is presented. He lives in heaven. While Satan is the ruler of this world he commutes in order to run this world. He actually resides in heaven and will until the time of the devil’s desperation which is the middle of the Tribulation. Then we have a connective kai, “and,” followed by a demonstrative particle, i)dou, taken from the aorist active imperative of o(raw and is translated “behold.” The nominative of appellation uses three words to follow (A nominative of appellation is quite unusual, especially when we are expecting it to be a nominative subject), megaj, purroj, and drakwn. Megaj is an adjective describing this dragon; purroj means red; the noun drakwn is transliterated “dragon.”

The word drakwn is derived from an Attic Greek verb derxomai which means to see clearly. In the book of Revelation it always refers to Satan and it is a fascinating derivation. It should be noted that drakwn was used in Attic Greek for serpents because there was snake worship at Delphi and other places. As a matter of fact the priestess who handled the snakes was called in the Greek puqon, translated “python” in English. Drakwn is referred to a snake who can see clearly, and the snake who saw clearly was the snake who became to woman’s pet in the garden and, as a result, persuaded her. First of all, to sell her he had to get her into a state of arrogance. He persuaded the woman by appealing to what became her vanity. He saw clearly the issue and he saw that he could not attack the man in the form of the serpent because the man, Adam, was in charge. Adam would simply order the woman to eat and then she would be innocent because she would simply be obeying her husband. But by attacking the woman first and getting her to eat the forbidden fruit, and then getting her to act as his agent for the man, then you have the fall of both. Therefore, dragon or drakwn has come down to us from the connotation of the beginning. Every culture has the serpent or dragon related to demonism, the python of Delphi in Greece, for example.

“Then another sign was seen in heaven; and so, behold, a great red dragon.”

The great red dragon, by the way, is also described in the Old Testament in Job 26:13 under such titles as rahab where it is translated “leviathan” and, of course, means a great snake or dragon, also, in Isaiah 51:9ff. It is also interesting to note than in Job 40:15-24 this same dragon is called “behemoth.” In Isaiah 27:1 he is called “leviathan.” But the best translation is the one we get in Genesis 3:1-5, “Now the serpent was the most subtle of all creatures.” Amos 9:2 develops the same concept. So whichever term is used we are still talking about Satan.

Next we have a present active participle from the verb e)xw, and it means here to have. The present tense is a descriptive present for what occurs during the Tribulation. Therefore we call it a futuristic present which denotes Satan’s control in the Tribulation. He is still the ruler of the world and, as a matter of fact, for the first time in all of his rulership since the beginning of history Satan is forced to live on the earth, he is cast out of heaven. While the Satanic influence of nations in the Tribulation has not yet occurred it is regarded as so certain that in thought it is contemplated as already coming to pass. The active voice: Satan produces the action of the verb in the Tribulation. The participle is circumstantial used for a relative clause.

We now have two accusative plural direct objects composed of a number and a noun, e(pta and kefalh, “seven” and “head”; “and he has seven heads.” Then we have a second accusative deka [ten] and keroj [horns], “and ten horns.”

Before we can examine the seven heads or the ten horns, or the revived Roman empire of the Tribulation, we should finish up the verse which simply says, “furthermore on his heads were seven crowns.” But we should notice what is not used here. We would expect stefanoj because it is so frequently translated as crowns. Instead we have in the Greek diadhma referring to crowns of rulers, not crowns which were decorations for Roman soldiers or crowns of Ivy leaves won at some of the games in the Roman empire. We are never going to sort this out until we go to Daniel chapter seven.

Daniel 7:2, “Daniel spoke and said, ‘I was looking in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven’ ...”

We have studied the wind machine and how they control weather. Here they are used to indicate that Jesus Christ controls history: the rise and fall of empires.

“… ‘were stirring up the great sea [referring to the peoples of the world], and four great beasts were coming up from the sea, differing from one another [in other words, they emerged as evil powers]’.”

In verse 4 we meet the lion and he is the Chaldean empire, the first one coming up out of the sea. Here suddenly we have a great empire which in 606 BC at the battle of Carchemish completely destroyed the Egyptian empire of Pharaoh-Necho.

In verse 4 the bear is the rise of the Persian empire and the rise of the greatest people in the ancient world. In verse 6 we have the leopard, the rise of the Macedonian empire followed by the Hellenistic monarchies.

It is the fourth beast of verse seven which comes into focus here with heads and horns, the Roman empire. “After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful [Rome’s conquests] and terrifying [as a result of all of these conquests, and starting with the second Punic war, Roman mobs developed in the cities and a form of socialism was developed] and extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed, and trampled down the remainder with its feet [the expansion of the empire]; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it [it became the first Gentile nation to God and the environment for the rise of Christianity], and it had ten horns [the revived Roman empire of the Tribulation].”

No nation ever survives the negative volition of its own population. And when a nation comes to the point where it is no stronger than the masses of people in that nation — generally described historically as the unthinking masses — they do not survive, they destroy themselves. Every one of the nations we are studying in Daniel chapter seven was great and powerful and had tremendous influence, and they lost all of these things in time of prosperity. They all had one thing in common: the pattern of greatness followed by destroying themselves. We are the products of our decisions individually; we are the products of our decisions collectively.

The fourth beast of Daniel 7:7 is the Roman empire. The Roman republic could not function as a client nation to God, it had to become an empire. This beast is called “dreadful” and it is a very accurate prophecy. The people who hold all records for cruelty in the ancient world are the Romans but their cruelty was harnessed to great self-discipline. So instead of arousing antagonism through cruelty alone they disciplined their cruelty so that they simply aroused fear which made conquest easy. “Dreadful” refers to the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean states by which they became a world power, and this took place between 264 and 146 BC. Rome conquered all of the Hellenistic monarchies, the Syrian empire of the Seleucids, the Egyptian empire of the Ptolemies, the Macedonian empire, the Carthaginians, and the Mediterranean became a Roman lake. The word “terrible” refers to the Roman mobs which resulted from the second Punic war and the beginning of socialism which coexisted with Rome as a republic and as an empire. The record for socialism existing in the world is still held by Rome, from the second Punic war until 476 AD, a little over 650 years. That is the longest running record for socialism. From time to time it sapped the strength of the Roman empire, destroyed it economically resulting in all kinds of dictatorships and eventually ruined everything. No nation ever survives socialism. Sooner or later it destroys it. “Extremely strong” refers to Julius Caesar and his famous five years between 49 and 44 BC when he put his genius to work and developed a system which would provide the stability for five hundred years as an empire. Except for the Antonine Caesars the rulers of the empire were unstable but it really didn’t make any difference because Caesar devised a system whereby the rulers had very little to say, and so that the empire had stability no matter what monster was ruling in Rome.

The Roman empire “was different from all of the beasts that were before it.” This difference is because it was the first Gentile client nation to God, it was the beginning of the times of the Gentiles, and it was the environment for the rise of Christianity. It was different for another reason. Basically, all of the conquering groups before, such as the Egyptians and the Assyrians, were unicultured and generally relatively racially pure, although not altogether. They had one culture and they built everything around one culture and did very well with it. But the Romans were multiracial, multicultist (they had many cults and religions), and the thing that held them all together and made them so very strong was a system of government to which all kinds of cultures, all kinds of attitudes, all kinds of races and religions, could subscribe. Therefore, it became the environment for Christianity.

We move now to the Tribulation and the revived Roman empire. We are studying two empires: the historical Roman empire which began in BC 30 with Octavius Augustus and ended in 476 AD; the prophetical Roman empire which is the Roman empire of the Tribulation and will be referred to as the revived Roman empire. And when it said “it had ten horns” it is referring to the revived Roman empire.

Verse 8, “And while I was contemplating the horns.” Rome as a client nation to God officially terminated in 476 AD. From 476 there were many other Gentile nations which functioned as client nations to God. The ten horns of the revived Roman empire in the Tribulation are simply ten nations because horns refer to nations. Ten nations out of the old Roman empire will come together to form a new Roman empire, a power bloc in order to have economic, military and all other advantages. We don’t know exactly who the ten horns are except that they are parts, nations, which were part of the old Roman empire. Their major advantage is that they will eventually become the ecumenical religion of the world. Remember that religion is Satanic.

“behold, another little horn” — this is a dictator who decides to take over this confederation. It starts out as a confederation of nations. This dictator is obviously Satan’s man, he “came up among them, and three of the first horns were uprooted before it.” So there is a little horn who is a dictator and there are three big horns, and what he does is to defeat three out of the ten so that the other seven surrender to the dictator. That is how we get seven crowns. There are originally ten nations, three are defeated by the dictator and the seven decide it is better to surrender and become part of the big team. So there are seven crowns but ten nations before the war took place. This is a war in the first half of the Tribulation moving toward the middle of the Tribulation. By the middle of the Tribulation this little horn will not only be dictator of the ten nations, the revived Roman empire, but he becomes the religious leader of ecumenical religion.

“and behold, this horn [dictator of Revelation 13:1-10] possessed eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth that spoke arrogantly.” The eyes like the eyes of a man is an idiom for this dictator’s genius, his evil genius. He is an animal in his modus operandi but he is an evil genius. “A mouth that speaks arrogantly” refers to great eloquence.

Verse 9, “I kept looking until the thrones were set up.” These are the nations of the Millennium to be ruled by mature believers of the royal family, “and the Ancient of Days [literally, “the eternal one,” Jesus Christ at the second advent] took his throne [Matthew 25:31]; his vesture was like white snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool. His throne was a flame of fire [the judgment of individuals and nations in the Tribulation, especially the baptism of fire], its wheels were a burning fire [the judgment of the nations of the Tribulation at the second advent].”

Verse 14, “And to him [our Lord Jesus Christ] was given dominion, glory and sovereignty, that all peoples, nations, and languages might serve him [Millennial reign of Christ]. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away [it will continue beyond history into eternity]; furthermore his kingdom is one which cannot ever be destroyed.”

Verse 18, “But the saints [regenerate or spiritual Israel] of the Highest One [the Lord Jesus Christ referred to as Adonai echad] will receive the kingdom [they will receive Israel as a client nation to God, the fulfilment of the Palestinian covenant] and possess the kingdom forever and ever [fulfilling the covenants].”

Verse 19, “Then I desired to know the exact meaning of the fourth beast [the Roman empire], which was different from all the others, most terrifying, with its teeth of iron and its claws of bronze, and which devoured, crushed, and trampled under foot whatever was left,”

Verse 20, “and the ten horns which were on its head, and the other horn [the dictator] which came up, and before which three of them fell, namely, that little horn which had eyes [genius] and a mouth that spoke arrogantly, and whose appearance was more arrogant that his contemporaries.”

Verse 21, “ I kept looking, and the horn was making war against the saints,” now we are back to anti-Semitism and exactly where we are in Revelation chapter twelve, “and winning over them”

Verse 22, “until the Ancient of Days came [second advent], and pronounced judgment in favour of the saints [the born-again Jews or spiritual Israel] of the Highest One [Jesus Christ the God of Israel], and the time arrived when the saints [Tribulational believers] took possession of the kingdom [the Millennial Israel].”

Verse 23, “Thus he said: ‘The fourth beast will be the fourth great empire on the earth [Roman empire], which will be different from all of the other empires, and it will devour the whole earth, both tread it down and crush it.’

Verse 24, ‘As for the ten horns [the revived Roman empire], out of this kingdom ten kings will arise [in the Tribulation]; and another [little horn] will arise after them, and he will be different from the previous ones and will subdue three kings.

Verse 25, [The last half of the Tribulation] ‘And he [the dictator, when he takes over] will speak against the Host High and will oppress the saints [Jewish believers of the Tribulation plus Gentile believers], and try to change the times and the laws; and they [the saints] will be delivered into his hands for three and a half years [the last half f the Tribulation].

Verse 26, ‘Then the court will sit [second advent of Christ], and his empire [power] will be taken away completely and destroyed forever ...’ ”

From what we have noted: There will be in the Tribulation a ten-nation confederation [in the first half of the Tribulation], the revived Roman empire. Then comes the dictator who will rise up in the middle of the Tribulation and will conquer three of the ten nations resulting in control over the remaining seven. This power bloc of the Tribulation will be studied in Revelation chapter 16 as the king of the west, and in Revelation 17 and 18 as the religious ruler of ecumenical religion

Revelation 12:3, “Then another sign was seen in heaven; and behold a great red dragon [Satan] who had seven heads and ten horns,” the revived Roman empire is one of his instruments to seek to gain control of the earth before the second advent, “furthermore on his head seven crowns [the seven surviving nations of the little horns (of Daniel 7) conquest].” We will study this man in detail in Revelation 13:1-10. We will see him later on in Daniel 9:26 as “the prince who shall come,” — “the man of sin” in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, and the scarlet beast of Revelation 17:8-13. Satan completely controls this man.

When Jesus Christ was being directly tempted by Satan during His first advent, Satan took Him to a high spot where He could see the kingdoms of the world. And he said: “If you will fall down and worship me I will give you all of these kingdoms.” Satan is the ruler of the world, he has the power to give all the kingdoms of the world to someone who is dedicated enough to follow him. Our Lord said no, but in the Tribulation there will be a brilliant man of genius who will find a way to be so dedicated to Satan that he becomes a ruler of at least a quarter of the world, for a short time. In eternity past Satan wanted to be like the most high God, he wanted to rule in place of God, and that arrogance immediately limited him. A creature is limited. We as creatures can never challenge God.

Verse 4, the source of anti-Semitism, the greatest of all evils.

The fact that Satan controls the revived Roman empire of the Tribulation provides information regarding this control over mankind. We begin with the connective conjunction kai which can be translated “and” or “then,” plus the nominative subject o)ura for the tail of the dragon. O)ura represents the throwing off of a harness. The dragon’s tail is not controlled, it is totally out of control. As a result you have the worst kind of barbarianism, the masses of people without any harness of self-discipline, of honour, integrity, enforced and genuine humility. Then we have the possessive genitive from the intensive pronoun a)utoj, referring to Satan under the dragon image. The tail of the dragon [Satan] represents the persuasive power in his prehistoric angelic conflict. Satan, as Lucifer the son of the morning, was the first creature in all of history to throw off the harness. In throwing off the harness, to reject every restriction which had previously existed on himself, and because of his great authority as the anointed cherub, there were very few restrictions. But arrogance removed them all, and in arrogance Satan said: “I will be like the most high God.”

When anyone throws off the harness they inevitably can get other people to go with them. There are always people out of harness just waiting to line up with some leader who throws off the harness. That is how we have, right now this day, millions and millions of demons, two categories: the disembodied spirits and those who have bodies. The origin of these creatures were decisions from a position of weakness, and from those decisions came the tremendous concept of loss of control of their lives, followed by loss of a personal sense of destiny which made them followers of Satan. These followers are mentioned first by the present active indicative of the verb surw which means to drag, to pull. When a leader throws off the harness there are always those who are ready to be pulled. They are lawless; they are without harness; and the basic characteristic of being without harness is arrogance, rejecting all authority, feeling threatened by anyone who seems to be better in any category of life, and therefore trying to compete with that person and often doing so by maligning, gossiping and, in many cases by the use of violence.

The historical present tense views the past event with the vividness of a present occurrence. It is a pattern set by Satan in the prehistoric angelic conflict which has continued through human history right down to this moment, and will continue throughout the rest of the Church Age and after the Church Age in the Tribulation. The active voice: Satan produces the action of the verb in the prehistoric phase of the angelic conflict, and he did so by ceasing to function in the purpose for which he was created.

The tail of the dragon dragged away in revolution. And then we have what it did: “a third of the stars of the heaven,” the accusative singular direct object of tritoj, plus the descriptive genitive plural of a)sthr, and a possessive genitive singular from o)uranoj.

The question is: what are the stars? Stars are used for angels in Job 38:7, “When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God [angels] shouted for joy.” The message of Bildad to Job in Job 25:1-6, “Then Bildad the Shuhite answered, ‘Dominion and respect belong to him who establishes order in the heights [heaven]. Can his troops [the elect angels] be numbered? and on whom does his light not rise?’ ”

The light does not rise on fallen angels, they have thrown off the harness. There came a time when certain angelic creatures also threw off the harness. Satan was the first. He took one third of the angelic creatures with him; two thirds remained in harness. God created all of us for a purpose. When you throw off the harness the purpose is gone.

“ ‘How then can a man be righteous before God? Or how can one who has been born of a woman be pure? Even in the moon has no brightness and the stars [fallen angels] are not pure in his sight, how much less man who is but a maggot, and the son of man who is only a worm!’ ”

Isaiah 14:11b, “Maggots are spread out beneath you, and worms are your covering.” That is a description of barbarianism, a description of people — an individual or a group of individuals, or a national entity. When the people of a nation throw off the harness they are self-destructive. This verse describes Satan’s fall and those who followed him.

Verse 12, “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the Morning [Satan], son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations!”

What does Satan do to weaken nations? He weakens nations by getting people to throw off the harness. Verse 12 in essence describes the second fall of Satan which occurs in the middle of the Tribulation.

Verse 13, “But you said in your right lobe, ‘I will ascend to heaven [the thinking of Satan when he threw off the harness at the time of his first fall]; I will raise my throne above the stars of God [angelic creatures]. I will sit enthroned in the mount of the assembly [the assembly of angelic creatures in heaven] in the uttermost extremity of the north.

Verse 14,“I will ascent above the heights of the clouds [angelic masses]; I will make myself like the most high God.”

Answer to that: verse 15, “Nevertheless you will be cast down to Sheol [third fall of Satan which occurs at the second advent], you will be thrown in to a corner of the abyss.” No one as an individual can throw off the harness of life and survive, it is self-destructive.

Note that in Isaiah 14:12 Satan is called the morning star, while in verse 13 the angels are called the stars of God. And just as the stars are used for angels in Job 25:5, 38:7; Isaiah 14:12, 13 so stars are used for angels in Revelation 12:4.

The harness for the royal family of God in this dispensation is the divine dynasphere and the believer without the harness resides and functions in the cosmic system. Therefore the harness protects the believer against the cosmic system with its demon influence. When the royal family of God is in the harness of the divine dynasphere they make decisions from a position of strength, the have control of their lives and have a personal sense of destiny. Furthermore, when the royal family of God is in the harness of the divine dynasphere they advance to maturity forming the pivot which preserves, blesses and prospers the client nation. Without the harness of the divine dynasphere there is no pivot of mature believers, no Christian dynamics, and that means that the client nation suffers as well as the individual. The worst thing, of course, is no glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible talks about a harness in terms of a yoke in Matthew 11:28-30. Often the word yoke is used as a part of the harness, “Come unto me, all ye that labour [work to the point of exhaustion] and are burdened down [by problems], and I will give you rest [eternal salvation and then the harness of the divine dynasphere].”

In verse 29 where Jesus, anticipating the royal family of God, says, “Take my yoke [harness, the divine dynasphere] upon you,” this is the harness of life inside the divine dynasphere, “and learn from me [Gate four of the divine dynasphere],” for I am virtuous [life inside the divine dynasphere] and humble in the right lobe [Gate three]; and you shall find rest for your souls.” The “rest for your souls” is, first of all, having made good decisions from a position of strength, having control of your own personal life, and having a personal sense of destiny. Therefore, you feel threatened by no one, or no situation.

Verse 30, “For my yoke [or harness] is pleasant, and my load [residence, function, and momentum inside the divine dynasphere] is light.”

The translation of Revelation 12:4 so far: “And his tail [Satan’s power] dragged away [that is, the revolution in heaven] a third of the stars of the heaven [the fallen angels].” Continuing, we have the intensive use of the conjunction kai which is translated “in fact”. Then the aorist active indicative of the verb ballw which means here to throw or to hurl, “and he [God] threw.” The culminative aorist tense views our Lord’s casting of Satan and his fallen angels out of heaven in its entirety but it regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, the greatest wave of anti-Semitism in all of human history. This verb refers to the second fall of Satan.

We have to look at the falls of Satan under three categories. The first fall of Satan was the prehistorical fall, the revolution which began in heaven in which he took a third of the angelic creatures with him. This occurred before the creation of man. The second fall occurs in the middle of the Tribulation when Satan is cast out of heaven and begins the time of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation. The third fall is the second advent when Satan is removed from rulership of this world and incarcerated for one thousand years. We are noting now the verb which relates to the second fall of Satan.

In the active voice of the verb God Himself produces the action of the verb in the middle of the Tribulation by removing Satan and all fallen angels from heaven. They are confined to the earth and this is the beginning of the closing in and the closing out of Satan’s activity as the ruler of this world. Right now Satan has access to any part of the universe and his headquarters is in heaven though he commutes to the earth to rule the cosmos. Then, of course, in the middle of the Tribulation he will be confined to the earth. At the end of the Tribulation he will be confined to Sheol where he will serve a thousand-year sentence. The indicative mood is declarative for the historical reality of Satan being cast out of heaven with his fallen angels in the middle of the Tribulation.

The result of this brings out all the genius of Satan. Satan has a concept that is brilliant but he is not going to have the nerve to complete it. He is going to try to destroy in desperation certain categories that have always been a thorn in his side. One will be believers, the others will be all Jews whether they are believers or unbelievers; and we are looking at that phase of his desperate plan, the attempt to destroy all Jews on the face of the earth. All anti-Semitism originates with Satan and this is his last desperate chance.

“in fact he [God] threw them [Satan and all fallen angels],” the accusative plural direct from a)utoj, “them,” referring to fallen angels plus their leader. This is where the desperation begins. Then the preposition e)ij plus the accusative of gh, “to the earth.”

Once Satan is confined to the earth he expresses his frustration and his wrath together with his genius to formulate a very bold plan: use everything at his means, including the third demon assault army plus ecumenical religion which will be formed under the dictator of the revived Roman empire, plus all other means at his disposal to eliminate all Jews on the face of the earth. There are a lot of reasons for that. One of the most obvious is that God has not yet fulfilled His promises to Israel. He is waiting until the right time. God’s timing is absolutely perfect and at the second advent all of the unconditional covenants will be fulfilled. They have never been fulfilled up to this moment. There is one paragraph of the Abrahamic covenant which is being constantly being fulfilled: God punishes and destroys believer or unbeliever who seeks in any way to be anti-Semitic. In order to fulfil the Palestinian covenant Jews must be alive at the second advent. David will have a son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will reign forever and the New covenant to Israel guarantees that the Jewish nation which is restored at the time of the second advent will be a client nation throughout the Millennial reign of Christ and throughout all eternity.

The point is that the faithfulness of God versus the genius of Satan is the great issue from the middle of the Tribulation, the time of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation, the last three and a half years of the Tribulation. This is the great time when Satan will try to do several things, one of which is to destroy the Jews, and another is the use of religion. Religion always has more power than culture and when religion becomes the culture of a nation or a people or a tribe or a group you have exploitation. Satan will use religion, unconventional warfare, conventional warfare, and he will use anti-Semitism.

We have next the nominative singular subject drakwn, referring to Satan who is the author of anti-Semitism, “then the dragon.” Then we have the perfect active indicative of the verb i(stemi, “stood.” This is the usual translation but when followed by the improper preposition e)nwpion it has a different meaning. Often the meaning of Greek words are determined by the words around them. It is translated correctly, “in fact he [God] threw them down to the earth: then the dragon stood before the woman.” When it says to stand before the woman it means to stand in the sense of antagonism. The dragon sought to destroy the woman is what it means. The dragon appeared before the woman and he appeared in a hostile sense, so i(stemi while it has the connotation of attack and we can translate it “stood,” it really means “then the dragon appeared before the woman with hostile intent.” The woman in past history was the virgin Mary but the woman in the Tribulation is Israel. The perfect tense is the perfect of existing state in which the past is dropped from the thought and attention is focused upon the existing state. The active voice: Satan as the author of anti-Semitism produces the action of the verb, and the indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the intensified anti-Semitism prior to the second advent. We have the improper preposition and we have the genitive singular gunh with it, and it means Israel.

Again we go back to the double entendre because this happened twice. Satan sought to destroy Israel at the point of the virgin birth because while the Jews didn’t understand it as a sign, Satan did. And just before the second advent Satan will once again go after the woman which is Israel in the middle of the Tribulation.

The articular present active participle of mellw is the verb that means about to be. The futuristic present denotes a future action because the virgin birth was already firmly resolved in the plan of God. The active voice: the virgin Mary produces the action of the verb. The participle is used as a relative clause. With this we have the aorist active infinitive of the verb tiktw which means to deliver, to give birth. The aorist infinitive denotes that which is eventual or particular, while the present infinitive indicates a condition or a process. The culminative aorist views first of all the virgin birth in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, the strategic victory of our Lord in the first advent as a result of that virgin birth. So it goes back to the first advent and gives us at the point of the virgin birth the hostility of Satan which will be analogous to the hostility of Satan toward the Jew in the Tribulation. The active voice: first of all the virgin Mary produced the action of the verb in history, and then Israel will produce the action of the verb in the future: Israel is about to be restored, they are about to give birth to a new nation. The infinitive is the infinitive of intended result where the result is indicated as fulfilling a deliberate objective. “Then the dragon [Satan] stood before the woman who was about to deliver a child”.

We have noted the virgin birth, the hypostatic union, the impeccability of Christ, and the reason why Satan tried to frustrate these things. So we see Satan as the loser in the angelic conflict because of the virgin birth and because Christ went to the cross, and because He won a strategic victory in bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. There is no way that any creature can defeat the creator. Satan has challenged the creator before in the first advent; he will challenge the creator in the middle of the Tribulation. These are the two greatest challenges he has ever offered though he is constantly in a state of hostility toward our Lord. One of the great problems that Satan faces is the extension of the prehistoric angelic conflict into human history and this means the problems of the angelic conflict in the Tribulation. Man was created to resolve the angelic conflict. Satan recognises this and therefore has taken control of man as the ruler of this world. One of the major problems of Satan in human history is Israel and it has been Satan’s objective to destroy Israel. Satan understands the Davidic covenant and he has two chances to hinder its fulfilment: one which occurred in the first advent, and he failed; the other will occur in the Tribulation when he will fail again.

Satan is especially sensitive to the Davidic covenant and its significance. Satan attempts to frustrate the incarnation, he has always understood the consequences of the Davidic covenant and with this in mind when Adam was given a wonderful promise concerning the Messiah, how Christ would come as the seed of the woman. Satan understood that and therefore he motivated Cain to murder Abel. The demon genetic attack on the human race in Genesis 6:1-13 were attacks on Adam’s seed. But then when Satan discovered that it was no longer Adam’s seed, because Adam’s seed was now very extensive and had narrowed down to Abraham’s seed, then he limited his attack. Now all he had to do was to attack the seed of Abraham, so Sarah wound up in the harem of an Egyptian king in Genesis 12:10-20, and Pharaoh commanded to kill the entire male line of Israel in Exodus 1:10, 15,16, and Pharaoh attempted to annihilate Israel at the Red Sea in Exodus 14. All of these were, of course, hindered; they were attacks on Abraham’s seed. Then once again it narrowed down to David and Satan worked on the seed of David. We have the case of the son of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat arranged a marriage between his son and Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel, uniting two systems of evil: the apostasy of Israel at that time with the phallic cult of the Phoenicians. Then Jehoram, when he came to the throne, killed all of his brothers, and the Arabs killed the sons of Jehoram and only one person was left, and that was Jehoahaz, 2 Chronicles 21. Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel and the mother of Jehoahaz, killed everyone in the royal seed, and so it narrowed down to Joash of 2 Chronicles 23. So Satan was so successful that the line came down to one person. At that point we have the development of the seed again: God protected that very fine thread.

Then we have the case of Hezekiah who had no children when he was attacked by the king of Assyria and his great army. He was surrounded and about to be wiped out and God delivered him and preserved him until he had a son to perpetuate the line. Haman’s conspiracy to annihilate the Jews in Esther is another illustration. All of these were attacks on the seed of David.

“Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to deliver the child.” That is first of all the virgin Mary and the child was our Lord Jesus Christ, but there was a revival of the woman Israel in the Tribulation, one of the tremendous impetuses of Israel which occurs often in history. The point is, Satan’s number one target has been and always will be the Jew.

By rejecting Messiah throughout its history Israel is pregnant and frustrated because the pregnancy always come up to the point of delivery, the labour and the labour pains which is the holocaust, but they never, never deliver. Israel followed the principle of throwing off the yoke of their great tradition in the Old Testament, in the Word of God, and therefore periodically they are going to have terrible labour pains in which they scream in their torture which is the holocaust. But we have also noted that there are Gentile holocausts for the same reason. God protects the human race from barbarism by destroying those segments of the human race, Jew or Gentile, who would destroy the human race. Therefore it is inevitable that there would be holocausts for Israel and holocausts for Gentiles.

We resume with the purpose clause which is going to bring us into the subject of anti-Semitism. The purpose clause contains the expression of Satan’s anti-Semitism related to the first and second advents of Christ. It is introduced by the conjunction i(na, translated “that” or “in order that.” We have a secondary conjunction which introduces a temporal clause, o(tan, ordinarily translated “when” or “whenever.” It introduces a temporal clause in which the action of the subordinate clause precedes the action of the main clause. So the subordinate clause is introduced by the word “when,” “In order that when.”

This is followed by the aorist active subjunctive of tiktw, which means to give birth, taking us back in history to the virgin birth, “when she gave birth.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: the virgin Mary produces the action of the verb, starting with the virgin pregnancy and ending with the virgin birth. The subjunctive mood is used in the subordinate clause to indicate a purpose clause with i(na. This would be a potential subjunctive implying a future reference and qualified by the element of contingency.

Then we have Satan functioning, “in order that when she gave birth he [Satan].” Satan’s objective from the moment of the virgin birth. All previous attacks of Satan on the line of Christ have failed. Now we have a whole new set of attacks and one of them is anti-Semitism. In throwing off the yoke in eternity past Satan became the greatest barbarian of all time and therefore it is inevitable that he will use barbaric methods against anything that stands in his way, and more than anything else the very existence of any Jew on the face of the earth stands in his way. Therefore the inevitable holocausts. God protects and preserves the Jew. The Jews who are involved are the Jews who are involved in the pregnancy-holocaust, they are in labour pains but they never deliver. Those are the ones who are destroyed by the holocaust.

“he might destroy her,” the aorist active subjunctive of katesqiw which means to devour, to eat completely, so it comes to mean to totally destroy. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the potential action of the verb in its entirety. Satan has never succeeded in destroying all of Israel in any holocaust. The active voice: Satan produces the action of the verb under the policy of anti-Semitism. The potential subjunctive which is qualified by contingency that Satan is able to accomplish his objective. Satan will never accomplish his objective even at the point of his greatest power in the middle of the Tribulation.

With this we have the accusative singular direct object teknon referring to the Lord Jesus Christ historically, and with that a)utoj, the possessive genitive feminine, “her son” referring to the woman Israel throughout history and referring specifically also to the virgin Mary under the double entendre.

The attack of Satan is accomplished through Herod the Great — Matthew 2:12-19. Herod the Great is descended from Esau and is one of the great men of genius in history. Herod ruled the middle east and he did so as a client king to Rome. His genius at the end of his life was harnessed in a most unusual way to seek to destroy our Lord. Matthew’s account was the protection of our Lord from Satan’s greatest attempt to destroy Him during His childhood.

Anti-Semitism is the determining factor in the historical trends of Gentile nations. The fall of great men and great nations is directly related to their attitude toward the Jew. Anti-Semitism is first of all blasphemy. God does not need any help in His discipline of the Jews. But, secondly, it is the great barbarian activity of throwing off the yoke.

“It is a noteworthy fact of history that great conquerors such as Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon always treated the Jew well. On the other hand lesser men endowed with narrower outlooks have failed to recognise the Jew and have sought to crush him. But such methods are contrary to nature, and tyranny, whether toward the Jew or toward any others, has never secured any permanent results. The same policy, anti-Semitism, has characterised subsequent dynasties from the Assyrians to the Romanovs and the same fate has overtaken them. The Jews have survived their disappearance from history” — Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 14th edition, vol. 13, p5.

In verse 5 we find the strategic victory of the first advent in the middle of Satan’s great plan to destroy. We noted in verse four his tail, Satan’s power, dragged away in the prehistoric revolution in heaven “a third of the stars of heaven.” They threw off the harness. They were the fallen angels who followed Satan in the prehistoric angelic conflict, “in fact he [God] threw them [Satan and all the fallen angels] down to planet earth.” That is the future time when the devil’s desperation begins; “then the dragon [Satan] stood in opposition to the woman [Mary] who was about to deliver a child [anticipating the virgin birth of our Lord Jesus Christ] in order that when she gave birth he [Satan] might destroy her child [the humanity of Christ in the first advent].” This was one of the greatest attacks Satan ever made on our so great salvation, our spiritual life, and on the true meaning of the angelic conflict. But it did not succeed, according to verse 5.

One of the things that stands out is the efficiency of God’s plan so that inordinate competition against it could not succeed and never will. A second thought also comes out before we even get into the passage, and that is the great principle of the harness: the tremendous self-discipline and the tremendous system of authority and discipline that will exist in the perfect environment of the Millennium so that at the end of 1000 years of perfect environment where there will be no death except capital punishment, where everyone will have the perfect environment for happiness, where the world will not lack anything by way of food or water or any natural resource, where everything will be perfect environment. But perfect environment must have a harness and at the end of 1000 years of perfect environment we will see that the harness is thrown off.

We begin now with the incarnation in the first advent. We have the conjunction kai introducing a result from what precedes. In spite of Satan’s great plan and his great power as the ruler of this world he does not succeed. The aorist active indicative tells us why: the aorist active indicative of the verb tiktw which means to give birth to a child, “And then she gave birth to a child.” The aorist tense is a reference to the virgin birth of Christ as the first fulfilment of the Davidic covenant, hence a constative aorist which contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: national Israel, along with the virgin Mary, is producing the action of the verb under the double entendre. National Israel produces the action of the verb through the tribe of Judah, the family of David, the virgin Mary. The indicative mood is declarative for the virgin birth, the incarnation, the hypostatic union.

“Then she gave birth to a child,” the accusative neuter plural. The child: even though Jesus Christ came in His humanity as a man, we notice that the accusative neuter plural direct object of u(ioj which means a son is in the neuter gender because of the uniqueness of the person of Christ and what He had to do for us. We also have an accusative of apposition, a)rsen, a male son, our Lord Jesus Christ at the first advent in hypostatic union. It is interesting that we would have the words “male son,” which is the corrected translation, in the neuter gender and in the feminine gender, for a)rsen is a feminine gender. Why? The neuter gender indicates a great personal sense of destiny; the feminine gender indicates that Jesus Christ in His humanity had to constantly respond to the will of God the Father, and therefore the dynamics of the phrase, “a male son.” The first advent was necessary to accomplish the strategic victory of the angelic conflict related to eternal salvation. The second advent of Christ is the time of fulfilling unconditional covenants; it is a tactical victory.

Next we have a reference to the first advent. The strategic victory of the angelic conflict took place at the cross. Our Lord’s personal sense of destiny led Him to the cross. He was perfect in the prototype divine dynasphere in His humanity, He was qualified to go to the cross and bear our sins. As He approached the cross He expressed the repugnance of bearing our sins, “Father, if it be thy will let this cup pass from me.” The feminine gender of the word “male” simply indicates the fact that He responded to the Father’s will: “nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.” He was single-minded, says the neuter gender, and He went to the cross, and on the cross He received the imputation and judgment of our sins. This is the basis of our so great salvation.

Now the second advent is mentioned briefly, starting with a relative pronoun, o(j which refers to Christ at the second advent because personal sense of destiny means His return and the establishing of His Millennial reign under the system of harness. The present active indicative of mellw means that it hasn’t happened yet. Mellw is a verb talking about a future event which is brought close to you, not in time but in thought. We do not know when the Millennial reign of Christ will begin. We translate: “who was about to.” The futuristic present tense denotes an event which has not yet occurred but is regarded as so certain in eschatological doctrine that in thought it may be contemplated as already coming to pass. The active voice: Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb at the second advent and His Millennial reign. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the Millennial reign of Christ which is 1000 years of perfect environment following the second advent.

So we have “who [the Lord Jesus Christ] was about to rule,” the present active infinitive of poimainw, which doesn’t mean to rule ordinarily, it means to shepherd. Poimainw for His rule in the Millennium means that people in perfect environment are exactly like people in the environment of today. People en masse are no good! They still have the old sin nature, they are still fickle, up today and down tomorrow, changing their minds constantly. That is the principle. Therefore they must have: not basileuw, which would be rule in the sense that we use it, but poimainw, a shepherd with a stick. Sheep are stupid, therefore they must have a harness to enjoy perfect environment. There will be no revolutions, no activists, no Christian activism in the Millennium. Again, we have the futuristic present denoting an event which has not yet occurred but is brought into our thought to see the principle, “who is about to rule.” This is the Millennium. With this we have the accusative plural direct object composed of an adjective paj, “all,” and a noun e)qnoj, “all nations,” followed by e)n plus the instrumental of r(abdoj plus the instrumental from sidhroj, “a rod of iron,” an iron sceptre. The iron sceptre is the harness. Our Lord has a yoke for the harness today which is easy: “Come learn from me, my yoke is easy, my burden is light.” What lightens burdens are the three stages of the faith-rest drill! But here we have a different harness, an iron sceptre emphasising our Lord’s absolute power and the use of it in the case of anyone who gets out of line. Apart from the integrity of our Lord Jesus Christ and His iron sceptre there is no way that perfect environment on planet earth can be perpetuated for 1000 years. It is impossible to maintain perfect environment when man has an old sin nature without a harness, the old sin natures requires restraint. While Satan’s cosmic system is not operational during the Millennium human volition plus the old sin nature can still get out of hand very quickly and must be controlled for maintenance of perfect environment. God has provided for us today the laws of divine establishment so that without perfect environment we can still fulfil the functions of the angelic conflict: the use of our own free will, self-determination.

The system which has been designed, the divine dynasphere, for the royal family in the Church Age is specifically to give the opportunity of receiving great blessing from life in historical prosperity or in historical adversity. No one can challenge the creator, our Lord Jesus Christ. A demonstration of this principle is the fact that even though it has been Satan’s objective since human history began, and specifically with the beginning of the Jewish race, to annihilate the Jews and to remove them from the earth so that God cannot keep His word to them at the second advent. There must be Jews living in every generation from Abraham down through the Tribulation and to the point of the second advent of Christ. The Jews themselves — those who are unbelievers — cannot understand this even though they are constantly reaching out and groping.

When we come to second advent and perfect environment we have the principle that apart from the integrity of our Lord Jesus Christ and the authority of His iron sceptre there is no way that perfect environment on planet earth can be perpetuated for the last 1000 years of history, the Millennial reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. The sceptre of iron shatters human vessels, which emphasises capital punishment, the suppression of concepts such as crime and other concepts where violence is used to solve problems. Under the laws of divine establishment only capital punishment provides fear of the law on the part of criminals and respect for the law on the part of law-abiding citizens.

We have noted in the past that there is a legitimate violence which biblically is used in three areas: the function of law enforcement in line of duty operation, the function of the military establishment in defence of one’s country — and there should be in both cases the freedom to use violence, and a third area: you have the right as a law abiding citizen to protect your privacy, your property, and your life. In a barbarian society violence is necessary to protect your privacy, your freedom, your property. In such a society there is always a liberal element that tries to abolish violence. These are the people who are in favour of a nuclear freeze, the yellow-bellied cowards who are afraid of military service, the people who are constantly popping up here and there who have no concept of historical reality.

The divine policy regarding the use of unlawful violence becomes pertinent at this point. Who uses unlawful violence? Criminals, gangsters, terrorists, paramilitary organisations, mercenaries, religious fanatics like Islam and its so-called holy wars. There are three exceptions which are the lawful use of violence, as we have noted.

The divine policy is first given to us in Genesis 9:5,6, “Most emphatically, I will require your lifeblood [if you try to solve your problems by violence and you therefore infringe upon the freedom of someone else], I will demand an accounting from [not just human beings] every animal [which kills a human being]. And from every man [who murders man], from every man’s brother I will demand the life of the man [who murders]. Whoever sheds man’s blood by man [in authority] his blood will be shed,” the judicial modus operandi resulting in the establishment yoke and the administration of capital punishment. You cannot suppress crime and unlawful use of terrorism without the proper professional use of capital punishment, “for in the image of God he made man.”

What does it mean that man was made in the image of God? It is not referring to overt appearance at all. It means three things that relate to the soul. In the essence of God are three factors which we have in the essence of man’s soul. It means first of all self-consciousness, awareness of one’s own existence, which is absolutely necessary to establish the awareness of the existence of others. No person can ever be thoughtful and sensitive of others unless he is aware of his own existence because he starts from a base of virtue from his own existence; secondly, moral reasoning power. Key words: “I ought”; thirdly, self-determination: “I will.” That is the image of God. We have volition, free will, and we have the right of self-determination.

So the policy of God in Genesis 9:6 is capital punishment. A second declaration of this policy was given by our Lord Jesus Christ to Peter when Peter tried to solve a problem by violence. Peter began to understand that the Lord was in danger and when in the garden the temple guard came to arrest our Lord he was determined to defend Him. He pulled a sword and hacked off an ear. Matthew 26:52 tells us what our Lord said. He again declared the divine policy regarding the use of unlawful violence: “Return your sword to its scabbard; for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” That does not refer to the military or to law enforcement, and it doesn’t even refer to a person protecting his own life. “For all who draw the sword” is the unlawful use of violence. For those who use unlawful violence the divine policy is that they will be destroyed by unlawful violence or legitimate violence. Violence will overtake them. If it is legitimate violence they will die by capital punishment. Those who live by violence have thrown off the harness.

Romans 13:3,4 gives us the third statement on divine policy: “For government authorities are not a cause for fear for moral function,” moral function means civilisation, harness, and the solving of problems apart from violence, “but for evil function,” the use of violence. “Really, is it your desire not to fear authority? If that is your desire, keep on doing good.” In other words, be a law-abiding person. Resolve your problems within the framework of legitimate establishment authority, “and you will have recognition from it [the protection provided by legitimate government]; for it [client nation government] is a minister of God to you for the purpose of good,” protection of your freedom, privacy, life and property. “But if you do evil,” civil disobedience, the use of violence, to solve problems, “keep on being afraid; for it [the government] does not carry the sword [capital punishment] in vain.”

Capital punishment must be a legitimate function of government and certain criminal must be continually, habitually executed. A criminal has no rights. Those who make the decision to commit crime, those who use violence in crime — murder, rape, armed robbery, whatever it is — should die by the sword [capital punishment], not be put up at taxpayers’ expense. Fear of the law is a restraint, a harness for those who are tempted.

“for you see it [government of a client nation] is the minister of God for the purpose of administering punishment to him who practices evil.”

The principle of the divine policy was stated in Exodus 21:12 — “He who strikes a man so that he dies shall emphatically be put to death.” Numbers 35:30, “If anyone murders a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the evidence of witnesses, however no person will ever be put to death on the evidence of one person.” Capital punishment is not arbitrary, it is a judicial process the termination of which is execution.

There is a lot of injustice in the world, a lot of violence by which people appear to get away with it. They don’t get away with it because of the court of final appeal which is mentioned in Romans 12:19, a mandate to us as believers: “Never take your own revenge, beloved, instead give place to punishment from the justice of God [let the High Court doe the punishing], for it stands written [Deuteronomy 32:35], ‘Judgment [punishment] belongs to me, I will repay, says the Lord’.” In other words, no one ever gets away with unlawful violence. If the courts do not seem to do anything about it, if law enforcement seems to have overlooked it, if the military establishment has not been able to take care of it, leave it in the Lord’s hands. He will take care of it: the application of the essence rationale in the second stage of the faith-rest drill to the situation. The justice of God which provides your blessing will be the means of resolving the problem.

Again, in Revelation 12:5 the iron sceptre is simply an extension of the divine policy throughout human history. The divine policy rejects the unlawful use of violence and punishes it judicially through the laws of divine establishment and through category three doctrine; the Lord intervenes. The iron sceptre also administers national punishment to criminal nations during the Millennium as during history.

Principle

1. The Millennium is a time of perfect environment, therefore the Millennium is a time of prosperity. Consequently, though there must be the iron sceptre of law enforcement and capital punishment to pass the prosperity test during the dispensation of perfect environment.

2. For freedom to be perpetuated there must be authority. Authority cannot exist without the sword of capital punishment: it puts teeth in the law.

3. Therefore a principle of history: you cannot have freedom without authority and you cannot have authority without freedom. Freedom and authority, therefore, must coexist.

4. Freedom without authority is anarchy; authority without freedom is tyranny.

5. The same principle holds true in the spiritual realm. Freedom without the authority of doctrine is antinomianism; authority without freedom is legalism.

6. In the Millennium freedom plus authority will provide the basis for legitimate self-determination in the perfect environment of our Lord’s rule. If there was no capital punishment in the Millennium there would not be perfect environment very long. In other words, you cannot have good environment today and perfect environment in the future Millennium without authority.

7. Therefore the volitional issue of the angelic conflict will continue in the Millennium, and people will be evangelised because of freedom and they will have freedom because of the Lord’s authority. Furthermore, people will be saved through the use of their own volition in the environment of freedom and salvation will be the same as it has always been since the beginning of history: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”

8. That same freedom of the Millennium will permit the rejection of Christ as saviour without any form of spiritual or temporal bullying.

9. Freedom in the Millennium means exemption from arbitrary control of the volition. Freedom in the Millennium is maintained by our Lord’s iron sceptre, hence the iron sceptre of Christ will guarantee privacy, the sacredness of property and human life in the Millennium. Freedom is the policy of God in the creation of the human race and the perpetuation of human history to resolve the prehistoric angelic conflict. Freedom, therefore, will exist under the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Millennium.

Hence the principle: You cannot rule with a golden sceptre of perfect environment without the iron sceptre of authority and integrity. Law enforcement, honourable jurisprudence, strict punishment, are necessary for restraining the principle of trying to solve problems by violence.

Psalm 2:10-12, a passage dealing with the Millennium. “Therefore you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with respect, and rejoice with anticipation. Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way [capital punishment], for his wrath is kindled for a little while. How blessed are those who take refuge in him.”

Kissing in the ancient world was a sign of submission to authority. Kissing the Son is recognition of His authority and thereby avoiding punishment and discipline from His iron sceptre. The relationship between the first advent and the second advent with the iron sceptre is stated in that same Psalm in verses 7-9:

“I will proclaim the decree of the Lord [God the Father]: he said to me [God the Son], ‘You are my Son, today [first advent] I have begotten you [virgin birth]. Ask from me, and I will give you the nations [the Millennium] as your inheritance [coronation at the second advent], plus the very ends of the earth as your possession [the Millennial reign of Christ]. Therefore you will rule them [the nations of the Millennium] with an iron sceptre, and you will shatter them like pieces of pottery [capital punishment in the Millennium]’.”

You will note that the iron sceptre of our Lord’s authority in the Millennium shatters both individual criminals and conspiratorial nations, those who seek to disturb the peace.

The genius of Satan has used the question, “How can a loving God send his creatures to the lake of fire?” as the appeal to the sentence, and as a result, in order to resolve the whole issue and to demonstrate the fallacy of the devil’s argument in court, man was created. We are here as an inferior creature but possessing one thing in common with the angels: self-consciousness, moral reasoning power, self-determination, the image of God principle. That is why man was created in the image of God. Man was created in the image of God to resolve the angelic conflict.

Man is able to make moral decisions. We set up certain standards and once we determine what is right we say, “I ought to do what is right; I ought to do good rather than evil; I ought to do right rather than wrong; I ought to do this rather than sin.” And all of these concepts and functions are being observed by millions of angels, and this observation is a great court. Human history is simply a higher court resolving the problem of the fall of Satan and the third of the angels that he took with him.

The answer to this objection by Satan is found in the essence, the character of God, and a new creation was necessary to make an objective approach to the subject. It could have been pointed out very easily as it was in the original trial how and why and under what conditions every fallen angel failed, and when he had the grace opportunity, whatever form of salvation was offered, and he used his reasoning power to reject it. He was aware of his condition under self-consciousness, he was aware of the grace of God offer, and in self-determination he went negative and said, “I won’t.” That happened long before man walked on the face of the earth.

Any limitations on divine power are self-imposed to resolve the angelic conflict, to allow you to follow your own volition to its logical conclusions of failure or success. God is perfect; He can do no wrong. Satan, in his defence of the fallen angels, implies that God did a wrong thing when He created angels because He gave these creatures volition. But forget volition for a moment, it is absolutely useless without self-consciousness. Animals do not have this same self-consciousness, but the key to the human soul is the fact that it has self-consciousness. Self-consciousness, that part of the right lobe we call the conscience where we develop norms and standards, gives options in life under the principle of volition. That is what man has in common with the angels. The angelic body is superior in every way to the human body.

Everything that God has done for us is a manifestation of His perfect essence. Salvation manifests the sovereignty of God, the love of God, eternal life, His immutability, His virtue and integrity, etc. Logistical grace brings out His faithfulness. So we see the manifestations of His perfection. The pattern of angelic negative volition is expressed in two ways. First, Satan’s original sin of negative volition, and the angelic rejection of Christ. The creation of man to resolve the angelic conflict had to start on the same high note as the original creation of angels. Therefore, so as not to complicate it, there was one man and one woman in the garden, perfect provision and perfect environment, but there had to be a test for man’s volition right from the start. Man was not created with a volition locked in positive, that wouldn’t be volition.

Man and woman were self-conscious, they were aware of each other in perfect environment. They had the daily conversations with our Lord Jesus Christ which established the principle of their conscience, and they were told, not once but perhaps many times, that is was forbidden to eat from one tree named the knowledge of good and evil. They didn’t know good and evil.

Man was the ruler of planet earth not knowing, of course, that Satan had been the previous ruler because it was his headquarters. Before the earth was prepared for man’s habitation of it God took the ice pack off the earth and made man the ruler of it, which was immediately a challenge to Satan. But Satan, in his investigation of the situation, saw something immediately: Adam was not only the ruler of the world but he was the authority over the woman, so Satan realised that he had to make his attack on the woman. And he did. When the woman held out her hand and extended the fruit Adam had the function of his volition: the woman outside of the garden or Jesus Christ in the garden. He chose for the woman outside of the garden. The punishment was pronounced on the man and on the woman. The woman was made subordinate to the man, which she didn’t like, and in Genesis 3:21 she decided she would always do something about it …

“And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.” He was demonstrating that He was going to give them both a great volitional opportunity and that He was going to make this opportunity available not only to them but to their progeny. The killing of an animal always correctly depicts the work of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. Notice that in verses 17 and 19 man was to be the bread winner. In all of this development of the curse the woman would always have to face a very special volitional problem: would she accept the authority of man or not? In effect, chapter three of Genesis says that this is a man’s world. There is no way to get around it, it is a man’s world and that is a part of the harness.

The woman said in Genesis 3:13, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” The woman with a perfect soul was subject to deception. She, every day, along with the man had heard our Lord Jesus Christ make dissertation after dissertation, and yet the woman had failed. Arrogance was her first sin, like Satan’s. She sinned first. She didn’t know what she was doing, therefore the man who knew what he was doing is the basis for the old sin nature.

Verse 16, “To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow you shall bring forth children; and your desire shall be to your husband,’ a normal desire, ‘and he shall rule over thee’,” the basis for human history: the man will always rule over the woman. The woman is a responder. She is going to conceive; in sorrow she is going to bring forth children. And why does it say, “and thy desire shall be to thy husband”? Why even mention it? For the simplest of all reasons: the woman, like the man, will have her own harness to fight. The desire is put there as the harness, because the woman is going to resent and fight it, reject it. And she has to have something to accept or reject. Without that desire civilisation could not exist.

Everything that is stated in Genesis chapter three by way of judgment is not something like Satan’s great trial (and the fallen angels) whereby you could say, “We can’t do it, we are not going to do it, it is unfair.” But God gave man and the woman in that trial the same deal that He gave Satan. Satan said, “How can a loving God cast His creatures (fallen angels) into the lake of fire?” That is the great issue. So when God condemned man everything that He mentioned had to do with temporal life, not eternal life. Everything in Satan’s trial had to do with eternal condemnation. Why the difference? Because when you get down to that one verse on the coats of skin you have it. The issue was going to be a new tree of life, the cross, and throughout the Old Testament that cross would be depicted by an altar, and an animal would be on that altar. The blood of the animal would depict eternal salvation and the coat of skin would be the righteousness imputed, so that human history would exactly parallel divine history of the angelic conflict. So the angels could now watch the volition of man. Man failed the first test and from then on man would reproduce and the angels would observe.

The creation of man, then, resolves the angelic conflict and answers the appeal of Satan. To resolve the angelic conflict an inferior creature, man, is placed on one planet, the earth, possessing one thing in common with the angels as rational creatures, the image of God factor, the bona fide function of volition, Psalm 8:3-5; Hebrews 2:7. Human volition is therefore tested in exactly the same pattern as angelic volition. Angels began in status quo innocence; mankind began in status quo innocence. Angels sinned, Isaiah 14, the negative volition of Satan; the angels that followed him, Revelation 12:4. Mankind sinned: negative volition of Adam and the woman. God provided salvation for the angels, unknown as to its nature but the opportunity was there; God provided salvation for mankind. As a result angels are divided into two categories, according to Revelation 12:7; mankind is divided into two categories, according to John 3:36.

Two tests have been instituted, then, for man’s volition. Under perfect environment mankind is prohibited the use of one tree, just a volitional test, and man could only fail by negative volition. There was no sin in the perfect environment of the garden until man brought it in by volition. There would be no sin in the garden until man used his volition to sin: disobedience to God’s prohibition. In the case of the woman it was arrogance; in the case of the man it was a desire for the woman. Therefore it was switched: the woman will desire the man.

Then in sinfulness after the fall of man salvation is promised and offered to the human race, Genesis 3:15. Such salvation involved Christ dying twice on the cross, Isaiah 53:9; 1 Peter 2:24; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Colossians 2:12. The issue is different from the garden and perfect environment. In the garden the issue was a prohibition, therefore it emphasised negative volition: no, don’t do it! But after the fall of man it is positive volition toward the new tree, the cross. Positive volition expressed in a non-meritorious way, “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Faith is non-meritorious positive volition. Man’s entrance into the plan of God through faith in Christ destroys the devil’s appeal; it resolves the angelic conflict. The issue: Will man, inferior to angels and equipped with the same free will (volition, self-determination), choose for or against the plan of God, the grace of God? The solution: if even one member of the human race receives Jesus Christ through personal faith the angelic conflict is resolved, Hebrews 1:4-14; the entire chapter two; Colossians 2:14,15. Therefore operation footstool, Psalm 110:1; 1 Corinthians 15:24,25; Hebrews 1:13. This is why angels are watching and why we have angels rejoicing over one person, one sinner, who repents — Luke 15:7,10. Angelic observation is the issue. As a result of the angelic conflict, then, there is the plan of God in its three phases for mankind — phase one, salvation: faith in Christ; phase two: the believer in time; phase three: the believer in eternity. Through the fall of man Satan gained control of the world, however; but even though Satan is the ruler of this world he is not necessarily the controller, the ruler, of man as an individual. Human volition and/or free will makes man a free agent in the devil’s world. Man can choose between the plan of God or Satan’s plan: the divine dynasphere versus the cosmic system. The issue: Salvation through faith in Christ frees mankind from Satanic control and domination. The exception, of course, is the cosmic system. Hence, after salvation the more the believer learns doctrine, the more he advances inside the divine dynasphere, the greater his freedom and the greater his capacity to operate independently of the cosmic system. Satan is the ruler of this world, 2 Corinthians 4:4; John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; Ephesians 2:2.

Angels observed Jesus Christ from the time of the virgin birth until the ascension, 1 Timothy 3:16. Fallen angels are organised under Satan’s command to resist and oppose the believer, as in Job 1:6; 2:1-3; Ephesians 6:12. Angels are watching all of us as believers, according to 1 Corinthians 4:9; 6:3; 11:10; Ephesians 3:10; 1 Timothy 5:21; 1 Peter 1:12.

The angelic conflict, then, answers basic questions: Why man on the earth? Inside of man’s soul volition is linked to the work of the cross, the new tree, and the cross resolves the angelic conflict. The victory of the angelic conflict is inevitable according to Colossians 2:14,15; Hebrews 2, because in every generation of human history there are those who believe in Jesus Christ. It answers the question: Why sin? Sin resolves the issue of phase one in the plan of God. Our sins were never imputed to us for judgment, they were imputed to Christ on the cross. It explains: Why suffering? It explains the plan of God and the royal family at the present time. It explains why we have chaos on the earth. It explains the principle that God’s blessing for the believer who advances to maturity is as valid in a time of historical disaster as it is in a time of historical prosperity. And, of course, we learn that there are two kinds of spirituality: one for the Church Age, the filling of the Spirit must be compatible with the absence of Christ from the earth. Hence the filling of the Spirit produces what Christ would produce were He on earth because when He was on earth He functioned inside the prototype divine dynasphere; He has given us the operational divine dynasphere. In the Church Age the filling of the Spirit is never characterised by emotion. Emotional stimulation can be produced by a lot of things, but not by the filling of the Spirit in this dispensation. However, in the Millennium when Christ is present on earth the purpose of the filling of the Spirit is appreciation of Christ, and in the perfect environment of the Millennium the filling of the Spirit will be characterised by emotion and ecstatics, as per Joel 2:28,29. Such emotion and ecstatics at that time cannot be distorted by the presence of demons and the presence of Satan who are incarcerated during the Millennium.

So the angelic conflict explains much: the superiority of the law of spirituality over the Mosaic law; if Christ is greater than angels then revelation through Christ is superior to that which is administered by angels. The Mosaic law was disseminated and taught by angels, according to Acts 7:38; Galatians 3:19; Psalm 68:7; Deuteronomy 33:2. That is why the doctrine of the Church Age is a mystery doctrine.

The doctrine of the ascension is mentioned in the last phrase of Revelation 12:5. This final phrase begins with the conjunction kai, translated “furthermore.” The nominative subject teknon, “child,” goes back now to the first advent of Christ. With this we have the possessive genitive of a)utoj which in the feminine refers to Mary and her son. Then the verb which brings into view with the doctrine of the ascension, the aorist passive indicative of a(rpazw which means to be caught up, to be taken up, and it is a specific reference to our Lord’s ascension. The culminative aorist views the ascension of Christ in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. The result is obvious: our Lord receives a new royal title and, of course, this is the basis for the Church Age in this aorist tense. The passive voice: Christ receives the action of the verb, He receives ascension which terminates the first advent. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the ascension of Christ. To guarantee that it is the ascension we have two prepositional phrases. In each case it is the preposition proj plus the accusative. Proj plus the accusative has several meanings. It means face to face with, in the presence of, before. We have proj plus qeoj here, “face to face with God [God the Father],” followed by proj plus qronoj, “before the throne.” There is a conjunction kai between them, and it is translated “even.” So the translation would be: “furthermore her son was caught up face to face with God, even before his throne.”

The ascension is that doctrine of Christology pertaining to our Lord’s first change of residence in hypostatic union. Beginning with the virgin birth Jesus Christ came into the world, first advent, and became unique as the God-Man. He was on the earth for thirty-three years, culminating with the cross, resurrection and ascension. The ascension is the first permanent change of station. It terminated the first advent and Jesus Christ went to heaven for the first time as the God-Man. It is followed by another doctrine which is always connected with it: the doctrine of the session where our Lord was told to be seated at the right hand of the Father in the place of honour. These two doctrines always go together and actually explain why we have the Church Age.

It was the ascension of our Lord and His session at the right hand of the Father which gave Him His third royal title. That was the first time our Lord had a royal title minus a royal family. His first royal title deals with the fact that He is God: His title is Son of God. He has a royal family: God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. His second royal title is son of David: when He became true humanity He came in the Davidic dynasty. He had a royal family: the family of David. But when He ascended and was seated at the right hand of the Father and was given His third royal patent — King of kings and Lord of lords, the bright morning star; there was no royal family. Therefore, God the Father who is always the planner did something that had never been done before in history and would never be done again, and that is to form a royal family on earth. Believers in this dispensation, the Church Age only, are this royal family. This royal family is called “Church,” “body of Christ,” “royal family.” All of this means that as royal family we are a part of an unusual and special plan.

The ascension and the session of our Lord at the right hand of the Father is the basis for changing the dispensations, the basis for an entirely different way of life which incorporates everything that believers were mandated to do in the past, such as the faith-rest drill, a new power, a new system related to the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit did not have a ministry with every believer in any past time before the Church Age. And God the Holy Spirit will not have a ministry with every believer in the Tribulation, only in this dispensation and the Millennium. So it is entirely different and for this reason we cannot go to the Old Testament for the details of the royal family plan. This is why the royal family plan is often called the doctrine of the mystery. “Mystery” means not known to those who are not in the fraternity. In the ancient world a mystery was the doctrine that belonged to a Greek fraternity and only the initiates understood the doctrine. And this is what we have. The Christian way of life was never known or revealed by the Old Testament prophets, it is a modus operandi for the royal family only. In the Christian way of life blessing belongs to the believer who advances to maturity even though he lives in a time of no prosperity historically. That is another great change.

The historical account of the ascension is given in Acts 1:9-11, (Our Lord had predicted the beginning of the Church Age with two doctrines: the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:5 and 8), “And after he had said those things, he was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And as they gazed intently into the sky while he was departing, behold two men in white [teaching angels] clothing stood beside them; and they also said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven’.” This is the first announcement of the ascension. They did not know His destiny; they could not see His destination because His destination was the third heaven.

The significance of the session of Christ is brought out in many ways. For example, in Psalm 110:1 it was prophesied as the terminating point of the first advent: “Sit down at my right hand” is the doctrine of the session. The session and the authority of Christ is found in Romans 8:34. The ascension and session are related to present ministries of our Lord and divide them from the past ministries where He was judged for our sins on the cross and where He began with the formation of the royal family. The ascension and session of Christ is always related to the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. It is the boundary line between the Old Testament functions of God the Holy Spirit to a few, like kings and prophets, and the universal ministry of God the Holy Spirit to every believer (every believer does not have the filling of the Spirit but every believer is indwelt by the Spirit). The line of demarcation between the Church Age ministry of the Spirit and the Old Testament is the ascension and session of Christ. Ephesians 1:20, “which power [of the Holy Spirit] had been operational in Christ [in the prototype divine dynasphere], the Father having raised him from the dead [resurrection of His human body], and having seated him at his own right hand in the heavenlies.” “Having seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenlies” is the ascension and session of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore there is a new mental attitude mandated as a result of this doctrine. This new mandate is found in Colossians 3:1,2, “If therefore you have been raised in Christ [we are in union with Christ] keep on desiring to possess and endeavouring to obtain the above things [the doctrine given in the first two chapters of Colossians] where Christ is sitting at the right hand of the Father. Keep thinking objectively about the above things [Bible doctrine], not the things on the earth [the things of the cosmic system].”

The cosmic system can only function in Satan’s kingdom and Satan’s kingdom is on earth. And so inside of the divine dynasphere the ministry of God the Holy Spirit is to provide us perception, and therefore objectivity about categories of doctrine, and we have to be objective about all of them to fulfil the plan of God. In that very context where this mandate is given we are told that Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. This is what differentiates us from the Old Testament saints and gives us a far greater opportunity.

The ascension and session of Christ is also related to the celebrityship of Christ, Hebrews 1:3, where a description of the Lord is as follows:

“Who being the radiance [the flashing forth] of the glory and the exact image of his essence.” The flashing forth of His glory is the fact that His resurrected body has that uniform of glory that radiates from the body. The exact image of His essence is Jesus Christ as God. So here we have a statement of the hypostatic union with emphasis on resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“also sustaining all things by the verbal expression of his power.” The universe is held together by the verbal expression of our Lord’s power.

“Having himself accomplished the purification of sins [the cross, where He was judged for our sins], he was caused to sit down at the right hand of the Majesty in the highest places.”

In other words, taking this hypostatic union from the cross where He accomplished purification from our sins He was caused to sit down. That means resurrection, ascension and session, and that is His present status quo as the God-Man.

In Hebrews 1:13 again the subject of the ascension and session is mentioned, and this time in relationship to the angelic conflict: “But to which of the angels has he ever said ant any time, ‘Sit down at my right hand, until I appoint your enemies the footstool of your feet’?”

That is a question that demands a negative answer in the Greek, “to no angel at any time.”

Prior to our Lord’s ascension and session mankind always operated under a specialised priesthood. In Israel the priesthood was the tribe of Levi, the family of Aaron, and only those who descended from Aaron were priests. By definition a priest is a man representing humanity to God. Outside of Israel there was the family priesthood: the head of the family was the priest. Abraham was the head of his family, therefore he was a priest. Both priesthoods were specialised. That means that if you at a certain period of time wanted to worship, you took an offering, went to the priest, and told him your sins. The priest had one hand on the head of the one who was announcing or confessing his sins, and that was a transferring of the sins that had been mentioned over to the lamb [representing Christ], which is an illustration of what happened on the cross — all personal sins were imputed to Christ and judged by God the Father. Now, in the Church Age, every one of us in the royal family of God is his own priest. We do not go to any priest to represent us before God.

Hebrews 8:1 — “Now the main point of what has been communicated is this: we have such a category of high priest [Jesus Christ], who has sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,” therefore Jesus Christ starts a new priesthood, a royal family priesthood; and if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you are a member of the royal family, you represent yourself to God. We are our own priest and that has never been true before.

Our passage in Revelation 12 says: “her son was caught up face to face with God, even before his throne.” That broke the back of the devil. In Hebrews 10:12 — “But this one [Jesus Christ], when he had offered one unique sacrifice on behalf of the sins for all time, sat down on the right hand of God.” This verse is extremely important for this reason: When we came into the world God imputed human life in every individual case and, at the same time He imputed Adam’s original sin to that genetically-formed old sin nature so that we were born physically alive but spiritually dead. And we were not dead on the basis of our personal sins: “the wages of sin [one sin: Adam’s] is death”; “for by one man sin came into the world, and by one man death by sin.” Death by sin is the spiritual death; Adam’s sin is imputed to our genetically-formed old sin nature and our personal sins are definitely not judged by being imputed to us, they were imputed to Christ on the cross; that is the unique sacrifice.

So we have the principle that the ascension of our Lord and His session at the right hand of the Father is the basis for occupation with Christ: “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame [of bearing our sins], and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” So this doctrine is constantly emphasised.

The strategic victory was not overlooked by the apostle Peter when he said in 1 Peter 3:22, “[Jesus Christ] who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels [fallen angels] and authorities [the authorities who rule the world: Satan and his demon system] and powers had been subordinated to him.” So the session confirms the celebrityship of Christ, Acts 2:33; 5:31; Philippians 2:9.

The ascension of Christ verifies the efficacy of the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross, Hebrews 9:23,24, “Of necessity, therefore, on the one hand the models of things in heaven be cleansed with the shadows, but on the other hand the heavenly realities themselves with better sacrifices than the shadows [of animal blood]. But Christ has not entered into the holy of holies made with hands, the model on earth, but instead into heaven [the reality] heaven itself [into the presence of God] on behalf of us.”

The ascension means the strategic victory of Christ and therefore the ultimate defeat of Satan, operation footstool mentioned prophetically in Psalm 110:1, and quoted in Luke 2:42, 43; Acts 2:33, 34; Hebrews 1:13. The second advent will terminate operation footstool: Christ will supersede Satan as the ruler of this world, Zechariah 13:2; Colossians 2:15. The ascension of Christ indicates the completion of His mission in the first advent; it indicates the complete victory in the angelic conflict: it has already been won. The second advent, then, is merely a tactical victory to complete the coup de tat. Furthermore, the ascension of Christ reveals the postponement of the Millennial resign of Christ to permit the calling out of the royal family of God which gives us the greatest opportunity that believers have ever had. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you have options and opportunities that did not even exist in the lives of the greatest believers in the past. Satan can do nothing about the formation of the royal family of God. He can attack it, he can pick at it, but he can’t stop it. The royal family of God is being formed in Satan’s kingdom right now. Satan has no power to stop the formation of the royal family of God, and when the royal family is completed and the resurrection or Rapture of the Church occurs, and Satan recognises the Tribulation as the end of the Age of Israel when he is cast out of heaven in the middle of the Tribulation and comes to the earth, that is the time of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation.

The ascension also indicates the failure of Satan to destroy Christ during the first advent as per his plan stated at the end of Revelation 12:4, “then the dragon [Satan] stood before the woman [the virgin Mary & Israel] who was about to deliver a child [anticipating the virgin birth] in order that when she gave birth he [Satan] might destroy her child.” He did not succeed in that objective in the first advent.

The principle that comes out of this is very simple: No creature has the power to challenge the creator. Therefore when we as creatures try to challenge the creator, our Lord, it comes from arrogance, and arrogance is false power. Arrogance is blind and irrational; arrogance is self-destructive; arrogance rejects divine authority and seeks to overthrow it; arrogance resents human authority, especially establishment authority. The Satanic revolution was demonstrated a complete failure by the death, burial, resurrection, ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ; and anyone who sides with Satan by being involved in the cosmic system becomes a loser. The only way a believer can become a loser is to become involved in the cosmic system and, therefore, share Satan’s defeat even though he has eternal life. The fact that Satan could not pre

vent the ascension of Christ, even though billions of angels formed up to try to stop it, merely confirms the fact that Satan will never be able to prevent the second advent and the tactical victory of our Lord.

1 John 4:4, “Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.”

Verse 6 is the divine protection of Israel from the great holocaust of the Tribulation. Already there is an application before we begin: no one is going to take you out of this world until God permits it. No personal disaster, no national disaster, no conspiracy or plot of any kind can remove you from this life until God permits it.

The King James version of verse 6: “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand, two hundred and three score days.”

We begin the translation with the connective conjunction kai, translated “And so.” The nominative singular subject h( gunh is “the woman,” true Israel, Jewish believers facing the greatest of all holocaust situations in the Tribulation. True Israel follows the pattern of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by personal faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. And because of their faith in Christ, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were selected instead of their brothers for their perpetuation of the Jewish race. Hence, the woman does not refer to racial Israel, she refers in this passage to the Jewish believer in the Tribulation. Furthermore, we will see that it is referring to the Jewish believer of the first half of the Tribulation who was give the command to flee. In the second, those who were saved in the second half of the Tribulation, before the second advent, are given a different command and that is to fight. Notice that these are antithetical commands given to Jews who believe in Christ in the Tribulation. Gunh refers to Jews who believe in Christ in a future time. These Jews were evangelised by the 144,000 Jewish evangelists which we studied in chapter seven.

Next we have an aorist active indicative from the verb feugw which means “fled,” “And so the woman fled.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. In other words, it takes the obedience of the regenerate Jews of the first half of the Tribulation who follow the instructions of Matthew chapter 24 and gathers them into one entirety. If they are going to survive to fulfil the plan of God they must run.

In other words, you have to be flexible when you get into the plan of God. The inflexible thing in the plan of God is Bible doctrine, but you have to be flexible. What you do by way of application to a certain situation demands that you have a detailed knowledge of God’s plan and the ability to make more than one application in the variety of situations in this life as a believer. One thing characterises the legalistic believer: he is inflexible — about people, situations. Flexibility is extremely important. The active voice: the regenerate Jews or true Israel of the first half of the Tribulation produce the action: they ran. They probably wanted to stay and fight; that would have been inflexibility. The true application to their situation in their half of the Tribulation is run; in the last half of the Tribulation it is fight. So in application, you have to know when to fight and you have to know when to run. Your survival doesn’t depend on what your instinct is. If you as a believer live by your emotions or what is sometimes called “your instincts” you are not going to make it.

The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of their obedience to the divine instructions resulting in their preservation, their prosperity, their blessing.

Then it says in a prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the accusative of e)renoj, “into the high desert country.” The wilderness or the high desert country refers to Moab, Edom, Ammon and places like Petra. Next we have a particle of place, o(pou, “where,” followed by the verb, the present active indicative of e)xw. The present tense is a customary present denoting what may be reasonably expected to occur under the protective care of God when that is related to the three stages of the faith-rest drill. The active voice: God produces the action by providing a place where Jews saved in the first half of the Tribulation can have a refuge. In other words, o(pou or “where” denotes there is only one place where the Jews in Palestine can go and be absolutely safe for the rest of the Tribulation. They not only have to go there in the first place, but they have to stay there in the second place. Once you get in the will of God there is also the staying power: two facets of the faith-rest drill. The indicative mood is declarative for a refuge for Jews saved during the first half of the Tribulation.

Then we have two more words, the accusative singular direct object from topoj, “place.” And with it we have the adverb of place e)kei, translated “there.”

“And so the woman [true Israel, believing Jews evangelised during the first half of the Tribulation] fled to the high desert country [the mountains of Matthew 24:16, or Edom, Moab, and Ammon of Daniel 11:41] where she had a place of refuge.”

This place of refuge is prepared by God, the perfect passive participle of e)toimazw, “which has been prepared.” God does not neglect the believer in time of disaster. Only the believer neglects God in time of prosperity and often loses out in disaster. By prosperity is meant opportunity, not prosperity in the sense of success. We all have an opportunity to learn doctrine, so this is a period of opportunity. We may not have this period always. The dramatic perfect tense emphasises the results of the completed action of the verb, a haven for believing Jews who are saved during the first half of the Tribulation and delivered by the grace of God in the last half.

We notice first the remnant evangelised in the first half of the Tribulation. Generally they are evangelised by 144,000 Jewish evangelists. In obedience to the Word of God they flee to the high desert country of Edom, Moab, and Ammon, Daniel 11:41. The second category are the remnant evangelised in the second half of the Tribulation and generally they are evangelised by Moses and Elijah, the two witnesses that we have studied. Instead of fleeing, their refuge is in Jerusalem and they fight the king of the north in the final phase of the Armageddon campaign, Zechariah 14:1-7. So in category #1 we have the fleeing remnant in the first half of the Tribulation; in category #2 we have the fighting remnant in the last half of the Tribulation.

This dramatic present tense refers to the first group, those who run in obedience to the Word of God. The passive voice: the place of refuge receives the action of the verb, i.e.. a haven being prepared for refugee born-again Jews. The participle of circumstantial. Then we have the origin of this refuge, the preposition a)po plus the ablative of source, qeoj, “from the source of God,” or we could translate this also the ablative of means, “prepared by God.” Generally the ablative is not the regular expression of means, the instrumental case is, but when the expression of means is accompanied by implication of origin or source then the ablative is used. So we have, “which has been prepared by God.”

Daniel 11:41, “He [the king of the north] will invade the Land of Beauty [Israel during the Tribulation], and many [Jewish people involved in the cosmic system] will fall; but [by way of contrast] these [true Israel, believing Jews evangelised in the first half of the Tribulation] shall escape danger from his hand: in Edom, Moab and the foremost cities of the sons of Ammon.” That is the place prepared by God.

Note: A place of danger is a place of refuge if you are in the divine dynasphere. No matter how bad things become historically the prosperity provided in the last four gates of the divine dynasphere is extended to believers in disaster as in time of historical prosperity. So historical prosperity or historical disaster has nothing whatever to do with your blessing. The world can be in the worst type of disaster and that does not in any way hinder your blessing from momentum. The world can be in a time of prosperity and if you are in the cosmic system then you are going to have your own personal disaster. Therefore, as a believer related to the plan of God, phase two, you make your own prosperity or your own disaster. Therefore you do not run with the trends of history. The only time the trends of history are meaningful to you: if you are in the cosmic system God will often use historical disaster to punish you, and all other believers in the same status quo. But inside of the divine dynasphere you make your own blessing; inside of the cosmic system you make your own disaster. While historical trends apply to groups of people in this world they have no application to you unless you are earmarked in this year for the sin unto death or some special divine punishment. To have a personal sense of destiny you must live in the plan of God so that you know personally that you are not going to be destroyed by historical disaster and, in fact, you will find great blessing. The same blessing God would give you in historical prosperity He will give you in historical disaster. You make your own way. You make your own failures by bad decisions, and all bad decisions relate to the cosmic system; you make your own prosperity by good decisions from a position of strength. Therefore you, from making good decisions from a position of strength, have control of your life in historical disaster, in historical prosperity, and you have a personal sense of destiny no matter how bad things become. That is true for these Jews no matter how bad things become in this greatest holocaust of all history.

Matthew 24:15, the amplification of this passage: “Therefore when you see what is called the Abomination Of Desolation [the detestable idol of destruction, the image of the dictator of the revived Roman empire of the Tribulation] which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the doctrinal one make application).”

The Jews living in Jerusalem have responded to the message of the 144,000 evangelists and have accepted Christ by the hundreds of thousands. They have spent a couple of years in doctrine and they now have a very important message. Right in the middle of the Tribulation in the temple, in the holy of holies, up goes this statue called the Abomination of Desolation or, literally, the detestable idol of destruction. It will be broadcast all over town, everyone will know about it, because a deal is made between the Jewish dictator of Israel and the Gentile dictator of the revived Roman empire. In this treaty which is beneficial to Israel apparently, according to that dictator, instead of Judaism there will be an overt acceptance of ecumenical religion. When that happens an idol will be placed in the holy of holies in the temple, and this is the warning given by Daniel in 9:27; 11:31; 12:11. But here the Jews are growing in grace, they have heard Bible doctrine, they are learning many wonderful things, they are enjoying prosperity, and all of a sudden they are warned to move to their place of refuge because the wall of fire for the Jewish believers of the first half of the Tribulation is a geographical location — Edom, Moab, and Ammon.

Verses 16-20, “Then those same ones [Jewish believers positive toward doctrine] in Judea [the Tribulational State of Israel] flee to the mountains [high desert country]; let him who is on the roof not come down to pack needed things that are in his house; and let him who is in the field [people in business] not turn back to get his coat,” don’t go home to get anything; as soon as you hear, get out! “But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!” It is difficult to travel under those conditions, “Furthermore pray that your flight does not occur during inclement weather, or on the Sabbath day;” traffic problems.

So this is the signal to leave; those who remain will die. The believers who go in obedience to the Word of God, making the right application, the faith-rest drill, are going to make it. The negative believers are going to die. Here is a great lesson that ignorance is one of the greatest destroyers. Ignorance is self-destructive, not only in the Church Age but in the dispensation which follows the Rapture.

When mother stops, God takes over. That is the story of the Word of God. The mother is pregnant but there is not life in the womb. No mother ever created life; no mother and father ever produced life. They produce the basis by which the human race is perpetuated to fulfil the angelic conflict. Therefore, the concept that somehow pregnancy is glorified merely goes back to the fact that pregnancy is a part of the curse on the woman for her part in the fall. But what happens after that is extremely important because human life is the monopoly of God. Only God can create human life and only God has created human life. After the foetus has emerged from the womb that human life is imputed to the format soul of the foetus from the womb, so that God imputes life after birth. The mother’s job is over after birth as far as that person is concerned in relationship to what follows — human life. And the fact that God imputes human life to male and female after the foetus emerges from the womb becomes an extremely important principle of doctrine for it basically means that God has a purpose for every person who has ever existed.

Matthew 24:15, note how these believing Jews were able to escape to a place of refuge. “Let the doctrinal believer make application”. There comes a time in historical disaster when all the doctrine you have learned in historical prosperity must be applied to the situation; when the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ demands that you think clearly, think under pressure, therefore to possess courage, for courage is the ability to think under pressure, to make application from what you have learned. That is exactly what we have here, “Let the doctrinal believer make application.” During those three and a half years of the first part of the Tribulation many of the Jews are very positive to doctrine. They learned and they understood the eschatology which they had to apply when it became history. When eschatology becomes history only those believers who are positive toward doctrine and have done their homework are able to survive.

The passage we are studying is Revelation 12:6, and this is the first half of Matthew 24, but as we examine now the purpose clause which follows it will give us opportunity to go back to Matthew 24:21. But in Revelation 12:6, note the corrected translation as far as we have gone in our study, a translation which applies to a future time but has application to us now. God has a purpose for your life. If you have a personal sense of destiny from the perception of Bible doctrine then you will recognise God’s purpose for your life, you will have a personal sense of destiny, you will have control of your life, you will continue to make good decisions from a position of strength, and in time of historical disaster you will be magnificent, first in your thinking and then in your application. You will function automatically under the three stages of the faith-rest drill, you will constantly have in the front of your mind, as you do now, the essence of God rationale, the plan of God rationale, the logistical grace rationale, the imputation of God rationale. These four are the most basic rationales in the function of your spiritual life and without cognisance of them you cannot function effectively in time of historical disaster. And that isn’t all. Neither can you function effectively in time of historical prosperity. In time of historical prosperity you will lack capacity; in time of historical disaster you will fall apart, you will make the wrong decisions because you have no personal sense of destiny. Until you understand these rationales you aren’t even in a position to make major decisions in life. The same great blessings that God gives in prosperity He also gives in disaster to those who are prepared for it through daily perception of Bible doctrine.

Revelation 12:6, “And so the woman [true Israel, believing Jews who have been evangelised during the first half of the Tribulation] fled to the high desert country, where she has a place of refuge which has been prepared by God.”

“Prepared by God” applies to you today. God has a place of refuge for you. In time of prosperity your place of refuge is in the perception of Bible doctrine which gives to cognisance of God’s plan for the royal family, the modus operandi of the divine dynasphere. But God also has a plan for you in time of historical disaster; He has a place prepared for you.

Now we move in the middle of verse 6 to divine provision. We begin with the conjunction i(na which introduces the purpose clause. We translate it “that,” or “in order that.” With this we have the adverb of place, e)kei referring to a geographical location. With us it is not a specific geographical location in time of disaster. You are safe as a positive believer living inside of the divine dynasphere. Safety is not a geographical location in this dispensation; it will be in the future. Safety is your position in Christ and your residence and function inside the divine dynasphere. So this purpose shows us that in the future, in the Tribulation, there will be a geographical place of safety, i.e. for those who are Jewish believers in the first half of the Tribulation. In the second half the Jewish believers are going to be in a hot spot where they are going to fight and terminate the battle of Armageddon.

“that there they may sustain her [Israel],” the present active subjunctive of the verb trefw which means to nourish or to sustain. Trefw is used for a mother nourishing her child, but it comes to mean to sustain or to support. The progressive present tense is for an action in the state of persistence. The active voice: guardian angels produce the action of the verb in sustaining that area, cutting it off and isolating it from any Satanic attacks, either direct or through human activity. The subjunctive mood is a potential subjunctive, it implies a future reference and indicates that all believers will not be smart enough to know when to get up and move. The potential subjunctive is also qualified by the element of contingency: they must remain there in the place of refuge for the rest of the Tribulation in order to survive to the Millennium. Whether they remain or not is the subject of Matthew 24:21-27.

Matthew 24:21, “for at that time [moving now to the last half of the Tribulation] there will be great oppression such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world,” it will be the greatest holocaust of all time, a Jewish and Gentile holocaust but here we are dealing with Jews and therefore it applies to them, “until the present time, nor ever will occur.” In other words, this is the greatest human disaster in history.

Verse 22, “And unless those days [the last half of the Tribulation] had been cut short, no human life would have been delivered; but for the sake of the elected to privilege,” in every period of history, in every generation there is always the election to privilege that belongs to any believer. In this case the elected to privilege are Jews who have accepted Christ as saviour, who must be alive for the return of Christ at the second advent for the fulfilment of the unconditional covenants to Israel, for the perpetuation of the human race in the Millennium, “those days will be cut short.”

Verse 23, At that time they are going to be tested. You cannot make a decision, you cannot fulfil the highest function of the faith-rest drill, which is the application of a rationale, not a verse; and when you have control of your life, without having it challenged. Here is the challenge in the middle of verse 23: “Then if anyone shall say to you, ‘Here is Christ,’ or ‘There is he,’ do not believe that person.” Now you have taken a stand and you have to switch gears and refuse to believe what is false. In the application of the rationales avoid getting into some emotional activity, something that is false.

Verse 24, “For false Messiahs and false prophets will appear on the scene and will show great signs and miracles, to deceive, even the elected to privilege.” How do you avoid being deceived? By listening to people? No. You avoid it by applying Bible doctrine from your own frame of reference, your own right lobe. There is always someone standing around to counsel you. You must always choose between that person and what Bible doctrine in your right lobe says. The minute you start being counselled by legalistic Christians you have lost control of your life, you have no personal sense of destiny, and you will begin to make bad decisions from a position of weakness. “Do not believe,” it says at the end of verse 23. How do you avoid this sort of thing? The answer is found in the essence of God rationale, the plan of God rationale, the logistical grace rationale, and the imputation of God rationale. There is no substitute for these things. The whole point is that you must become spiritually self-sustaining before historical disaster, because you will never make it after historical disaster. You do the counselling you have learned and not from the false prophet.

Verse 25, “Behold, I have told you in advance.” Our Lord has said this to the disciples over and over again and Matthew remembered the words of our Lord, “I have taught you these things.” Underline two words: “in advance.” You learn in advance, you learn in time of prosperity for times of historical disaster.

We have with this in our passage, Revelation 12:6 — the accusative singular of a)utoj, “to sustain her [Israel],” the Jews who were smart enough to go to the place of security; but are they smart enough to stay?

Verse 26, “Consequently, if they shall say to you, ‘Behold, there he is out in the desert,’ do not go out of the refuge, or, ‘Behold, he is in one of the inner rooms,’ do not believe him.”

Verse 27, How will they know? “For just as lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be.”

The principle: Whenever there is a time of historical disaster for believers who have been positive toward doctrine it always clear exactly what they should do. They will have no problem in making the right decision from a position of strength: their perception and understanding of doctrine. No greater illustration could be used than lightning. One thing about lightning: if it is on the horizon you can always see it. If it is right up on you, you don’t see it but you do hear it. So you know when lightning is around; and, by the same token, when the true second advent occurs, when Messiah returns, these Jews will know it. It will be just as clear as lightning that you can see on the horizon. And just as lightning can be observed by all, so also the second advent. Everyone on earth will see Christ when He returns, according to Revelation 1:7. Lightning travels fast, with great speed, and so also the second advent will occur quickly, Revelation 22:7,12.

One other sign is given regarding the second advent, in Matthew 24:28, “Wherever there is a corpse, there the vultures will be gathered.” So if there is any doubt about it look out from the high desert country and look toward Jerusalem and you will see more vultures than you ever dreamed possible on this earth. The vultures will be gathered because of the tremendous destruction of the armies in the state of Israel during the last phase of the Armageddon campaign. From the high desert country the believing Jews who fled in the middle of the Tribulation will be able to see literally thousands, and perhaps even millions, of vultures feasting on the carrion of human bodies. In fact it will take seven months to bury the dead, according to Ezekiel. Those who are killed in Palestine during the last phase of the Armageddon campaign, their corpses will be strewn throughout the country. So obviously, then, it will be clear. They will know when it is time to come down. They will see more vultures than they have ever seen.

Revelation 12:6c, we have one more phrase: “one thousand, two hundred and sixty days.” That is the shortened last half of the Tribulation. It is listed by days under the principle that every believer must live every day at a time as unto the Lord. This time is 42 months or three and a half years, shortened up a little. This is the time of Satan’s desperation, the time which begins with the abomination of desolation in Jerusalem and goes to the second advent. Hence, this is the last half of the Tribulation and during this time Satan will launch the greatest attack in history against the Jews. The objective will be to wipe out all Jews prior to the second advent of Christ so that when Christ returns there will be no Jews to regather, there will be no Jews to receive the unconditional promises of the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic, and New covenants to Israel.

There are two applications of doctrine to those surviving this great holocaust. The application is to flee if you are saved in the first half of the Tribulation. Regenerate Jews must understand the eschatology of the abomination of desolation. Once they have arrived in the place of refuge they must apply the doctrinal principle we have noticed, which is of course, to stay there and not be deceived. The same doctrinal principle is found in Exodus 14:13,14 where Moses said to the people: “Do not fear! Stand fast and watch the deliverance of the Lord which he will accomplish for you today.” Moses was appealing to them to be able to think, to use the plan of God rationale which had been so clearly delineated prior to leaving Egypt. You have to be able to think under pressure, that is courage; thinking doctrine under pressure is courage. “The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.” They were all whining and complaining, typical of people under pressure when they become cowards and emote. They were to wait for orders, and they would get them. Once the Red Sea parted they would know exactly what to do. This means that they would depend at this point upon the leadership of Moses.

Mobs cannot think and people under the control of their emotion cannot think. They were just a stupid mob. They were bright people but you take Jews and mass them all together with their high IQs and they are just another stupid mob. Principle: The masses cannot think. When you join a mob you are just another stupid jackass! You can’t think in mobs. The mobs that cheered Pompey one day during his great triumphal procession, jeered him before he died. The mobs that cheered Caesar assassinated him later on. The mobs have never changed, and people don’t change; and when you join a group and start advocating something, you are no brighter than the dumbest person in that mob, and you have reduced your IQ to zero. So you have to avoid crusades; you have to avoid getting emotional and joining some mob for some alleged rights. Mobs cannot think. It is very easy to join the mob because the mob always comes up with propaganda. All the cults are designed for mob organisation; all the songs and all the slogans are designed for mobs.

So what did Moses tell them? What you have to understand when you face historical crisis, just as much as the Jews did when they came to the Red Sea and the armoured forces of Pharaoh behind them were closing in: “Stand fast! Watch the deliverance of the Lord which he will accomplish for you today… the Lord will fight for you, while you keep silent.”

What is the difference between a mob and a military organisation? The military organisation is silent, they wait for orders. Someone is in authority and gives orders. With the mob, someone stirs them up and runs them down the streets screaming. God would give the orders to Moses and he would relay them to the people.

This same principle applies to the place of refuge. These Jews are to stand fast for 1260 days, or three and a half years. They were to do nothing, they were to remain where they were. There God has provided for them a wall of fire, and there they are protected and not anywhere else. By listing this time in terms of days the obvious principle emerges: believers are to live one day at a time. Psalm 25:5 — “Guide me with your doctrine and train me, because you are the God of my deliverance. All day long I have confidence in you.”

Undoubtedly the Jewish refugees were offering the prayer of Psalm 90:12, “teach us to number our days [“correctly” is added in the Hebrew], that we may achieve a right lobe full of wisdom [the proper application of doctrine].”

Psalm 119:97, “How I love your doctrine! I think about it all day long.”

2 Corinthians 4:16, “Therefore we are not discouraged, for though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is renewed day by day.”

The provision of logistical grace is the sustaining factor for Jewish believers of the first half of the Tribulation, for outside of that refuge is going to the greatest holocaust of all time and for them they will know the truth, then, of Lamentations 3:20-25. Recall is the application of doctrine, and you need humility to apply doctrine just as you need humility to learn doctrine. There is no virtue in life without humility; there is no dynamics without it. “The Lord’s compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion [my provision],’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I have confidence in him.’ The Lord is good to those who trust in him, to the soul who seeks him”.

The counterpart for the royal family is found in Ephesians 5:14,15 — “Therefore, he communicates, ‘Wake up you sleeping ones [get out of the cosmic system], Get up from among the dead ones [the believer involved in cosmic two], And Christ will shine on you [life in the divine dynasphere].’ Therefore beware that you walk accurately [doctrine, thought], not as unwise ones [cosmic involvement], but as wise [believers living, residing, functioning, inside the divine dynasphere], constantly buying time [one day at a time], because the days are evil.”

Proverbs 3:16, “Length of days is in her [doctrine’s] right hand; and in her left hand are riches and honour.”

These are the principles that apply in time of historical disaster.

The motivation for the holocaust of the Tribulation has to do with Satan being expelled from heaven. In verse 7 we have warfare in heaven, the last campaign to ever be fought in heaven, and this is the only time that it will be of such as nature as to include the clash of soldier-type angels.

In the past we have noted the angelic order of battle. It begins with our Lord Jesus Christ who is the Commander-in-Chief of the army of elect angels, under the title of Adonai Sabaoth, translated generally, “the Lord of hosts.” The word “host” meant “army” two or three hundred years ago when the King James version was translated. So He is the Lord of the armies, His title as number one in the angelic order of battle. Number two in the order are the archangels or army commanders, and two of them are mentioned in the Bible, Michael and Gabriel. Two are mentioned in the book of Enoch, an extra-biblical source, Raphael and Uriel. Michael commands the army of angels who defend Israel. For this reason he has an additional title: he is called the prince of Israel in Daniel 10:21. In the past Michael fought with Satan over the body of Moses, according to 2 Peter 2:11 and Jude 9. Michael defends Israel in the Tribulation, according to several prophecies, Daniel 12:1; Revelation 12:7.

In Daniel 12:1 we read, “Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people [the Jews in every generation of human history], will arise. For there will be a time of great distress [the Tribulation] such as never occurred since there was a [client] nation,” since the time of Moses and the Exodus, “until that time [the Tribulation]; furthermore at that time your people [the Jews], everyone who is found written in the book [of life], will be rescued [by the second advent].”

Gabriel is not only an archangel or army commander but is an officer of arms in the angelic college of heralds. He is commissioned to explain to Daniel the vision of the ram and the he-goat in Daniel chapter eight. He was sent to Zecharias to announce the birth of John the Baptist.

Number three is the angelic general staff, studied before in Revelation chapters four and five in connection with leading in the worship in heaven. Number four is called Sabaoth, and this would be the rank and file of angelic creatures. It refers to the fact that there are a number of categories among elect angels in that particular group, including the guardian angels in Psalm 91:1ff; a river of fire battalion mentioned in Daniel 7:10; the angelic armies is described in Psalm 103:21, “Bless the Lord, all you angels who are in his armies, you who serve him doing his will”; Psalm 148:2, “Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his armies of angels!” And when a pur sui vant angel announced to the shepherds the birth of our Lord he was joined by a multitude of heavenly armies praising God, according to Luke 2:13. At the time of the birth of our Lord the entire elect angelic army of angels passed in review. We have ministering angels included in this group, according to Hebrews 1:14. It is quite an extensive group even though there are only four categories in the order of battle.

Revelation 12:7 begins with a connective conjunction kai, translated “and,” followed by the aorist middle indicative of the verb ginomai, “And there was.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety: warfare in heaven. Right now there are two categories of angels located in heaven: Satan and his special imperial guard plus all other categories of fallen angels; also a great many of the elect angels. Right now there is a sort of an armed truce in heaven but it will break out into open war when God gives permission. That occurs in the middle of the Tribulation. In the meantime Michael is itching to get his hands on Satan, being most anxious to prove that he is as tough as Satan. The middle voice: this is a deponent verb which is, of course, middle in form, active in meaning. The warfare produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the last battle in heaven. This battle in heaven, by the way, precedes the Armageddon campaign which breaks out shortly thereafter on earth. Reason: Satan is confined to the earth. Today Satan is not confined in any sense of the word.

The next word is a predicate nominative which goes with ginomai, the word polemoj in the Greek which is very rarely used as “war”; it is used generally for a battle or for a campaign. Here it appears to be more of a battle than anything else. This translation is used in contrast to the angelic conflict in heaven which has been going on for millions of years and during all of human history. So polemoj means that this is an actual armed conflict between elect angels and fallen angels. The area for the battlefield is given in the prepositional phrase e)n plus the locative of o)uranoj, “in heaven.” Translation so far: “And there was a battle in heaven.” The conflict finally breaks out but God holds it in check until the middle of the Tribulation. One of the most important things about making staff decisions is timing. It is always better to choose your own battlefield and your own time. In that way the person who has control, who actually makes the choice of battlefield and timing, inevitably wins the battle and the campaign; and of he does it often enough wins the war.

One of the greatest blessings in life is to have good timing. There is a right time to do a right thing. You can do a right thing at the wrong time and it is still wrong; you can do a right thing at the right time and it is right. It is arrogance that motivates a believer to do a right thing at the wrong time. For example, to try to straighten someone out when it is none of your business. You may be right but in trying to do it you are wrong. God’s timing is perfect. If God straightened out the person it would be the right time; when you try to straighten out someone it is the wrong time.

We see now the antagonists. First of all, on the Lord’s side we begin with the army commander. This would be Michael and his army of angels “fought against,” the aorist active infinitive of polemew which means to fight a battle. The culminative aorist tense views the angelic battle in heaven in its entirety but it regards it from the viewpoint of existing angels. Michael and his elect angels won the battle. In the Greek you generally have the winner mentioned first. Satan and his demon assault army were driven out of heaven and confined to planet earth. The active voice: Michael and the army of elect angels produce the action. The infinitive of actual result. This is the way it will happen in the middle of the Tribulation.

We have a prepositional phrase to show the antagonists with the protagonists, meta plus the genitive of drakwn. Meta generally means “with,” but it is translated correctly here “against.” Then we have the dragon, who is Satan of course, and his army mentioned. We have a dual subject: drakwn is a part of the nominative: “the dragon and his angels fought back.” We have the aorist active indicative again of polemew. Altogether it simply says: “Now there was a battle in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon [Satan]; furthermore the dragon and his fallen angels fought back.”

Note that the initiative belongs to God. Because God has control of the timing the initiative belongs to Him. From the word order it is concluded that the attack was initiated by Michael and his elect angels. At present and during to course of human history up to the middle of the Tribulation Michael is restrained from either verbal or military attack against Satan. Michael is the greatest illustration of leadership in the angelic realm because of his tremendous self-restraint. The man who controls great armies must first of all control himself. Michael is the perfect illustration of this principle. You cannot control others if you do not have control of yourself.

In Jude 9 we read: “But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said to him, ‘The Lord rebuke you’.”

In other words, this is restraint. Michael would love to tear into Satan. Even though Satan was created greater and stronger than Michael, Michael is now greater than Satan. He is in that new order of seraphs.

Principle: Even people who deserve to be slandered are not to be slandered. That is the principle of casting all your cares upon Him; that is the principle of putting it in the Lord’s hands; and that is the basis for avoiding that piece of arrogance called crusader arrogance. Even people who are wrong, even people who are evil, are not to be slandered. Why? When you slander someone else you are blaspheming God. You are saying that God is not in control.

Verse 8, the outcome of the battle, the victory of the elect angels: “And [they] prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.” This is merely the continuation of the last half of verse seven moving into verse eight. We have the connective conjunction kai again, followed by the aorist active indicative of i)sxuw which means to overcome, plus the negative o)uk, “they did not succeed.” They did not have the power; they did not win. And with the idiom we have a conjunction kai emphasising a noteworthy fact, therefore translated “nevertheless,” “nevertheless they did not win.” The aorist tense of i)sxuw is the culminative aorist, it contemplates the defeat of Satan and fallen angels in its entirety. We don’t know how long the battle lasted; it took place right in the middle of the Tribulation; but this passage emphasises its existing results in the culminative aorist. Satan is cast out of heaven, his army is driven out of heaven and confined to the earth, resulting in the greatest wave of anti-Semitism the world will ever know. The active voice: Satan produces the negative action of not being able to overcome Michael, while the suffix, a third person singular, includes the third demon assault army as well. The indicative mood is declarative for the historical reality of what we might call the eschatological reality of a future event that happens in the middle of the Tribulation.

When Michael is finally permitted to launch his attack against the fallen angels with his angelic order of battle, he succeeds completely. He is prepared for that day.

Principle: Whether angels or human beings God uses prepared people, prepared creatures. The preparation is the perception of Bible doctrine plus its application within the framework of motivational and functional virtue. You are never prepared, nor can you be prepared as a believer living in the cosmic system. You can only be prepared by living consistently in the divine dynasphere, utilising every provision to live and to function there at gate four, getting the momentum that will take you to gate eight. There is where prepared people live. Our usefulness to God does not depend upon our zeal, i.e. like the people who are going to run out and “do great things for God.” Zeal is no substitute for being prepared.

One thing about Michael: he will have the greatest hour of any army commander in the history of the universe, and it will represent every category necessary for preparation, his leadership ability, his self-restraint, his total rejection of any form of arrogance, his ability to be patient and to maintain a high level of motivation and performance in that great angelic army that he commands. This is a reminder for all of us that there is no substitute for being prepared — which has nothing to do with zeal. You have to be able to think doctrine if you are going to be prepared. When Michael is prepared he is given a command, and he is ready. God uses prepared people, but remember: he wins under God’s orders; he never gets out from under God’s authority. No one is ever great who gets out from under authority; it destroys greatness.

Resuming in verse 8, the negative conjunction o)udh is translated “neither.” With it we have a temporal adverb e)ti, meaning “no longer.” We translate it “in fact a place was no longer found.” The word “place” is the nominative singular from topoj. This is a place in heaven. Then the aorist passive indicative of the verb e(uriskw, “found.” The culminative aorist tense contemplates the vacancy in heaven in its entirety. It emphasises it from the viewpoint of the existing results. Satan was not only thrown out of heaven but so were all fallen angels, and they are now confined to planet earth. The passive voice: the place receives the action of the verb — negative place, “no place found.” This is a part of the idiom of Satan’s excommunication from heaven. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of Satan’s permanent expulsion from heaven.

With this we have the objective genitive plural from the intensive pronoun a)utoj which is rarely ever used as an intensive pronoun. Instead, it is used as a personal pronoun, third person plural, referring to both Satan and his entire army of fallen angels. It is translated “for them,” both Satan and the third demon assault army. Then the prepositional phrase en plus the locative of o)uranoj, “in heaven.”

“Nevertheless he [Satan] did not win the battle of heaven; in fact a place was no longer found for them in heaven.”

Until this time, and during the entire course of human history, Satan has lived in heaven. So has his special imperial guard, the ones that lost the battle and went out with him. Though he was the ruler of this world Satan always lived in heaven. He wanted to take over heaven; he was never able to take over heaven though he always tried. That access is denied for the fist and only time in the middle of the Tribulation, which means that for the entire course of human history Satan has lived in heaven and merely comes to the earth at times in the ruling of his kingdom. This begins, of course, the eschatology of the devil’s desperation which is covered in detail in Revelation chapters 12-19. One of the functions of Satan in heaven today is to slander and malign believers. Our advocate is the Lord Jesus Christ who defends us in heaven.

The eschatology of the devil’s desperation

By definition the devil’s desperation begins at this moment when he is expelled in heaven. This will be in the middle of the Tribulation. We will be in heaven. Once Satan is confined to earth he is desperate to avoid certain judgements. He realises that he has lost the battle and therefore in his desperation Satan attacks Israel in the greatest of all holocausts which is the seventh trumpet and the beginning of the third woe. The third woe is actually the entire course of the devil’s desperation. It is broken down into six parts:

Part 1, the beginning of Satan’s desperation, the great holocaust of Israel, the seventh trumpet which is the beginning of the third woe, Revelation 12:12-17.

Part 2, we meet the devil’s two witnesses, the two great dictators of the last half of the Tribulation. One is a Gentile dictator of the revived Roman empire; the other is a Jewish dictator of the state of Israel in the Tribulation. We meet them in Revelation 13.

Part 3, evangelism continues on the earth in spite of the fact that all of the demons are on the earth, both those who are disembodied spirits and those who have bodies, and it is the worst time of tribulation the world will ever know — Revelation 14.

Part 4, Revelation 15 & 16. While Satan is still ruler of the world in the last half of the Tribulation, and now confined to the world, his kingdom has become his temporary jail, divine judgment is administered through the seven last plagues or the seven goblet judgements.

Part 5, Satan’s last attack on the human race. The devil finally plays his ace trump just before the second advent. Religion has always been the devil’s ace trump and in the last half of the Tribulation he has organised the greatest system of ecumenical religion the world has ever known — Revelation chapters 17 & 18.

Part 6, The second advent of Christ where Satan and his whole system, both angelic and human, is defeated and destroyed. Satan is imprisoned for 1000 years.

Satan’s tyranny and frustration will be seen in the policies of his dictators in Revelation. The consequences of Satan’s desperation will be studied in the Armageddon campaign — Revelation chapter 16:12-16. The greatest attack of Satan’s desperation coming from religion will hit the entire human race, but especially Israel, the last half of chapter 13 as well as chapters 17 & 18. Satan’s human armies of the Armageddon campaign are destroyed; Satan’s two dictators are cast into the lake of fire; and in Revelation 20:1-3 Satan himself is dethroned and incarcerated in the abyss for 1000 years, his last 1000 before he is freed for a short time. His sentence was served in full during the Millennium and once he is let out the first thing he does is start the big revolution called the Gog revolution. From that point on it is all down hill into hell and the lake of fire forever.

Therefore, the eschatology of Satan’s desperation begins with the expulsion of Satan and all fallen angels from heaven in the middle of the Tribulation and concludes with the second advent of Christ three and a half years later. Essentially then, it is the last three and a half years of the Tribulation and the last half of the book of Revelation which is devoted primarily to the devil’s desperation — chapters 12-19.

Verse 9, the result of the victory and the beginning of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation begins. We begin, as usual, with kai , the sequential conjunction translated “Then.” The conjunction gives the final results of the battle of heaven mentioned briefly in verses 7 & 8. The subject is composed of several words: the nominative singular from the adjective megaj and the noun drakwn. “And the great dragon,” “was thrown out,” the aorist passive indicative of the verb ballw. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. Once Michael is permitted to go into action it is no problem at all. It is a very short battle; Satan doesn’t have a chance. The only reason Satan can flex his muscles today is simply because God permits it as part of the angelic conflict and part of the options we as members of the human race, and specifically born-again believers, exercise in relationship to the flexing of Satan’s muscles. The passive voice: Satan receives the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of cleansing heaven of all fallen angels led by Satan himself. “Then the great dragon was thrown out of heaven.”

As a result of the victory of the battle of heaven Satan and all fallen angels were thrown out, and it indicates they were thrown out with ease. For the first time since the angelic conflict began in eternity past heaven was cleansed of all fallen angels. That is not true today, it has never been true both in the prehistoric angelic conflict and in the human history phase of the angelic conflict. This can be classified, then, as the second fall of Satan.

We are studying the phrase in verse 9 where the great dragon was thrown out of heaven. The first fall of Satan occurred in prehistoric times and was the first revolution of any creature, the prehistoric fall which actually began the angelic conflict.

Isaiah 14:13,14, the principle of this fall: “But you said in your right lobe [thought], ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God [angelic creatures], and I will sit enthroned on the mount of the assembly in the uttermost extremity of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds [angelic masses]; I will make myself like the Most High [God]’.”

Ezekiel 28:12-18 notes that same fall of Satan: “You had the seal of perfection,” he was absolutely perfect as a creature from the hand of God, “full of wisdom and perfect beauty.” He was smart enough to know that he was the most beautiful creature that ever came along and he was handsome enough as a creature to try to use his brains, his genius to his own advantage. If there is anything that destroys talent, beauty, brains, anything that can be considered worthwhile, it is arrogance. First there is the thought of arrogance and then there is the action of arrogance or the decision of arrogance. With Satan, first he thought it, then he decided it, and then he did it. He led the first great revolt in the prehistoric angelic conflict.

Verse 13, “You were in Eden, the garden of God,” he was also in perfect environment. The original sin of angelic creatures was like the original sin of human creatures, it occurred as a decision in perfect environment. Adam was perfect in beauty and in brains just as Satan was, and the environment was perfect. So immediately we know that there are three things that you can do without as far as happiness in life is concerned: a. To be a genius mentally; b. Physical beauty in some form; c. Perfect or improved environment. And yet it is interesting that people associate happiness with these three things although they are the least important things in life as far as happiness is concerned. These three factors do not bring happiness to the one who has them. Happiness is a state of mind, the capacity of one’s soul. It is the absence of arrogance and vanity, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability. Happiness is something that all members of the human race are born without. We are not born happy, even as we are not born free [we were born helpless]. Happiness is not the beauty you acquire from birth, or the lack of it, the brains, IQ or lack of it, it isn’t the environment. Those things do not make happiness. Happiness is acquired with or without these things by the amount of truth that goes into the human soul. That is the way it was with the angels.

Satan was created an adult with perfect beauty, with the greatest genius of any creature, and with perfect environment. He did not have to acquire these things, he had them from the start of his life. He was the sum total of perfection. So he made a decision. He wanted something more, God’s power. And so a new factor comes in: arrogance promotes ambition [inordinate ambition]. The lust for power has its roots in arrogance. It is much more than simply having the ability to manipulate people. The arrogance part that starts it all says, “Look at me.” It is self-preoccupation, a desire for recognition.

What is the most unstable type of life on the earth today? People when they get together in a mass. When they start striking; when they start this or that type of march; everyone is reduced to the lowest common denominator, the dumbest person in a crowd of a thousand parading or marching for some cause. Whoever the dumbest is everyone has reduced himself to that point. Why do they do it? Because as an individual they can’t attain anything so they get into a group where they think they can attain it; they are recognised in a group. But masses are the most unstable thing in the world. By comparison a den of wolves is much more stable. There is nothing more disgusting than a mass of people pulled together by their arrogance and their lust, looking for something to make them important for they associate being important with happiness. Mobs have lost their individuality, they are no longer making decisions from their soul, from the truth that they have. They are slaves to a demagogue. Mobs or masses have no control over their lives. There is no cause in the world that is worth joining a mob going somewhere to be stupid. That’s activism. Far more dangerous than nuclear weapons are mobs.

All of this started with the first fall of Satan.

Verse 15, “You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you.” The first sinner of all creatures was Satan. He had everything to make him happy but he lusted for power.

Verse 17, “Your right lobe was lifted up [arrogance] because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your glamour.

Verse 18, “By the multitude of your iniquities in dishonest transactions [conspiracy], you have desecrated your sanctuaries.”

That was the first fall of Satan and that is why man was created: to resolve the angelic conflict. That is why we have one thing in common with the angels, the various parts of the soul.

The second fall of Satan comes in the middle of the Tribulation when Satan is cast out of heaven, the beginning of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation. That is found in Isaiah 14:12; Ezekiel 28:16; Luke 10:18; Revelation 12:7-9.

The third fall of Satan is at the end of the Tribulation. Once Satan is confined to earth he has passed the peak of his power. His power is limited because he is confined to earth in the last half of the Tribulation, but he is still the ruler of this world. But when the second advent of Christ occurs he loses his power completely. Isaiah 14:15 says, “Nevertheless you will be cast down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit [the abyss].” Revelation 20:1-3 gives us that fall in detail.

The eschatology of the devil’s desperation is coterminous with the second and third falls of Satan. It is the last three and a half years of the Tribulation. Satan resides in heaven from the time of his first fall in the angelic conflict and he continues to reside in heaven until the middle of the Tribulation. The devil’s desperation is a system of eschatology that cannot become history until Satan is cast out of heaven and can no longer have access to that place. The eschatology of the devil’s desperation is the period of maximum creature power pitted against the omnipotence of God. Its termination demonstrates the doctrine that the creature can challenge the creator because he has the volition, but he can never win. When you are involved in a battle you cannot win you can never be happy. Born again believers as well as unbelievers in the cosmic system are challenging the creator, the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why in Philippians chapter three certain believers are called the enemies of the cross. The creature who challenges the creator is a loser and losers are never happy. There is no excuse, of course, for a believer being a loser. Any believer who gets in the cosmic system makes bad decisions from a position of weakness, loses control of his life, has no personal sense of destiny, and is a loser. No greater tragedy exists in this life than to use human volition to side with creatures, and Satan, against the creator. This is siding with two categories of creatures: fallen angels and people living in the cosmic system, believers and unbelievers. Human history is the account of man’s volition deciding for either creature power or the divine power of the Lord Jesus Christ. And since creature power has lost, and always will, all creature power is related to what is false and what is deceptive. So it is always false, deceptive and minus virtue. But creator power, the creator being our Lord Jesus Christ, is always true [Bible doctrine], always gives the person involved integrity, and instead of deceit the development of a winner. So man’s volition only has power as it identifies with creator power rather than creature power. The power man possesses is no greater than the power with which he identifies. You can join the masses and mobs who are seeking glory, seeking happiness, seeking power, seeking recognition, or you can remain an individual and identify with the creator power, the system which God has provided in this dispensation, the divine dynasphere. Nothing is more important than identifying with the power of God, and this begins with the decision to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the rest of verse 9 we have the identity of the dragon. We have some nominatives of appellation. The first of these is o)fij, an onomatopoetic word born by imitating the natural sound of the snake. With this we have the adjective a)rxaioj, translated “ancient,” “the ancient serpent.” The serpent was the most beautiful of all lower creation and therefore was the pet in the garden. Before the serpent crawled it walked, and when the serpent walked it was the most beautiful of all creatures. The serpent of the present time is one of the most repulsive; it is not the serpent of the garden. These nominatives are in apposition to drakwn and so we translate, “the great dragon, the ancient serpent,” Genesis 3:1.

We have an articular present active participle which follows, kalew, “who is called.” The definite article is used as a relative pronoun translated “who.” The present tense is a perfective present referring to a fact of nomenclature which has come to be in the past but is emphasised as a present reality. The passive voice: the dragon or drakwn receives the action of the verb, a circumstantial participle used to introduce a nominative of appellation. He is no called by the appellative diaboloj meaning slanderer, accuser. It is derived from the Greek word diaballw which means to slander. He is the maligner, the accuser, the slanderer. That is what devil means. The word diaboloj translated “devil” in English is synonymous is kathgor which means accuser. Devil means slanderer, gossiper, accuser. When it says in the next phrase, he is “called the devil,” this means he is the accuser, the slanderer of the brethren. We will see this in verse 10 where he is said to accuse believers.

Believers continue to sin after salvation, 1 John 1:8,10. Satan accumulates a sin file on every believer, taking cognisance of the activities of any and every believer in cosmic one and in cosmic two. The longer one stays, the bigger the file! Then Satan goes into the presence of the Father in heaven and slanders and accuses the believer. But every believer has a defence attorney in heaven, Jesus Christ, who defends our case when Satan brings accusation into the court of heaven — 1 John 2:1. The basis of our Lord’s defence is the fact that these sins which Satan mentions in heaven were judged on the cross, according to 2 Corinthians 5:21. All personal sins in history were imputed to Christ on the cross and judged. Therefore when Satan accuses the believer in heaven the case is always thrown out of court. After this the sins of the believer become a family matter for the administration of discipline.

The final nominative of appellation is the word Satanaj, “Satan” which is taken from Aramaic. Satan is the enemy of God, he is the enemy of the believer, he is the enemy of Israel. God has logistically provided for every attack of the devil.

Satan

1. Satan was the highest of all angelic creatures before the fall. He was the anointed cherub.

2. But Satan is now lower than a new order that was created as a result of the angelic prehistoric conflict, the order of the seraph. The cherub only has four wings; the seraph has six wings. The fact that Satan commands all fallen angels is taught in Matthew 8:28; 9:34; 12:26; Luke 11:18,19. Satan is the ruler of this world — Luke 4:5-7; John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2.

3. As the prehistoric super creature Satan had three falls.

4. As far as human history is concerned Satan has two advents. He entered the garden of Eden to tempt the woman, Genesis chapter 3; he also returns to the earth a second time at the end of the Millennium and in a conspiracy starts the last revolution of history, the Gog revolution.

5. The devil is the central antagonist of the angelic conflict in human history, Hebrews 1 & 2.

6. Satan has an organisation to defeat mankind — Ephesians 6:10-12. Since Satan means “enemy” he is the enemy of the Church, Revelation 2; he is the enemy of doctrine, Matthew 13:9; he is the original murderer of the human race, John 8:44; he is the enemy of Israel, Revelation 12:13; he is the enemy of Christ, Revelation 12:4.

7. The devil has strategy to control nations, Revelation 12:9; 20:3; he has strategy to control the human race. In the development of the cosmic system he has found the perfect way of doing it, 2 Corinthians 2:11, we are not ignorant because we have a detailed profile of him in the Word of God.

Moving on in verse 9 to the verb of deception, we have the articular present active participle of the verb planaw, translated to “deceive.” We translate it as a relative clause because the definite article is used as a relative pronoun, translated “who,” “who deceives.” This is a progressive present tense, it denotes action in the state of persistence, therefore present linear aktionsart. The active voice: Satan produces the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial and it is a reminder to us that no matter how bright or smart you are, no matter how much doctrine you have learned, Satan is smarter than any of us as a creature. Only residence in the divine dynasphere, persistence in the perception of doctrine is going to protect us from this type of deception.

With this we have the accusative singular direct object composed of two words. First of all an adjective, o(loj, which means entire. O(loj refers, in this case, to the entire human race. With this we have a noun meaning the world in the sense of all of its inhabitants, o)ikoumenh. In the time of the Roman empire o)ikoumenh referred to people living on the earth. In fact it was often used for the inhabitants of the Roman empire and as such it refers to mankind in general. It is translated “the entire inhabited earth” but it is referring to mankind on earth.

In the middle of the Tribulation Satan and the fallen angels are cast down to the earth, as we have noted in the great war in heaven. Again, it is repeated under the aorist passive indicative of the verb ballw. With all of his tremendous ability he cannot challenge the power of the creator and so he was hurled down. Furthermore, he was hurled down by his contemporaries, Michael and his army. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, the eschatology of the devil’s desperation which is the last half of the Tribulation. The passive voice: Satan receives the action of the verb after having access to heaven during the entire period of the prehistoric angelic conflict.

Our of this verb and the passive voice comes a concept which has to do with us. What are our abilities? What are our achievements? What makes us great or better than our peers, or better than others? What is the thinking in our soul whereby we can say that we have success and others do not, whereby we regard ourselves to be above others, superior to others, better than others? Whatever it is, whatever the system of competition, if it is inordinate competition it is in cosmic one and is the basis for weakness. Being in cosmic one is preoccupation with self; being in cosmic two is antagonism toward truth; and the thing that we have to remember is that no matter how great we are or how strong we are, no matter what abilities or what achievements we have in life there is always someone better. If our happiness is based on being better than anyone else in a certain sphere, in a certain activity, it is a concept totally detrimental to Christianity. We have to recognise that no matter how good we are or how great we are someone is always better, and the fact that they are better doesn’t make them happy and it certainly doesn’t make us happy. The point is: none of us are actually strong no matter what talent or achievement we have. Therefore we must find a power greater than ourselves. That power can be found in one of two ways: through truth; what we think is the important factor, the motivation in life, the greatness; or through a system of arrogance and inordinate ambition, a system of recognition and praise, of striving and competing, and this of course is the cosmic system. All believers after salvation make this decision: basically to go with the truth (Bible doctrine), or basically they make a decision to go with the cosmic system. It is the cosmic system, of course, that is so destructive: where believers have such a miserable time on this earth, and where they lose out.

Satan was hurled down to the earth, so all of his achievement ends in being hurled to the earth. The preposition e)ij plus the noun gh, “to the earth.” In the meantime Satan, the greatest achiever of all time, is very unhappy; he is the most miserable creature in the universe and he continues to evangelise through misery. Note that he took all of his crowd with him, “and his angels [fallen angels],” the nominative plural subject a)ggeloj plus the intensive pronoun a)utoj. This is the beginning of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation. Satan only has a short time before the second advent, three and a half years. Once the second advent occurs, however, both Satan and all of the fallen angels are going to be incarcerated. Satan will be imprisoned in the abyss for 1000 years — Revelation 20:1-3. Then he will be given his freedom for a short time and he will start a conspiracy on earth, the Gog revolution, and again he will be cast into the lake of fire. The fallen angels will be thrown directly into the lake of fire at the second advent, according to Matthew 25:41. This is what we call the baptism of fire.

Translation of verse 9: “Then the great dragon, the ancient serpent who is called the Devil, and Satan, who keeps on deceiving the entire world, was thrown out of heaven: he was hurled to the earth; furthermore, his angels were thrown out with him.”

Verse 10, a proclamation of victory. We begin with the sequential conjunction kai, translated “then,” and the aorist active indicative of the verb a)kouw which means to hear, to listen: and it means that the one who is listening or hearing is teachable; in fact, one of the most teachable of all persons in the history of the Church, the apostle John himself whose humility made it possible for him to master a tremendous amount of information. He was always teachable, he had no problem of arrogance.

The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. In order to learn you have to listen; you can’t talk and learn at the same time. The active voice: John as the human author of Revelation produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality. He not only listened but he listened and learned.

The accusative singular direct object is from two words: the adjective megaj which ordinarily means “great” but here means “loud”; and then the word fwnh, “voice.” With this the prepositional phrase to tell us the place from which the loud voice originated, e)n plus the locative of o)uranoj. “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven.” The present active participle which follows is simply translated “which said.” It is the participle of the verb legw, the verb that is built upon the noun logoj which means word, doctrine, principle, and many other things. This is the basic verb of communication. The descriptive present tense is for that which is now going on in the narrative. The active voice: while the author of the loud voice is not identified it seems to belong to the highest of all angels in the college of heralds. He is an officer therefore of seraph rank. This is a proclamation dealing with the defeat of Satan, an angel, therefore it belongs to the realm of angelic heraldry.

The interesting thing is that we can learn something from the one who made the proclamation. As the king of arms he has now been promoted to a rank which did not exist when the angelic conflict began. The highest-ranking angel prior to the angelic conflict in prehistoric times was Satan the anointed cherub. A seraph is an angel who was lower than Satan when the angelic conflict began but he was a plugger who hung in in faithfulness to the Word and to truth; and eventually, because of truth, he became a winner and now is ranking superior to Satan for all eternity. The message we receive from him: It pays to be a plugger; it pays to stay with truth; it pays to stay with Bible doctrine.

Next we have the announcement of the second advent and this is a victorious proclamation, but it is not the announcement of the greatest of all victories because the greatest occurred at the first advent. So we have to learn to distinguish between strategic and tactical victory.

Strategy is the military science of everything that is involved in troops up to the point of the battlefield. It has to do with logistics, mobilisation plans, organisation, order of battle, how troops move in logistics to a point of concentration. Once they reach a point of concentration and a battle ensues the movement on the battlefield is called tactics.

In strategy our Lord Jesus Christ broke Satan’s back by the first advent. His strategic manoeuvre was to become true humanity and the God-Man. As the God-Man Jesus Christ came into the world and received human life: the doctrine of the hypostatic union. The reason for all of this is because when we come into the world human life is imputed to our soul after birth. Adam’s original sin is imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature, and that means that all personal sins are never imputed to us for judgment. The wages of sin is death and we are spiritually dead at birth because Adam’s sin is imputed. Our personal sins are never imputed to us for judgment, instead they were reserved for our Lord Jesus Christ and were imputed to Him for judgment on the cross. When our Lord came into the world through the virgin birth, inside the prototype divine dynasphere, in His humanity He continued to live a perfect life though He was tempted far beyond anything we have ever known. When He went to the cross His humanity alone could be judged for sin — as God He could have nothing to do with sin — and therefore He was judged on the cross. When that judgment was completed He said, Tetelestai, “if is finished,” and when He said those words Satan had been strategically defeated. That was the strategic victory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The strategic victory, however, was not completed until He died physically. His death on the cross bearing our sins is spiritual death. It was followed by spiritual death: Christ died twice on the cross. He was three days in the grave followed by resurrection and ascension, and when He was told by God the Father to “Sit down at my right hand until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet,” he was speaking to the humanity of Christ. Jesus Christ as God does not sit; Jesus Christ as true humanity does, and that is when He received that great third royal title, the one which called for the Church Age. There was no royal family to go with that title; we are the royal family. The Church Age was inserted into history at that point and the royal family is being formed at this time. The reason the royal family is being formed at this time and not some other time is because our Lord Jesus Christ did not receive this royal title until after the ascension, and the moment that He sat down the strategic victory was completed. This was a strategic victory.

Now there is still a tactical victory, and that comes in three parts: the first part is anyone, any member of the royal family, who during the Church Age lives inside of that same divine dynasphere, God’s plan for the royal family in this dispensation. After the Rapture of the Church there is the Tribulation, and in the Tribulation there is also a way of life which goes back to the spiritual life of the Old Testament believers: the three stages of the faith-rest drill. And there is individual tactical victory for anyone who resides and functions, and has momentum, inside the divine dynasphere, achieving gate eight. But the tactical victory culminates when our Lord returns to the earth at the second advent. At that point Satan is overthrown as the ruler of this world and we have 1000 years of perfect environment on the earth. That is all part of the tactical victory. The tactical victory, then, begins at the Church Age and goes all of the way through to the Millennium.

So we have the announcement now of the tactical victory. We begin with the adverb of the present in general which is called a)rti, and it means “now,” referring to the present in general terms. With this we have the nominative singular subject from the word swthria. Sometimes it means salvation in a personal sense of redemption but more often than not, as here, it simply refers to deliverance and that is the correct translation here. “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven which said, Now deliverance.” The second advent is a time of deliverance for those believers who are winners in the Tribulation. The winners generally survive, a few of them are used as martyrs to demonstrate the power of doctrine, but the second advent is the time of their deliverance; they survive the last half of the Tribulation.

The first advent was swthria, i.e. salvation in terms of the cross, Jesus Christ taking our place, but the second advent is physical deliverance, and therefore the corrected translation: “Now the deliverance.” The deliverance refers to the second advent of Christ, His deliverance from violence, tyranny, religion, persecution, warfare, anti-Semitism, the demon assault army, deliverance therefore from demons who are disembodied spirits and demons who have bodies, deliverance from the cruelty of unbelievers, and the terrible cruelty of born-again believers who live in the cosmic system. So the deliverance is very meaningful.

Next comes the aorist middle indicative of the verb ginomai. Ginomai has two connotations. It means to become something you were not before (when speaking of an individual); also it has to do with something that appears on the scene in the sequence of history. In the sequence of history in the future the second advent is said to come. “Now the deliverance [the second advent] has come.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the period extended over a period of time. It recognises, for example, the succession of events leading up to the second advent, and with the adverb a)rti it refers to the events of the last half of the Tribulation. The middle voice: this is a deponent verb, middle in form, active in meaning. The deliverance produces the action of the verb. This is, of course, an announcement of victory, therefore an announcement of proclamation for winners. The indicative mood is declarative viewing the action of the verb from the viewpoint of reality.

Then we have the adjunctive use of kai, translated “also,” and an appositional nominative from the noun dunamij, “power,” a reference to Christ as God, therefore His omnipotence. It is also a reference to the true humanity of Christ in hypostatic union, therefore Christ in the prototype divine dynasphere. Jesus Christ returns to the earth in His hypostatic union. That is the concept of this part of the proclamation. Jesus Christ returns in the power of His hypostatic union which includes His omnipotence as deity and His impeccability as resurrected humanity.

With this we have the conjunction kai translated “even,” and then the nominative of exclamation from the noun basileia and it refers to the Millennial kingdom. It is a reference to the Father’s plan for the last 1000 years of history. God the Father plans for Jesus Christ to rule the world, beginning at the second advent. Satan is superseded and put into prison for 1000 years. That is the time of perfect environment on the earth. This kingdom is characterised by perfect environment: no warfare for 1000 years, very little crime and the criminals executed — the only occasion of death in the Millennium, and the lion and the lamb will lie down side by side.

This kingdom belongs to God, the descriptive genitive of qeoj, “the kingdom of God.” Furthermore, to understand that John is a believer we have the possessive genitive plural from the personal pronoun e)gw, and it is correctly translated “our God.” We have a personal relationship with God forever, and while the Millennium is still human history and is a thousand years in length it is not eternity. In the Millennium those who are winners in the Church Age are going to rule something.

Then we have a connective conjunction kai translated “and,” then a nominative of exclamation, e)cousia which generally means authority. It has a secondary meaning of power but the ordinary word for power is dunamij. This word really means authority. Of course, with authority goes power; that is how the Greek derives its secondary meaning. “And the authority.” But whose authority? The possessive genitive from the noun Xristoj, the authority of Christ. And we have again the possessive genitive of the intensive pronoun a)utoj used as a personal pronoun for God the Father, “and the authority of his Christ.”

Translation of verse 10 so far: “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven which said, Now the deliverance [second advent] has come, also the power [Jesus Christ in hypostatic union], even the kingdom of our God [God the Father’s plan for the Millennium], and the authority of his Christ.” Christ has authority under the plan of God the Father to rule the earth for the last dispensation of history, a dispensation lasting 1000 years. With this authority Christ’s rule will provide perfect environment so that human history will terminate as it began. Human history began with our original parents in the garden, Adam and the woman, living under perfect environment for an unknown length of time. History began with perfect environment; history will terminate with perfect environment.

In the first period of perfect environment, operation Eden, the woman was deceived and determined to destroy it. The man took his cue from the woman and did likewise. So we have man rejecting perfect environment. In the last dispensation of human history, the Millennium, there will again be perfect environment. At the end of that time Satan is released and he is going to find malcontents under perfect environment. Why? There are no solutions, temporal or eternal to man’s problems apart from salvation through faith in Christ. Perfect environment is not a solution but a status to be enjoyed by believers who have maximum doctrine resident in the soul. Without capacity for life, for happiness, perfect environment is meaningless. Environment is neither the cause of happiness nor the cause of failure. People do not fail because they come up in poor environment. People like to blame their failures on their environment and, of course, people think that good environment is a way of happiness; but environment is neither the cause of happiness nor the cause of failure. Man must use his volition to make right decisions in both adversity and in prosperity. Man’s volition continues to resolve the angelic conflict even in the perfect environment of the Millennium. The perfect environment of the Millennium requires two important facets: the perfect planning of God the Father and the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ — authority becomes a major issue.

We are responsible for our own decisions in life and with that responsibility we have the concept of authority. We are in effect, through our own volition, the authority over our lives and good decisions mean that we will have control of our lives and a personal sense of destiny. Bad decisions, of course, imply that we will lose control of our lives and have no personal sense of destiny. The difference in decisions is the difference of whether we execute God’s plan for our lives or not. It is also the difference between blessing and cursing, between happiness and misery, a meaningful life on this earth or a meaningless life on this earth. Believers are constantly making decisions with regard to the cosmic system versus the divine dynasphere, God’s plan for the Church Age believer. We have to make these decisions for ourselves, no one can make them for us. Decisions are always an important thing and decisions must always be made with a sense of responsibility, therefore under the concept of true authority.

Even in perfect environment authority is absolutely necessary. In the perfect environment of the Millennium those things which constitute freedom are going to have complete expression in every possible way. Privacy and freedom absolutely go together, you can’t have one without the other. Privacy will be sacred, life will be sacred, property will be sacred, and law enforcement will be so great that it will be very rare to find any kind of crime, “and the authority of his Christ.” Everyone will have maximum opportunity under perfect environment to express his own freedom, to make his own decisions. But it is possible to make bad decisions even in perfect environment that will destroy your own personal blessing and have an influence on others. Christ has the authority under the plan of God the Father to rule the earth during the last 1000 years of human history, and with this authority Christ’s rule will provide perfect environment so that human history will terminate as it began. Man was given a tremendous responsibility at the beginning of human history, he was given perfect environment in the garden. The only way that he could destroy that environment was to make a bad decision and in order that there might be a volitional test one tree was forbidden in the garden. Any time that the tree was touched perfect environment would be destroyed, so man and the woman had a responsibility. The man had the greatest responsibility because he had a job, he was the ruler of the world. The woman also had a job, she was the responder to the man. They had everything going for them but eventually they rejected perfect environment.

Actually it was the woman who started the ball rolling. Satan knew that when he attacked the human race he had to attack where there was no authority. Therefore he chose the woman for his attack. She had no authority as far as the rulership of the world was concerned. Had he begun with Adam and succeeded in tempting him the woman would have merely responded to Adam’s command and therefore would have no responsibility. So Satan had to attack the human race in a way so that responsibility would exist in both cases. Therefore he started with the woman. The woman was responsible for her own decisions and he attacked her on that basis. The woman’s act was simply negative volition which destroyed perfect environment for the woman and resulted in the first sin in the human race. The man who was in authority did not even have to go to the tree, he took the fruit right out of the hand of the woman. So perfect environment was destroyed by negative volition, and this was the first sin. Therefore, of course, man and the woman had to take the responsibility for their decisions and from that time on Satan became the ruler of the world; and throughout human history the man and the woman have struggled with an imperfect environment, improved by good decisions and destroyed by bad decisions — the exchange between civilisation and barbarianism throughout human history.

God set up another tree, the cross, so that positive volition could reverse what happened in the garden, and therefore “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” But all of this is under the rulership of Satan. When Christ returns to the earth He will establish again perfect environment on the earth and man’s volition will still be the issue. Perfect environment in the garden: volition is the issue; in the stage of sinfulness and evil on the earth, volition is still the issue; in the last 1000 years of human history, the Millennial reign of Christ, volition continues to be the issue, and it always starts with personal volition.

In this verse we have the words, “the authority of his Christ.” This rule will be a demonstration that perfect environment is not the solution to man’s problems, only regeneration. In other words, Jesus Christ will use maximum authority to provide maximum freedom, maximum self-determination. But there is no eternal life apart from your own decisions. The rule, then, will be a demonstration that even though God provides 1000 years of perfect environment and the authority to enforce perfect environment against bad decisions, perfect environment is never the solution to man’s problems.

There are no solutions, temporal or eternal, to man’s problems apart from salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. This is the only freedom option that is open in a time of great disaster. Perfect environment is not a solution, it is a status to be enjoyed by believers who have maximum doctrine resident in the soul and therefore capacity for happiness, capacity for life, capacity for blessing. Without capacity for life and happiness perfect environment becomes meaningless. Environment is neither the cause of happiness nor failure. Man must use his volition to make right decisions in both adversity and prosperity, and man’s volition continues to resolve the angelic conflict in the perfect environment of the Millennium as well as the obvious imperfect environment of the time in which we live historically, and yet a time when the greatest challenge to human volition exists.

Perfect environment is maintained by authority just as imperfect environment is maintained by authority. People often fail to recognise that freedom demands responsibility. It demands humility and virtue. So the demands of freedom for its perpetuation become very important. First there must be a personal sense of responsibility and, with it, there must be virtue to make right decisions for freedom. Thirdly, freedom cannot exist without authority. So personal authority and freedom must always recognise true authority or options for freedom are lost. In the Millennium our Lord Jesus Christ provides perfect freedom for the citizens but perfect freedom does not mean that all will be winners. It simply means that they are free to make their own decisions.

Next we have the announcement of Satan’s defeat in the battle of heaven. We start out with a causative conjunction o(ti and it is correctly translated “because.” With this we have the nominative singular subject, a synonym for Satan who is the present ruler of the world, kathgor, which means accuser, a word used for a prosecuting attorney. And who is this accuser prosecuting? The genitive plural of relationship from a)delfoj, the royal family of God at the present time: “because the accuser of our brethren [fellow believers].” This function will continue until Satan is cast out of heaven. Note that Satan confines his slander and his accusations to believers only. The inconsistencies, the malfunctions, and the failures of unbelievers, since they are in his control and under his kingdom, are not mentioned. These accusations are made in court and the court convenes in heaven.

“who constantly brings charges against them,” the accusative plural direct object from a)utoj. Satan is constantly making accusations against believers.

The participle which follows is taken from the verb kathgorew. The definite article is used as a relative pronoun. The progressive present tense is for an action in a state of persistence: he will do this until he is thrown out of heaven. That means that during the entire Church Age, every time that the court convenes, Satan is always there loaded with accusations about individual believers. The active voice: Satan produces the action of the verb, and the participle is circumstantial. And he does this “before our God,” a prepositional phrase which is followed by the adverbial genitive of time from two words: the word for day and the word for night.

The translation from the middle of verse 10, “because the accuser [Satan] of our fellow believers who constantly brings charges against them before our God day and night.”

Then the last phrase which is eschatological does not apply to us but comes at a future time. The Greek word here is ballw, “has been thrown out of heaven.” The culminative aorist tense views the expulsion of Satan from heaven in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. No longer will Satan be allowed to accuse believers in the court of heaven. Therefore the termination of Satan’s slander in heaven begins the eschatology of the devil’s desperation. The passive voice: Satan receives the action of the verb, he is excommunicated from heaven and forced to live upon the earth during the last half of the Tribulation. The declarative indicative mood is for the reality of Satan’s expulsion.

Principle: While the devil persecutes believers on earth he prosecutes believers in heaven. As long as we are alive he will put pressure on us on earth but he will also go to heaven and prosecute.

We are studying the casting our of Satan in the middle of the Tribulation and then the time of the devil’s desperation. After Satan is cast out of heaven he is no longer able to accuse believers, therefore he is going to spend all of his time in attack upon two categories: believers and Jews in general in order to head off the inevitable tactical victory of the second advent.

In verse 11 we have the triumph of the Tribulational believers under maximum pressure. There are three bases for victory in this passage. The first has to do with eternal salvation, the doctrine of soteriology indicated by the “blood of the Lamb.” Secondly, there is the application of Bible doctrine to experience, “the word of their testimony.” Thirdly, they had absolutely no fear of death.

One of the great things that destroys human function in this life is the fact that so many people are afraid of death. Apart from the Rapture of the Church death is inevitable. The real key is first of all to be prepared for death and that preparation requires personal faith in Jesus Christ. After eternal salvation through faith in Christ the next step in preparation for death is the daily perception of doctrine, for life and death are dealt with in a victorious and a wonderful manner in exactly the same way: the perception of doctrine and its application to the situations of life and situations related to dying. Once death occurs there is no more sorrow, no more tears, no more pain, no more death, the old things have passed away. At that particular point we are absent from the body and face to face with the Lord, so for the believer it is a time of great blessing, but it is knowing these things and applying these things that is important. Those who understand death and can face death without fear have capacity for life and happiness and blessing, for actually the two go together. Really, living and dying are a part of the same package and that is why it is included in verse eleven.

Before we get into the eschatology of the devil’s desperation we need to know that believers came out on the long end as far as that terrible time is concerned. Therefore, even before we begin our study there is a reminder to all of us as believers that the same blessings that are promised to believers who have advanced to maturity are promised to the individual believer in time of historical adversity as well as in time of historical prosperity. The greatness of the believer in time of extreme historical disaster is really the subject of verse eleven. We must anticipate this verse by recognising that while the devil prosecutes believers in the court of heaven he persecutes believers in his kingdom on earth.

Today Satan attacks us in two ways. He builds up a file on the believer, takes it to heaven, and slanders us in the court of heaven. We have our own defence attorney there, the Lord Jesus Christ. He not only attacks us through the cosmic system on earth then, but he attacks us behind our back in the court of heaven. Once Satan is cast out of heaven in the middle of the Tribulation, then, he can no longer prosecute believers, slander believers, accuse believers in heaven. Therefore, one option is left: the persecution of believers on planet earth, and this is intensified during the period we are about to study. No matter how intense the persecution of the Tribulational believer is there are many winners against Satan. Doctrine is greater than any adversity this life has to offer, and those who have doctrine resident in the soul and can apply it and use it on a daily basis, and those who can make decisions from this perception of doctrine, are on top of every situation and every circumstance in this life.

The basis for victory over Satan during the time of his desperation is presented by three principles in this verse: the positive decision to believe in Christ for eternal salvation; the many decisions from a position of strength after salvation — this means perception and application of doctrine and having control of your life; the personal sense of destiny which makes Bible doctrine so important in life itself. Therefore each of these three principles is related to some phase of the spiritual life.

First we see the tremendous victory of regeneration. The first great decision we make in this life in regard to anything spiritual is the decision to personally believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. As usual we begin with the connective conjunction kai introducing a result from what precedes. It is translated “Furthermore.” Next we have the nominative plural subject from the intensive pronoun a)utoj, “they.” “They” refers to believers under pressure from Satan, the people who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ at a future time in history. These people are going to be able to overcome every bit of intensified hatred that Satan can bring in their direction.

With this we have the aorist active indicative of the verb nikaw, the verb for overcoming, to win a victory: “Furthermore they overcame him,” a)utoj, Satan. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. It takes the occurrence of faith in Christ, the moment of that one decision, gathers it up into a single whole — the instant, the momentary action, that moment when someone makes a decision — and continues it forever. That is the kind of constative aorist we have here. The active voice: people in the time of greatest historical disaster execute the action of the verb by believing in Christ. The indicative mood is declarative viewing the action of the verb from the standpoint of reality in the most difficult period of all human history.

“Furthermore, they,” believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, “overcame him,” the accusative singular of the direct object from a)utoj. How did they do it? We have three principles now: first of all the preposition dia plus the accusative singular of a(ima, “through the blood”; and with this we have the subjective genitive form the noun a)rnion, “Lamb,” one of the titles of our Lord Jesus Christ in His saving work, “through the blood of the Lamb” or “because of the blood of the Lamb.” This is the saving work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There are two concepts of the blood of our Lord on the cross. There is His physical death and there is His spiritual death. There is one figurative use of the blood of Christ on the cross and there is one literal use. In both cases it has great significance in as much as when our Lord Jesus Christ was on the cross He died twice. The question arises quite frequently whether we have the literal blood of Christ here or the spiritual blood of Christ, since a(ima is used both ways. The literal blood of Christ always refers to His physical death, 1 John 5:6. This is the sign that the saving work of Christ was completed. In John 19:4 and 1 John 5:6 we have a reference to the somatic death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and wherever the somatic death is mentioned we have literal blood. Of course, all of these passages came from the fact that the Gnostics claimed that Christ was never true humanity and the cross was an optical illusion. Therefore John wrote to refute this blasphemy and we have references to the blood of Christ which are referring to the literal blood of Christ. But the blood was not shed; this blood was still in His body.

The somatic death of Christ makes irreversible changes and they begin at various rates after the cessation of breathing. These changes include the cooling of the body, the development of muscular rigidity plus autolysis, and when we have a reference to the physical blood of Christ on the cross it generally refers to autolysis, the breakdown of the cells and their relationship to gravitation, the gravitation of the blood to the dependant parts plus the clotting of the blood. When our Lord’s heart and lung action ceased His blood began to sink to the dependant parts of the body, His internal organs. Jesus Christ did not bleed to death, in fact He bled very little.

In John 19:30 our Lord “bowed His head,” it says. But the Greek says he pushed His head forward,” so that the Roman spear would penetrate His chest cavity and not His diaphragm. As a result, some time later when the Roman soldier came by to check and see if He was dead he plunged the spear into His chest cavity. In 19:34, “but one of the soldiers pierced His chest cavity with a spear, and immediately there gushed out blood clots and serum.” By pushing His head forward as He died physically our Lord prepared His body, now dead, for the thrust of that Roman spear which would reveal not only the true humanity of Christ but demonstrate the fact that He did not bleed to death, and that any reference to blood in salvation was a figurative reference to blood, not the literal blood of His physical death.

This emphasises a very important fact: Jesus Christ on the cross did not bleed to death. After His physical death most of His blood was still in His body and due to gravitation had settled in the right and left ventricles. That is because He pushed His head forward on the cross when He died. So when the soldier’s spear penetrated the chest cavity of our Lord’s corpse blood clots and serum gushed out. John’s observation of this fact at the cross was medical proof of His somatic or physical death, therefore proof that our Lord was true humanity united with undiminished deity forever.

When the blood clots separated into blood clots and serum it was proof that our Lord did not bleed to death. If a person dies through excessive loss of blood these blood clots and serum do not form inside the corpse. Whatever blood remains in the body when the cause of death is bleeding the process of autolysis does not occur. If a person dies from excessive bleeding the blood remaining in the body exists in the same whole red form that you see when you cut your finger. External bleeding was not the cause of our Lord’s death so the literal blood of Christ has no direct relationship to the saving work of Christ on the cross. His blood is simply a sign that His saving work was completed, and because His work on earth was finished He died physically. If there had been internal haemorrhaging there would be very little blood left in the heart and the blood clots, of course, would not gush out when the Roman soldier penetrated the chest cavity with the spear thrust. Therefore the sight of blood clots and serum is not only a witness to the true humanity of Christ in hypostatic union but at the same time medical proof that our Lord did not bleed to death.

Actually, what we have in our passage, “Furthermore, they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb,” refers to the spiritual death of Christ which preceded His physical death, and the blood we have in this passage refers to the figurative blood of Christ, His spiritual death on the cross, His saving work. Just as sins were imputed to the animal on the altar in the Old Testament to illustrate the cross, so sins are imputed to Christ and judged when He actually went to the cross. The blood of the animal sacrifice is literal but the blood of the cross is figurative.

When it says “because of the blood of the Lamb” there has to be something else that is there. What does it mean? What they did was believe. Blood represents three major doctrines of soteriology: redemption, which is directed toward sin; propitiation, which is directed toward God; reconciliation, which is directed toward man — man is reconciled, God is propitiated or satisfied, sins are forgiven because they were judged on the cross, and redemption plus propitiation plus reconciliation equals the figurative blood of Christ. And that is exactly what we have. People hear the doctrine of redemption and believe, or they hear it from the standpoint of propitiation and believe, or they hear it from the standpoint of reconciliation and believe.

Remember the doctrine of reconciliation: there is a barrier between man and God made up of sin and the penalty of sin, and so on. When Jesus Christ was being judged for our sins every item in the barrier was removed so that there is now no barrier between man and God. Therefore man simply steps over the line by believing in Jesus Christ. That is the doctrine of reconciliation: man is reconciled tom God.

Take the doctrine of redemption: man is born in the slave market of sin and Jesus Christ purchases his freedom; man hears that news in the slave market and he is free. All he has to do is get up and walk out — believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ paid for our freedom on the cross and therefore when we believe in Christ we simply walk through that door into freedom, the freedom of eternal life.

Or taken from the standpoint of propitiation. Propitiation was portrayed in the holy of holies. Inside of the ark of the covenant were the three items that represented sin. Over the top of the ark of the covenant was the mercy seat, the golden throne. On each end of the golden throne was a cherub. One cherub represented the righteousness of God; one cherub represented the justice of God. On the day of atonement when the high priest came in and sprinkled blood over the top of that mercy seat it meant that blood covered for our sins, and it meant that the righteousness of God looked down at that blood and was satisfied. Christ was judged for our sins, the justice of God looks at the blood and is satisfied, the justice of God judges those sins. So that sins are covered [atonement] by the fact that God the Father is propitiated by the work of Christ — the blood of the lamb represents the work of Christ; the righteousness and justice of the Father are satisfied.

So there are many ways of looking at the imputation of our sins to Him but it all adds up to the figurative blood of Christ, the work of Christ on the cross for our sins, the saving work of Christ that provides eternal salvation.

How do people overcome Satan in the last half of the Tribulation through the blood of Christ, as per this passage? They understand some portion of soteriology, some portion of the gospel, and they make a positive faith decision: they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Once they have made that positive non-meritorious decision to believe in Jesus Christ they have joined the millions of people before them who have broken the back of Satan by believing in Christ. For at the end of the prehistoric angelic conflict Satan said, “It is not fair for a just God to put His creatures in the lake of fire”, and the fact that any creature believes in Christ demonstrates the fallacy of that position. But in a time when Satan is personally on earth and confined to earth it is intensified. Therefore the first stage of overcoming the cosmic system of Satan is to believe in Christ, for another thing happens when people believe in Christ beside the imputation of divine righteousness, regeneration, the possession of eternal life, and so on: they are immediately lifted out of the cosmic system. In the cosmic system there are two forms of demon activity: demon influence [demon telepathy, control of the mind] and demon possession, which is demon control of the body. When a person believes in Christ he is immediately pulled out of the cosmic system and out of the control of demon influence and demon possession; he is taken out of the kingdom of darkness and is brought into the kingdom of the marvellous light of His son. So this is a tactical victory which goes with the strategical victory, “they overcame him because of the blood of Christ.” The first great victory over Satan is the victory of a one-shot decision: personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The first step, then, in overcoming Satan in the Tribulation, or in any period of human history, is to personally believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The decision to believe in Christ is the basis for victory of the angelic conflict, therefore victory over Satan. It is freedom from the cosmic system. It may be only temporary but freedom it is. Note that volition is involved as the solution to the angelic conflict, volition is always the issue, and once again, as always in life, self-determination is the great issue. You have in your soul, no matter how weak you are, free will. You have human volition and that human volition can make decisions linking up with the power of God and therefore breaking the power of Satan in the life. This, then, is the beginning of victory in the life; this breaks the back of the ruler of this world. Think of it: there is no system of strength, no system of personality dynamics, no system of power on this earth whereby we can cope with the super creature, Satan, who is the ruler of this world. Therefore we must recognise our weakness and link our weakness with God’s strength, and the linking of our weakness with God’s strength comes in three phases of a system.

From the time of our birth we are under the laws of divine establishment which is a divine system of authority to protect us so that we can reach adulthood and make that great decision, the decision to believe in Christ. The way of salvation is a system in itself: God provides the salvation and we simply respond in a non-meritorious way by believing in Christ. And then the third part of the system is God’s plan for the believer in time, and while in our dispensation it has to do with the divine dynasphere certain aspects of the divine dynasphere carry over.

Spirituality in the Old Testament was primarily the three stages of the faith-rest drill, after perception of doctrine, and they did have a system of spiritual growth through perception and they did have the attainment of maturity. It is not exactly the same as the divine dynasphere for God the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament did not indwell believers — only a few, to give them special power for a special mission. The same thing is true of the Tribulation: you go back to Old Testament spirituality. But there is a system and that system is the basis for overcoming Satan. Satan is overcome when unbelievers use the laws of divine establishment to stay out of the cosmic system, but if they get into the cosmic system and stay there the decision to believe in Christ immediately pulls them out of the cosmic system and puts them back into God’s plan plus giving them eternal life. Then God’s plan for the believer in every dispensation of history is of such a nature to give tactical victory over Satan in time. But it all begins at the cross and the reason that we get to the cross, the reason that there is civilisation, the reason that client nations exist, the reason that people have freedom to hear the gospel, freedom to be evangelised, freedom to accept or reject Christ as saviour — is based upon the laws of divine establishment and the authority pertaining to it.

The decision to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ is the thing that breaks the back of Satan. The next decision is related to Bible doctrine. Once a person accepts Christ as saviour he is now in a new combat, he is on the side of the Lord in the angelic conflict. He has, again, options but instead of a one-shot option he has daily options, developing the principle that good decisions result in great blessing; bad decisions, the antithesis. The person who constantly makes good decisions from a position of strength has control of his life and has a personal sense of destiny which is absolutely necessary for historical disaster, and there is no greater historical disaster than the last three and a half years of the Tribulation: the time when Satan and all fallen angels are confined to the earth and cosmic evangelism is at its strongest point. All of that demands that good decisions be made from a position of strength, and believers do it, and that becomes the victory of Bible doctrine.

We continue in the middle of verse 11 with the connective conjunction kai, “and,” followed by a prepositional phrase: dia plus the accusative singular of logoj. Logoj here means doctrine, and it is correctly translated, “and because of doctrine.” Next comes the ablative of means singular from the noun marturia. The ablative is not the regular case for expressing means, the instrumental is, but it may be used when the expression of means is accompanied by the implication of origin or source. The doctrine or logos is the origin or the means of their testimony during the time of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation. “Because of doctrine,” and we have to supply a word because this is elliptical, “applied by means of their testimony. The word “their” is the possessive genitive of the intensive pronoun a)utoj, “their testimony.” “Because of doctrine applied by their testimony” gives us our second victory.

Translation: “Furthermore, they overcame him [Satan] because of the blood of the lamb [1st victory: the saving work of Christ on the cross. The victory is believing in the Lord Jesus Christ] and because of the doctrine applied by means of their testimony [second victory].”

Three things are necessary to glorify the Lord in any period of time. First of all a personal sense of destiny from the inculcation of Bible doctrine, requiring hundreds and even thousands of positive decisions. Secondly, constant decisions from a position of strength and the application of doctrine to experience. Thirdly, the believer must remain in control of his life through the avoidance of the cosmic system.

Principle: Perception and application of doctrine during the last half of the Tribulation produces all three factors and becomes the basis for the second victory over Satan. In the last half of the Tribulation abnormal circumstances demand the intensification of inculcation of doctrine, daily application in the time of the devil’s desperation, and therefore momentum tests are intensified. The testimony of the winner in the last half of the Tribulation is the application of doctrine to abnormal circumstances of historical disaster. But by way of understanding the principle today, the victory over Satan on the part of the believer is the application of doctrine. A lot of people are really confused about what constitutes reward at the judgment seat of Christ. It has nothing to do with witnessing for Christ or any form of Christian production or works. This is a falsification and distortion of Bible doctrine. You don’t have to hustle and work for God in order for reward. The result of becoming a mature believer is production but production is not the means.

The testimony of the winner in the last half of the Tribulation is the person who has spiritual growth under these abnormal circumstances — spiritual growth through perception of doctrine. The perception of doctrine leads to the application of doctrine. One of the great doctrines that will be applied with great results is the doctrine of the physical death of the believer. Because of the shortness of this period every minute counts and the believer cannot afford to miss even one lesson taught by Moses or Elijah or angels or other sources of communication of doctrine in the last half of the Tribulation. Historical trends will be delineated by means of eschatology, especially the eschatology of the devil’s desperation.

Proverbs chapter eight, probably more than any other passage, dramatises the situation with regard to doctrine in any dispensation, but above all the last half of the Tribulation — the personification of Bible doctrine and its implication for our lives.

Verse 1, “Does not doctrine cry out,” doctrine has an invitation. Cry out here means not to be in pain but to be inviting you. As a believer doctrine invites you, “Does not perception of doctrine raise her voice?” From now on the feminine pronoun, third person, refers to doctrine.

Verse 2, “She [doctrine] takes her stand on the high places by the road, where paths meet,” doctrinal teaching at intersections where people come together and form crowds.

Verse 3, “She [doctrine] extends her invitation beside the gates of the entering of the city” — where the news media hang out! In other words, places for communication, “At the entrance [city auditorium] of the doors she cries out.”

Verse 4, “To you, O mankind, I communicate [doctrine is speaking], and I lift my voice to all the human race.”

Verse 5, “You who are ignorant [believers], gain knowledge of doctrine; and you fools [negative believers], understand doctrine [before it is too late].”

Verse 6, “Listen, for I [doctrine] shall communicate noble things [honour code]; and the opening of my lips will communicate integrity.”

Verse 7, “For my mouth will communicate truth; evil is an abomination to my lips [doctrine does not encourage evil or anything related to the cosmic system].”

Verse 8, “Integrity shall be all the communication of my mouth; nothing is twisted or perverted.”

Verse 9, “All of them [doctrinal categories] shall be integrity to the one who is caused to understand, and accurate to those who find doctrine.”

Verse 10, “Take my instruction [doctrine is more valuable than anything in life], and not silver, and knowledge of doctrine rather than finest gold.” [Your scale of values changes when you begin to grow in grace. It isn’t the material standards of values that are important, it is doctrine that is important]

Verse 11, “Doctrine is more valuable than jewellery; and all desirable things cannot be compared with her [doctrine]”.

Verse 12, “I, doctrine, live with wisdom [if you have doctrine you can apply it; wisdom is the application of doctrine], and I gain knowledge of man’s thinking [if you want to understand people, learn doctrine]”.

Verse 13, “The respect for the Lord is to hate evil; interlocking system of arrogance, also the evil modus operandi [function], therefore I [doctrine] hate the perverted mouth.”

Verse 14, “Counsel is mine [doctrine is all the counsel you need] and sound wisdom; I [doctrine] am understanding, integrity belongs to me.”

Verse 15, Those who are successful in life and in positions of authority, like kings: “By me [doctrine] kings reign, and rulers decree righteousness [make laws that are just].”

Verse 16, “By me [doctrine] both rulers and nobles govern, including all righteous [honourable] judges.”

Verse 17, “I [doctrine] love those who love me; and all those who diligently seek me [positive volition] will find me.”

Verse 18, Material blessing, part of the supergrace blessing that comes to the believer who advances to maturity. “Riches and honour are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness.”

Verse 19, “My production is better than gold, even pure gold, furthermore my profit surpasses choicest silver.”

Verse 20, “I [doctrine] march in the way of honour [integrity], in the middle of the road of integrity.”

Verse 21, “Giving wealth to those who love me [if God doesn’t promote you, you are not promoted], that I may fill their treasuries.” Supergrace blessings imputed to the mature believer overflow under the principle of blessing by association.

Verse 22, “The Lord possessed me [doctrine] at the beginning of his plan, before his works at the beginning of time.”

Verse 23, “From eternity past I [doctrine] was established [doctrine is the mind of Christ, therefore doctrine pre-existed all creatures], from the beginning, before the world began.”

Verse 24, “Therefore before oceans I was born, before there were springs abounding with water.

Verse 25, “Before mountains were placed on the earth, before the hills I was born”.

Verse 26, “Before he made the earth and places outside [space outside of earth], or any of the dust of the earth.”

Verse 27, “When he established the heavens, I [doctrine] was there, when he decreed boundaries for the oceans I was there.”

Verse 28, “When he made form skies above, and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,

Verse 29, “When he set the sea and its boundary, so that water should not overstep his command, then I [doctrine] was with him [Christ].”

Verse 30, “I [doctrine] was his delight day by day, stimulated always in his presence.”

Verse 31, “Rejoicing in the earth, his world in fact, my delight was in the sons of Adam.”

Therefore Bible doctrine must be the life of the believer, says verse 32 and following:

Verse 32, “Now therefore, my sons, listen to me [to doctrine]: happinesses to those who guard my ways.”

Verse 33, “Concentrate on the communication of doctrine and become wise, and do not reject it.”

Verse 34, “Happinesses to the one who listens to me [doctrine], guarding daily at my gates, waiting at my door posts.”

Verse 35, “For he who finds me [doctrine] finds capacity for life, furthermore he receives grace from the Lord.”

Verse 36, “But he who misses the mark with me [doctrine] injures his own soul [we are also the products of our own negative volition toward doctrine]; all those who hate me love the sin unto death.”

Note: The first half of verse 36 talks about residing in cosmic one; the last half of the verse talks about residing in cosmic two. “He who misses the mark with me injures his own soul.” We are talking about believers who are preoccupied with self in the twelve gates of interlocking systems of arrogance. They are preoccupied with self, they are not anti-doctrine at all, they just don’t have time for doctrine. There are too many other things that they consider more important. This is called grieving the Holy Spirit, and the believer who grieves the Holy Spirit isn’t against doctrine, he is just not going to be consistent in his intake of doctrine.

When you get over to cosmic two you have antagonism to doctrine — the nine gates of interlocking systems of hatred, or quenching the Spirit. That is mentioned in the last half of the verse, “all those who hate me [doctrine] love the sin unto death,” eventually they will have to be removed from this life.

Basically, that is the concept we have in verse 11 of Revelation chapter 12. There are two parts to the angelic conflict as it extends into history. There is the strategic angelic conflict and there is the tactical side of the angelic conflict. When our Lord died on the cross that was the strategic victory; when our Lord returns there will be the second advent and the tactical victory. In the meantime, anyone who believes in Christ is a winner strategically in the angelic conflict so that in effect all believers are strategical victors. But it is the tactical victory that is in view with Bible doctrine, it is the believer in time, phase two of God’s plan and daily attitude toward Bible doctrine in both perception and application becomes the tactical victory. So you can be a strategic winner and a tactical loser. A strategic winner has eternal life but in eternity he doesn’t have anything to show for the time he spent on earth. And what this second phrase is emphasising is the importance of being a tactical winner in time.

What this second phrase, “they overcame him … because of the doctrine applied by means of their testimony” is emphasising is the importance of being a tactical winner in time, the importance of growing in grace, the importance of daily perception of doctrine, the importance of application of doctrine to the eight momentum tests that every believer must pass before he becomes a winner. That is why we are left on this earth: to become winners. The tactical winners are the ones who are going to be decorated with the order of the morning star, the various crowns; they are going to be the ones who will have the uniform of glory, the ones who are going to be on the honours list so that while the Tribulation is occurring on earth they will be presented in the court of heaven. Not all believers will be presented in the court of heaven, only those on the honours list. Then, at the second advent, those who are tactical winners are going to rule a nation in this world. There are going to be billions of Christians in heaven but there may be less than a million that are winners and are going to have all of these tremendous eternal advantages. The difference is your daily decision with regard to Bible doctrine.

There is no equality in heaven. Heaven in a perfect place and a perfect place is based upon self-determination. You get into heaven by non-meritorious self-determination, i.e.. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” That is a one-shot decision and that is your strategic victory, but after that tactically you have to make a lot of decisions. The decisions you make on earth determine your status quo in eternity. No one can do it for you, and if you are bullied into making these decisions then you are not going to last, only until the bully is gone because you are leaning on the bully for a crutch and you can’t do that. It has to come from you. You must be self-motivated for self-determination, for tactical victory. Tactical victory is strictly your business.

If you have the tactical victory it wipes out fear in your life. The you can fasten your seat belt for the great disaster that is coming, ride it out, see it through, and watch it with fascination.

Self-determination is destructive without doctrine for you have no information on which to make a decision from a position of strength. But the person who in self-determination is positive toward doctrine and a tactical winner is not going to lose out. He is going to gain no matter what the historical circumstances may be.

One of the first signs of becoming a winner is that you are not afraid of death. Death has no fear for the mature believer, the one who has tactical victory. Believers who are losers are always afraid of death and Satan has the power to give them fear of death because it is one of his principles inside of the cosmic system.

The victory over maximum pressure starts with the intensive use of the conjunction kai, “in fact.” It goes to the aorist active indicative of the verb a)gapaw plus the negative o)uk, “they do not love.” The culminative aorist tense views the action of the verb in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. The existing results include the Lord, Bible doctrine, being the most important things in your life. The active voice: Tribulational believers who are tactical winners produce the action. The declarative indicative mood represents the verbal idea from the viewpoint of reality.

Next we have the accusative singular direct object from the noun yuxh, referring to the soul. With the possessive genitive from a)utoj, “their life.” Then we have an improper preposition a)xri plus qanatoj, “to the point of death.” The living Word, Jesus Christ, and the written Word, Bible doctrine, were more important than life itself. They were strategic winners because they had believed in Christ; they were tactical winners because they had advanced to maturity in a very difficult time.

This passage does not imply martyrdom as such (In certain cases, of course, it would include it), it really deals with right priorities. Doctrine must be more important than life itself. When doctrine is more important than life itself life itself becomes wonderful and you have no fear of death. When reality is found in Bible doctrine instead of life the reality of life is harnessed to the greatest power in human history, the Word of God. Bible doctrine must be more real than the reality of historical adversity and pressure. In the time of Satan’s desperation only Bible doctrine can cope with the realities of terrible historical disaster, and after that, persecution. The believer in the cosmic system will avoid reality and the reality of historical disaster will fall down upon him with great pressure. The believer with doctrine and right priorities will cope with the realities of historical disaster.

Translation: “Furthermore they overcame him [Satan in the time of his desperation] because of the blood of the Lamb [strategic victory, the saving work of Christ on the cross], because of doctrine applied by means of their testimony [tactical victory: perception and application of doctrine]; in fact, they did not love their life to the point of [being afraid of] death.”

There are two categories if winners in the Christian way of life: the strategic winner and the tactical winner. Every Christian is a strategical winner. The one who believes in Christ is a strategical winner in the angelic conflict. The result is eternal life and a resurrection body. The tactical winner is the believer who resides, functions and continues his momentum inside the divine dynasphere. He is the one who achieves gate eight. The fact that every believer is a strategic victor is simply based on the saving work of Christ and one decision, but it is the hundreds and even thousands of decisions after salvation that produces the tactical winner. So, again, the believer in Christ is a strategic winner with the potential of being a tactical winner in the angelic conflict. In other words, it is possible and God has so designed the Christian way of life, His plan, so that we can be a double winner. To be a double winner the believer must make consistently good decisions from a position of strength and remain inside the divine dynasphere, recover the divine dynasphere as quickly as possible. The believer who is only a strategic winner becomes a tactical loser. To be a tactical loser means to reside and function inside the cosmic system. The believer who is both a strategic and tactical winner will receive great blessings in time and greater rewards at the judgment seat of Christ.

Principle

1. The strategic winner glorifies by his one-shot decision — faith in Christ.

2. The tactical winner glorifies Christ through his advance to maturity inside the divine dynasphere.

3. The strategic winner receives a resurrection body and eternal life but loses eternal reward.

4. The tactical winner in addition receives supergrace blessings in time plus eternal reward in the eternal state.

5. The strategic winner is supported by logistical grace while the tactical winner is supported by both logistical grace and supergrace blessing.

6. Therefore, God’s grace provision for the strategic winner is the saving work of Christ on the cross plus, of course, logistical grace support, plus maximum divine discipline in time. The strategic winner only, lives in the cosmic system, so he gets maximum divine discipline.

7. However, God’s grace provision for strategic and tactical winners adds the provision of logistical grace, supergrace blessings, plus momentum testing, and his suffering is for blessing.

8. Again, all believers are strategic winners by virtue of having believed in Christ, so all believers are strategic winners in the angelic conflict because of the saving work of Christ on the cross. 9. Only the unbeliever is a strategic loser in the angelic conflict, therefore the unbeliever will share the destiny of Satan forever and ever, and he lives under Satan’s system in time which is the cosmic system.

10. The carnal or cosmic believer, then, is a strategic winner but a tactical loser in the angelic conflict. We are left on this earth after salvation to be a tactical winner.

11. The believer who is both a strategic and tactical winner has made thousands of decisions from a position of strength, generally has personal control of his life and has a personal sense of destiny from the inculcation of Bible doctrine and its application to his circumstances.

12. In addition the tactical winner possesses an edification complex in time plus the uniform of glory to go with his resurrection body in eternity.

We as believers have one certain victory which is strategic: “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. And who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” That is the strategic victory. When you believed in Christ that moment is the moment of strategic victory for you. Then there is the reason why we are left behind, and that is the tactical victory. The grace provision for the strategic winner is the saving work of Christ; the grace provision for the tactical winner is the divine dynasphere. All believers are strategic winners but not all believers are tactical winners. The tactical winners are the ones who advance to maturity.

The difference between the two victories

1. Under strategic victory we have the one-shot decision, faith in Christ. This produces a strategic winner in the angelic conflict in contrast to the unbeliever who is a loser in the angelic conflict. In the tactical victory we have a contrast. Instead of a one-shot decision you have to make thousands of positive decisions with regard to the plan of God, the system, positive decisions toward the plan of God which is the divine dynasphere, and the Word of God which is Bible doctrine. This produces a tactical winner. You make a lot of decisions with regard to all of the gates. You make decisions with regard to re-entering gate one, a rebound decision; you make decisions with regard to the use of the faith-rest drill, the function of gate two; you make decisions with regard to authority, enforced humility leading to genuine humility; you make decisions every day with regard to Bible doctrine, perception, and decisions with regard to application. This results in gate five, your motivating virtue toward God; gate six, your functional virtue toward man; gate seven, the basis for all momentum is the eight momentum tests; and gate eight, the winner’s gate, tactical victory.

2. Under strategic victory Christ is glorified by one decision, the positive decision to believe in Christ; but on the tactical victory side Christ is glorified by many decisions.

3. Under strategic victory we have a result, eternal life plus a resurrection body, but no eternal reward; whereas on the tactical victory side, for those who have it, the result is eternal life, a resurrection body, plus the uniform of glory with the resurrection body, plus fantastic blessings in time and eternal rewards. So for the believer who wins the tactical victory there is a phenomenal system of blessing in time, supergrace blessings, but even a greater system of reward and blessing in eternity. That is, reward above and beyond what the believer with only the strategic victory possesses.

4. Under strategic victory the strategic victor who fails to advance lives in the cosmic system, and he fears death; whereas on the other side, the tactical winner lives in the divine dynasphere and has no fear of death.

5. The strategic victor is sustained in time by logistical grace only whereas on the tactical victory side he is sustained in time by both logistical and supergrace blessings.

6. The cosmic believer is a strategic winner but a tactical loser; the believer in the divine dynasphere is both a strategic and tactical winner, a dual winner instead of just a single winner.

7. That means that the strategic victor glorifies God only in the eternal state whereas the tactical victor glorifies God in time and in a special way in eternity.

8. The strategic victor only is disciplined in time. His life is characterised by great frustration and failure, and he is always mixed up and confused, never gets straightened out and jumps from one thing to another; whereas on the tactical side all suffering is for blessing, he is oriented, he knows what he is doing, he has control of his life.

9. The strategic victor only makes wrong decisions after salvation. His life is characterised by wrong decisions whereas the life of the tactical victor is characterised by right decisions. Wrong decisions means that while he has eternal life he is going to be low on the totem pole in eternity.

Ephesians 4:11-16, a concept we have to constantly remember. You can’t have a tactical victory without a pastor, a right pastor, a consistent teacher of the Word of God. And you have to be consistent in exposing yourself to his teaching. One of the differences between a strategic winner only and a tactical winner is the fact that a tactical winner always finds a right pastor and sticks, whereas the strategic winner only is running around looking for the right pastor, looking for something to soup up his life and compensate for his discipline, his misery, his frustration, and his confusion.

Revelation 12:12 is where we actually begin the eschatology of the devil’s desperation. Here is where we begin the great holocaust against the Jews. This is also the seventh trumpet and the beginning of the third woe. The seventh trumpet is the holocaust against the Jews but the third woe includes the entire eschatology of the devil’s desperation and starts at verse 12 and goes to chapter 20, verse 3.

The contrast between heaven and earth after the expulsion of Satan is the general subject of verse 12. We begin with the celebration in heaven. Once Satan is cast out it is like cleaning the stables. The stench of the fallen angels in heaven since prehistoric times down to the Tribulation is removed. Therefore we begin with dia plus the accusative of the immediate demonstrative o(utoj, literally translated “Because of this,” but it is an idiom and it should be translated “For this reason.”

Next we have a present middle imperative of the verb e)ufrainw which means to be glad, to rejoice. Actually it is not the usual word for rejoice [xairw], this word means more to celebrate, it connotes jubilation over God’s eschatological act of judgment. He has thrown Satan and all fallen angels out of heaven, “For this reason keep celebrating.” The progressive present tense signifies the action in a state of persistence, present linear aktionsart. The middle voice is a dynamic middle emphasising the part taken by the subject in the action of the verb, and it refers to all of the elect angels in heaven plus all of the believers in heaven at that time, some have resurrection bodies, like the Church, some have interim bodies waiting for their resurrection. All the Old Testament saints are in interim bodies waiting for the second advent when they will have their resurrection. But everyone is included in the celebration; everyone is qualified to celebrate. The interim body is designed for great happiness. The imperative mood is the imperative of permission in which the imperative complies with inclination on the part of the object of the command. Note that this also implies no gloating. The elect angels, the royal family of God (Church Age believers), the Old Testament saints, celebrate in the purest and most virtuous sense of the word. There is no gloating.

If it is true that there is no gloating in heaven then it is also a part of the plan of God. There is no place for gloating at any time, under any circumstances, for the born again believer to gloat. To the extent that you gloat you have not only transferred from the divine dynasphere to the cosmic system, you have not only committed a sin, but the very content of gloating eliminates virtue, honour, integrity in the life. Locked-in gloating is a sign of instability and unhappiness in your life. Avoid gloating like the plague for gloating is a plague guaranteed to destroy your happiness. Gloating is the destroyer of virtue.

“For this reason keep on celebrating.” To whom is this addressed? The vocative plural of o)uranoj, “O heavens.” The plural of the vocative indicates three categories. First of all the elect angels, those who entered into an eternal relationship with God during the course of the prehistoric angelic conflict. Secondly, believers with resurrection bodies. In the middle of the Tribulation this will be believers of the Church Age. The third category is believers in an interim body, the Old Testament saints and the Tribulational martyrs of the first half of the Tribulation. This is a great celebration because everyone involved has capacity to celebrate without arrogance, without gloating; to celebrate in the purest, finest sense of the word; to celebrate with total capacity for happiness. This celebration in heaven is coterminous with the seventh trumpet, the beginning of the third woe on earth, the time of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation. The vocative plural refers only to those in heaven. There will be happiness on the part of certain believers in the last half of the Tribulation who have tactical victory.

Next we have the articular present active participle from the verb skhnow. The word is derived from skhnh which means tent, often referring to the human body. Skhnow means to bivouac, it means to be living in a tent in heaven. Hence, it refers specifically to the believers in the interim body. In John 1:14 this verb is used for Christ tabernacling on earth in the first advent. Here, of course, it refers to the fact of Tribulational martyrs and also the Old Testament saints, “and you who tabernacle [live in an interim body].” The definite article is where we get the words “you who.” The perfective present tense is for what comes to be in the past but is emphasised as a present reality. Since the moment of their physical death the Old Testament believers and Tribulational martyrs have been living in the state of perfect happiness in the interim body. The active voice: the Old Testament believers and Tribulational martyrs produce the action. The participle is circumstantial, plus the fact that the action of the present participle is coterminous with the action of the main verb.

“For this reason be celebrating you heavens,” that is the elect angels in heaven plus the Church Age believers in resurrection bodies, and Old Testament believers plus Tribulational martyrs who live temporarily in the interim body. While there is celebration in heaven there is the greatest historical disaster in human history on earth, the eschatology of the devil’s desperation. It begins here when the third woe which begins with the seventh trumpet is mentioned. Then we have the Greek onomatopoetic word o)uai, the way they said woe. The word is used for extreme pain, nausea, etc. It says woe to planet earth first because the planet earth is described as both land and sea. The second woe was the sixth trumpet, Revelation 9:13-21; the third woe begins at Revelation 12:12 with the seventh trumpet. The seventh trumpet is in 12:12-17. The third woe covers the time from Satan’s expulsion from heaven to his imprisonment in Revelation 20:1-3. While the third woe and the seventh trumpet occur simultaneously they are not the same. The seventh trumpet is the great holocaust of Israel in the last half of the Tribulation. The third woe includes this great wave of anti-Semitism but includes all of the events in the last half of the Tribulation.

So we have “Woe,” and the woe is directed according to two accusatives, both are direct objects: the first is the word gh which means “earth,” and with it, qalassa, referring to the sea. It should be translated, “Woe to both land and sea.” That means woe to the planet earth. This is the third woe of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation.

We now get a brief explanation with the causal use of the conjunction o(ti, translated “because.” Then we have our subject, the nominative singular from diaboloj, “because the devil.” Then we have the aorist active indicative of the verb katabainw “because the devil has come down.” The aorist tense is a culminative aorist viewing expulsion of Satan from heaven in its entirety, but regarding it from the viewpoint of existing results, the eschatology of the devil’s desperation. The active voice: the devil or Satan produces the action of the verb, he is thrown out of heaven; he has come down. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the fact that never again will Satan or the fallen angels, the demons, ever be in heaven. In other words, that period of time from the expulsion of Satan from heaven to the second advent now begins. It is called the third woe or the eschatology of the devils’ desperation.

Next we have a prepositional phrase, proj plus the accusative of the personal pronoun su, and it is translated “face to face with you.” The expulsion of Satan from heaven results in levelling him to the place of human history. He is confined now to human history; he is out of the prehistoric phase. He therefore is very frustrated.

When you have made your own mistakes through your own bad decisions it is inevitable that there will be a certain amount of self-justifying frustration, the attempt to justify yourself because all of your house of cards has tumbled down and instead of blaming it on yourself you blame it on others. Arrogance always blames it on others. This is the difference between arrogance and humility in disaster. The person who has made some bad decisions and is now in the state of humility takes the responsibility for his own decisions, but the person who is involved in the cosmic system is arrogant and the same disasters resulting from his bad decisions he always blames on others. The person in the divine dynasphere has the good sense to blame himself. If you blame yourself you move on but if you blame others you spend the rest of your life trying to get even — for your own bad decisions.

Next we have the present active participle of e)xw, “and he has.” With this we have an accusative singular direct object of two words, megaj and qumoj. When this is put together it is really an idiom. It is literally, “he has vehement anger,” but the idiom means that he foams with fury. Frustrated arrogance produces maximum anger directed toward others. Arrogance always blames others for one’s own mistakes or bad decisions. If you are in a state of humility you recognise your own bad decisions and you take the responsibility on yourself. Therefore you can recover. The recovery is based on the fact: “So I have made mistakes. I am still alive so I’m just going to keep rolling.” But arrogant people, when they make bad mistakes, always blame others. They have no virtue and they never recover. This means that arrogance always produces in disaster a vehement rage. The idiom here means foaming with fury. Qumoj is derived from the classical Greek verb quw which means a violent movement of air, water, ground. It means to boil over. So foaming with rage is what our word means.

Principle: Bad decisions in the cosmic system produces frustration. The frustration, however doesn’t exit until your own bad decisions produces adversity. With this adversity you have frustration and the frustration says, “Look, I’m not going to take responsibility, that would be virtuous. I’m going to blame others.” Others then become the object of your frustration which expresses itself in anger, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, irrationality, and often revenge. People actually take revenge on others for their own bad decisions. Satan doesn’t’ take responsibility for his decisions; he invented the system. Revenge generally motivates terrible violence and great historical disaster.

In the final phrase we have the present active participle of the verb o)ida, “knowing that his time is short.” He knows this because he knows eschatology. We have the conjunction o(ti denoting the content of Satan’s knowledge followed by the present active indicative of the verb e)xw, “that he has,” the static present for something to be taken as a fact. The active voice: Satan produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. With this the accusative of the extent of time from two words: o)ligoj, which has all kinds of meanings, “little” or “few,” and with it the noun kairoj for “time,” “knowing that he has a little time,” which is simply an idiom meaning “knowing that his time is short.”

There are all kinds of situations where people simply realise the time is short, or they think the time is short. In this case it is true, he has three and a half more years of freedom before he goes to jail and he has that short time to prevent going to jail for a thousand years. There are two kinds of people who face the facts of life from time to time. One way or another the time is short. There are those who are minus virtue, integrity, honour, and there are those who have virtue, integrity, and honour. Those who have integrity and honour have made good decisions from a position of strength, they have personal control of their lives, and they have a personal sense of destiny. Self-determination leads to a personal sense of destiny. Those who are minus virtue have made many decisions from a position of weakness. They do not have control of their lives and they are minus a personal sense of destiny. Satan falls into this category. It is almost impossible for us to realise the implication of this last phrase in verse 12. The reason: Satan is the greatest genius creature of all time. He has more talent, more ability, more personality than we have in thousands of talented people in this world today; and it is very frustrating for a creature who knows that he is superior to all other creatures to realise that they are passing him by every day through truth, the Word of God, Bible doctrine. That’s why in the translation of verse 12 he foams with fury. He has great anger, great rage, knowing that his time is short.

There comes a realisation in the lives of people, both good and bad, when they know that in some way the time is short. Those who feel this pressure and who are minus virtue always come up with a series of evils. This series of evils is based on arrogance, vanity, pride, vindictiveness, implacability, and hatred, and it always brings out the worst in them. They also come up with a system of modus operandi which is minus common sense and everything they do turns to evil because of the principle of their lives up to that point. Satan, of course, is the quintessence of evil. Up to that point those who have virtue relax, they don’t panic, they don’t try to accelerate anything, they carry on as usual because they are living day by day in the plan of God, making all their decisions from a position of strength. The fact that the time is short doesn’t change a thing because even if the time ran out they would still be doing the same thing. If the time is short and your lifestyle is right, you carry on as usual. When you have the right kind of a lifestyle you have control of your life. You don’t change your lifestyle and go in for accelerated loss of common sense; in other words, accelerated nonsense. The last three and a half years of the Tribulation is the acceleration of Satan’s bad decisions. He must crowd all of the evil in his system into three and a half years. That’s why those three and a half years are called the “great” Tribulation. Whenever it creeps into your consciousness that the time is short you immediately accelerate whatever you have in your soul, but for the person who has done it right, made the right decisions, the believer who has advanced to maturity, he carries on as usual.

Satan with all of his genius, being the inventor of evil, having made more bad decisions than any creature in history, has three and a half years to crowd all of his evil into that short period of time before he goes to jail, before he loses rulership of the world. So everything we are about to study is accelerated. Satan has always hated the Jews and, of course, he is going to attack the Jews.

Verse 13, begins Satan’s attack on Israel. The first thing he does is express hatred, vindictiveness, implacability. Satan has no love, no virtue; he is evil. So we now begin the third woe with the seventh trumpet.

We have the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “Now,” and with that we have a temporal conjunction o(te, “Now when.” Then the subject: the nominative singular drakwn, “dragon,” referring to Satan. “Now when the dragon,” followed by the aorist active indicative of o(raw, he now becomes aware of the shortness of time. “Now when the dragon saw.” The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: Satan produces the action of the verb at the beginning of the time of his desperation. This is the beginning of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation. He has been thrown out of heaven and he knows that he has three and a half years left. The indicative mood is declarative representing the pressure on the greatest creature genius of all time.

With this we have the conjunction o(ti indicating the content of his realisation. “Now when the dragon saw that he was thrown out of heaven,” the aorist passive indicative of ballw. He is aware that the time is short because the beginning of the short time is being cast out of heaven. As an observation he made he cannot escape the reality of the plan of prophecy, and he reads the prophecy into historical trends. The aorist tense of ballw is a culminative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. The pressure is on because the time is short. The culminative aorist indicates that the results are going to be the intensification of all evil that he has possessed and developed over the period of the prehistoric angelic conflict and the few thousand years of human history up to this point. For a creature as smart as Satan that is enough to accumulate a tremendous amount of evil. Once it is clear that the time is short then all of the monster comes oozing out. Satan has what might be classified as relatively unchecked power and he has all of this genius and ability to go with it. His first act of going berserk is to express the hatred and cruelty of his soul — well disguised but there. His hatred and cruelty is going to be expressed toward the Jew. Actually, the eschatology of the devil’s desperation runs into the tactical victory of our Lord’s second advent, but the Lord’s tactical victory includes all the events of the second advent plus His Millennial reign on earth. The Lord’s tactical victory, then, begins with the second advent and terminates with the Gog revolution when Satan gets out of jail.

The passive voice: the dragon or Satan receives the action of the verb. He receives the realisation that he is now confined to the earth and can no longer travel to heaven, which means that God has taken away from Satan and all of that demon army the ability to travel through space much more rapidly than the speed of light. For the first time none of them have any access to heaven and Satan and all fallen angels feel the implications of being helpless. There is nothing worse than a person who suddenly is helpless and who has practised evil all of his life. In desperation he tries to use the power of evil to break out of the pressure, i.e.. the time is short, and he still thinks he can win.

People who lose control of their lives and have no personal sense of destiny are always going to be winners, they think to themselves. They rationalise: “We’re going to get doctrine later on. As soon as we get things straightened out we’ll start taking in doctrine.” Those are the ones who never can handle any kind of adversity or any kind of pressure. Satan gives us the perfect illustration of the problems that come with that pressure. There comes a time when you think you have the world by the tail, like the devil does, and suddenly you discover that even though you are the ruler of the world and have all the high-sounding titles that go with it that you are absolutely helpless. What good is it, asks Satan, if I am the ruler of the world and can’t carry on the fight in heaven? As far as he is concerned it is no fun to be the ruler of the world and live in the world. Satan doesn’t want to live here, he just wants to run it. Most people don’t live in the factory they own, they live out in the country in much more pleasant circumstances. Satan lives in heaven at the moment, he just rules this earth. What a terrible thing it is going to be when he has to live here!

The indicative mood is declarative for the future reality of this point of eschatology. Then we have the prepositional phrase e)ij plus the accusative of gh, “to the earth,” a reference here to planet earth. He no longer has any access to heaven.

People who have no control of their lives are people who always say they are going to do the right thing later on, “I know I should get doctrine, I know I should do this, but I have all these things I have to straighten out first.” Those are the people who cannot take pressure when it comes. They are the ones who say they know doctrine is important, they like doctrine, “But right now I just don’t have the time.” And when the time is short and the pressure has come it is always the same thing: they are always absolutely helpless to face disaster. When helpless people face pressure they always fall apart; they can’t take it. They therefore perform evil through one of two avenues: evil through sin, evil through human good, or evil through both.

Many Christians are lined up with evil as soon as they get some pressure simply because they never establish a system of priorities on a daily basis. You must have a daily system of priorities. It is your daily perspective through doctrine that gives you the power and the ability to face disaster. If your daily priorities include doctrine first then this is going to be a wonderful day and tomorrow is going to be a wonderful day because you establish a routine by which you make positive decisions for doctrine; you have personal control of your life, and you have a personal sense of destiny. You have it on a daily basis so that when you go into the storm of pressure and adversity there is no problem at all, you are ready for it, you have established a routine of proper priorities. The life that doesn’t have routine is not organised for either adversity or prosperity. What is meant here is routine in terms of priorities in life. What are your priorities in life? What is first? What is important? If your priority is doctrine and you are consistent you are going to make right decisions with regard to doctrine and your daily life is going to be wonderful.

“Now when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to earth.” We now have two eschatologies, one leads into the other. This will be the rest of the book of Revelation. We have the eschatology of the devil’s desperation and we have the eschatology of the Lord’s tactical victory. There are three concepts. The eschatology of the devil’s desperation begins with the expulsion of Satan from heaven, a disaster. But interestingly enough Satan is kicked out of heaven and he goes down to the earth which he rules and where he is miserable and will now express all the evils of his person. But the Lord’s tactical victory begins when He comes to earth. He isn’t thrown out of heaven, He has control of His life and He comes of His own volition. Satan wants to stay in heaven and cannot; the Lord comes to the earth because the Lord has control of His life; Satan has no control of his life. Our Lord has a plan that is related to everything that is virtuous and wonderful, and Satan’s plan is doomed because Satan is kicked out of his house. The Lord comes to the earth because He has a purpose in doing so and the day of the second advent is the day of His tactical victory, a moment of great happiness and rejoicing. He is in control, He has power, He has made all the right decisions. Satan has made all the wrong decisions and when he is tossed to the earth he is frustrated and angry.

The eschatology of the devil’s desperation ends at the second advent; the Lord’s tactical victory ends at the Gog revolution. The second advent puts Satan down but the Gog revolution also puts Satan down. Satan comes back after being in jail for a thousand years, and did he learn anything? He did not. As soon as he gets out he starts a conspiracy. He finds again perfect environment on the earth, this time under the rule of the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. In that situation what does he do? He destroys perfect environment for quite a few people and that revolution ends in disaster because any revolution ends in disaster. Arrogant people are unteachable. You can put arrogant people in Bible class for one thousand years and they still haven’t learned anything! When you are preoccupied with yourself you cannot learn anything that is worthwhile. Satan learned nothing, he is thrown out again, only this time there is only one place for him to go. At the second advent he is simply put into jail which is the abyss; he is in solitary confinement for a thousand years, but as a result of the Gog revolution he is thrown into the lake of fire for eternity. So he never did learn anything and, of course, never have a lot of people in this world.

In the eschatology of the devil’s desperation we have his confinement to the earth for three and a half years. And what does he do with this power that he has been exercising in prehistoric times and throughout human history? Does he use it to any advantage? No. He simply accelerates the use of his unchecked power to produce the greatest disaster in human history, the last three and a half years of the Tribulation. In the eschatology of the Lord’s tactical victory he has another confinement: to the abyss for one thousand years. And he learned nothing. So we go back to a principle that we must never forget: to the extent that you entertain any form of arrogance in your life, it can be self-righteousness. Self righteous believers do not like a ministry that pops them good! And self-righteous believers can only learn certain things. It takes consistent day-by-day humility to be teachable and without that daily humility you learn nothing, arrogance distorts but never applies correctly because arrogance uses truth, arrogance does not learn truth.

The time of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation is the beginning of a series of confinements and restrictions which terminates with Satan spending all eternity in the lake of fire. Think of it: the greatest and most attractive creature that ever came from the hand of God will spend eternity in the lake of fire. First Satan is confined to the earth for the last three and a half years of the Tribulation where he desperately tries to frustrate the inevitable tactical victory of Christ. At the second advent Satan is seized and cast into the abyss for 1000 years — further confinement and restriction.

When people will not use self-control and will not limit themselves in the field of evil or sin or human good, then God will lock them up in one or another category of prisons. We must regulate our own lives. Only you can regulate your life; only you can control your life.

At the end of the Millennium Satan is released from his prison and he begins another conspiracy against Christ and the perfect rule of the Millennium which results in the Gog revolution. When the revolution is suppressed Satan is cast into the lake of fire forever. Being in jail for a thousand years didn’t teach the devil a thing about his own responsibility to himself. So the devil’s desperation defines the confinement and the restriction of the devil, beginning with his expulsion from heaven.

From the middle of the Tribulation his freedom to roam the universe is curtailed, he is no longer free to move around. He is in his own kingdom which he has created as a jail and since he has this great anger and frustration we have a tough time on the earth. As he becomes more desperate he takes his arrogant frustration out on people. In essence, by the function of his own volition Satan seeks to destroy his own kingdom in order to frustrate the plan of God. He seeks to destroy the human race which he rules. He does not succeed though his power to do so is far greater than any other creature. Nevertheless Satan is still a creature.

And the principle: no creature, no matter how powerful, can ever successfully challenge the creator. To attempt such is a blasphemous thing, the epitome of creature arrogance. In any creature arrogance is the ultimate destructive force. No creature, man or angel, has ever profited from arrogance and no creature ever will. The essence of cosmic one should teach us this very important lesson.

We have already studied in the first part of chapter twelve the concept of the holocaust syndrome. We have seen how the Jews made a decision from a position of weakness when they rejected the sign of the virgin birth, which means that they rejected Jesus Christ as their personal saviour. Historically all of us are the products of our own decisions and the great tragedy which overtook Israel in AD 70 was the result of many decisions from a position of weakness. Idolatry characterised the rule of Jehoiakim in the past, before they went out the second time under the fifth cycle of discipline. In 2 Kings 23:37, speaking of king Jehoiakim: “He did evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that his fathers had done.” With Jehoiakim begins the four generation curse which is found in Exodus 20:3-5 and terminates by saying, “visiting the iniquities of the fathers on the children of the third and fourth generations of those who hate me.” After the fourth generation things change but in three or four generations a nation can be destroyed. A decision from a position of weakness means loss of control of one’s life and when a maximum number of people make decisions from a position of weakness then it means loss of freedom to a national entity. Everything from a nuclear ban to every form of anti-military which is so prevalent today is an illustration which overtakes a nation of a social degeneracy, a spiritual degeneracy, an economic degeneracy, which spells doom for a nation unless there is an enlargement of the pivot of mature believers. Without that pivot there is not even the opportunity of fighting for freedom.

A decision from a position of weakness means, then, loss of control. This means that those involved become the victims of some terrible holocaust. It meant the holocaust of Jehoiakim and his son Coniah. The four generation curse meant loss of control of the lives of many people in Israel at that time, and so the holocaust came and they were destroyed. In the fourth generation Shealtiel had no heir so he adopted Zerrubabel causing the blood line to switch from Solomon to Nathan for our Lord Jesus Christ. We have noted, then, that a decision from a position of weakness amalgamated with other decisions from a position of weakness results in those involved becoming the recipients of a great holocaust. While this passage with which we are involved studies the Jewish holocaust there are many holocausts in history. There are Gentile as well as Jewish holocausts. Any group of people who continue to make bad decisions over a period of three or four generations inevitably become involved in a terrible national or racial disaster, and that national or racial disaster is the holocaust judgment which comes from their own bad decisions; not from outside sources, for any group of people whether a nation or a race must inevitably make bad decisions over a period of three or four generations before they are overtaken by historical disaster which destroys them.

The Jews lost all personal sense of destiny. They lost this through the rejection of Bible doctrine. Their culture was not strong enough, no culture ever is, for their culture was based on Bible doctrine which they had rejected; and so, of course, they could not relate properly to messianic passages. They could not understand, for example, the various signs given to Israel, the sign of the virgin birth, so that to them the baby is not born and they continue in their holocaust pregnancy. This has happened many times in history, the holocaust syndrome always follows the same pattern, bad decisions from a position of weakness. Bad decisions resulted in loss of control of their lives, and loss of control of their lives resulted in loss of personal sense of destiny. The result was seen historically in our own generation between 1933 and 1945, the great holocaust with Jews standing passively in line to enter the gas chambers and to be destroyed. This is the holocaust syndrome. It results, of course, from loss of motivation, loss of desire for freedom, loss of the ability to have principles upon which to fight for one’s freedom. Slavery exists because people do not resist, because they have the holocaust mentality. But Satan is a very special way is antagonistic toward the Jew, and so while the holocaust is always caused by those who are the victims in a period of either three or four generations the victims have made wrong decisions from a position of weakness. They have rejected truth, they have rejected Bible doctrine, they have no will to resist, they have no will to fight, and therefore they are caught up in historical disaster. It could happen to us as well just as it happened to Israel many times in the past as well as it will in the future.

In verse 13 we begin with the great holocaust of Israel in the last half of the Tribulation. We resume in the second half of the verse with the aorist active participle of diwkw which means to persecute, “and he persecuted.” One of the first things that frustrated people always do is to persecute. Unhappy people become natural bullies. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. We have the action of anti-Semitism which occurs over the entire three and a half years of the last half of the Tribulation. Specifically this constative aorist contemplates in its entirety the several major waves of anti-Semitism. The first attack occurs in verse 15; the second attack occurs in verse 17. The active voice: Satan produces the action of the verb, he is the author of anti-Semitism throughout human history. The participle is circumstantial and therefore translated as a finite verb.

Whom does he persecute? The accusative singular direct object from the noun gunh, the same word we found in verse one, “woman,” referring to Israel, “and he [Satan] persecuted the woman [Israel].” This is the greatest wave of anti-Semitism in history.

It is fascinating to study the end of medieval times and historically how they blend in with the Renaissance and the Reformation, and probably two of the most interesting of all of the centuries of human history occurred in the 15th and 16th, and even the 17th centuries. Those three centuries are transitional historically, not only for western Europe but for the world, and in that time we have some of the major holocausts against Israel. That period of time was a period of toleration and persecution amalgamating to form a great deal of confusion to historians. It was one, of course, where we see the great principle of religion destroying virtue and the natural instincts of grace. Religion was the Roman Catholic religion on the one hand and Islam on the other, and it is fascinating to see that all of a sudden Islam would tolerate the Jews because the Roman Catholics were persecuting them. Then, when Islam began to persecute the Jews the Roman Catholics would tolerate them. This went back and forth during the middle ages. When Islam started to grow in the seventh and eighth centuries it began to attack the Jews, so the Jews went to Spain. But when they were settled in Spain for a couple of hundred years, forming the middle class (all of the great doctors in western Europe were Jews, the bankers were Jews, the whole system that made Spain so great just before the Renaissance began and into the Renaissance up to the time of Charles the 5th and Philip the 2nd was this tremendous middle class made up of Jews and Moors) Charles the 5th and then Philip the 2nd immediately attacked the Moors and the Jews. The toleration was gone. But by this time Suleyman (Solomon) the Magnificent, the great Ottoman Turk ruler of the 16th century, became very tolerant and so the Jews moved back into Tunisia, North Africa, Turkey, all of the places where they were welcome, meaning that the Jews during the medieval times were battered around like a tennis ball, back and forth across the net. Sometimes they were safe under the religion of Islam and sometimes they were safe under the religion of the Roman Catholics, but they were never safe at the same time in either place and they could never really settle down. In other words, they suffered terribly throughout the middle ages.

Conclusions

1. Religion destroys virtue and the natural instincts of grace.

2. Religion produces arrogance and ignorance which overrides tolerance, high IQ, and substitutes cruelty. (Remember that Christianity is not a religion) Arrogance plus cruelty lowers the IQ of the people involved to zero.

3. A religious society cannot think and therefore emotes in the presence of mobs to cause persecution, cruelty and destruction of life.

4. Religion — and this was true of Islam at certain times and the Roman Catholic church and the Greek Orthodox church at certain times, and even farther on in India it was true of Hindus, and others — rejects the function of free will and the option of self-determination for others. In other words, “You can only be free if you accept our religion.”

5. Therefore Medieval history right up through the time of the Renaissance and Reformation not only caused the rise of cities but the inevitable rise of city mobs to function under terrorism.

6. This includes the rise of anti-Semitism for arrogance becomes a substitute for reason and produces a victim, a target for hatred, vindictiveness, implacability. Since 70 AD that target has all too often been the Jew.

7. Such a target was the Jew in the middle ages linking up to the time of the Renaissance and Reformation. Mobs had all the arrogance of unchecked power roaming the streets of medieval towns and cities, and all too often selected the Jew as a target.

“he [Satan] persecuted the woman.” This is the greatest wave of anti-Semitism in human history coming up in the future in the last half of the Tribulation. Satan’s objective at that time is the total destruction of Israel — racial, religious and regenerate — the objective of Satan as related to the understanding of pre-Millennialism.

Pre-Millennialism is the only system of eschatology which recognises the fact that God has unconditionally promised Israel certain things. He has made unconditional promises in certain paragraphs of the Abrahamic covenant, in the Palestinian covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the New covenant to Israel. These have never been fulfilled and will not be fulfilled until the second advent, so when Christ returns He must find Jews to be the recipients of these unconditional promises. If Satan can destroy all Jews then our Lord would not be able to keep His word. Satan understands this issue even though a lot of believers today do not. At the second advent Israel will be regathered, purified by the baptism of fire, and the true Israel of regenerate Jews will enter the Millennium as recipients of these unconditional promises.

First there will be the regathering of Israel at the second advent, which means Jews will be scattered throughout the earth. This is taught in Isaiah 5, 10, 11; Joel 2; Zechariah 10. Then follows the baptism of fire which separates Jewish believer from unbeliever. The Jewish believer goes into the Millennium; the Jewish unbeliever goes into the lake of fire. Then follows the fulfilment of the unconditional covenants to the born-again Jews, as per Romans 11:27 — “Also this is the covenant to them [Jewish believers] from me [Jesus Christ at the second advent], when I have removed their punishment for sins,” the fifth cycle of discipline will be removed at the second advent. The devil understands this doctrine so well that he will be happy to enlist people at any time in a wave of anti-Semitism. Don’t ever be sucked into such an evil thing for this is a Satanic principle and it is a guarantee to make your life miserable. Those who attack Israel must recognise the principle of divine discipline against themselves.

The next phrase, and the last phrase in this passage before we get into the holocaust concept, begins with the nominative feminine singular from a qualitative relative pronoun o(stij, translated “who,” and it indicates that certain persons belong to a category, and the ones that are being persecuted are in category Israel. Next we have the aorist active indicative of the verb tiktw reminding us of verse two and the double entendre, “who gave birth.” The aorist tense is a constative aorist contemplating the virgin pregnancy, the virgin birth, it its entirety. The active voice: Israel is the source of the humanity of Christ and the resultant hypostatic union, therefore Israel produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the fact that out Lord Jesus Christ came in the flesh through Israel, the tribe of Judah, the family of David. And it is translated “who gave birth to.” The accusative direct object is made of several words meaning a male child, Jesus Christ in hypostatic union. It is a reference therefore to the first advent of Christ, the strategic victory of the angelic conflict. As a reference to the first advent and the strategic victory it also is a reminder of Satan’s attempt at the end of the Tribulation to try to head off the fulfilment of all the unconditional promises to Israel by the destruction of Israel. Satan has been defeated strategically and he is trying to head off being defeated tactically.

Without the cross there could be no crown for true Israel, and Gentiles of the Old Testament who are believers, the body of Christ, the royal family of God, all depend upon the first and second advents for the complete fulfilment of God’s plan for each one of us. The cross must come before the crown and only through the cross can there be members of the human race to be delivered at the second advent.

The translation: “Now when the dragon [Satan] saw that he had been thrown to the earth he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.”

The persecution of the woman refers to the great holocaust.

Why the holocaust?

1. Passive arrogance demands the function of active arrogance against it. Basically that is why we have historical disasters of all kinds.

2. Passive arrogance is generally associated with the enjoyment of freedom and prosperity for three or four generations.

3. The freedom and prosperity originates from a large pivot of mature believers plus the principles of establishment like freedom through military victory, free enterprise economy, a vigorous uniculture, and the universal recognition of the sacredness of freedom, privacy, property and human life. All of this becomes the basis for the development of passive arrogance. The victims of any holocaust are always involved in passive arrogance, they attract active arrogance against them.

4. Passive arrogance accepts freedom and prosperity totally apart from human virtue and a sense of responsibility. It assumes that one has a right to all of those blessings without any adherence to the laws of divine establishment.

5. Passive arrogance on the part of the Jews of the dispersion results in active arrogance on the part of their persecutors.

6. No nation or race ever experiences a holocaust without the historical demand for it.

7. Hence, negative volition, apostasy, and passive arrogance of indifference creates the vacuum which attracts the persecution of active arrogance, holocaust, and historical disaster.

A second principle

1. Evil demands evil, cruelty demands cruelty, because passive arrogance demands the function of active arrogance against it.

2. Active arrogance punishes passive arrogance until the active arrogance through prosperity also becomes passive. There is a constant series of historical disasters because active arrogance is hungry and it punishes passive arrogance.

3. Today a nation can be the instrument of punishment through active arrogance and tomorrow the victim of holocaust through enjoying prosperity too well and entering into the condition of passive arrogance.

4. The punishing nation or group generally has to be very cruel to punish cruelty. The punishing nation must be evil to punish evil in another group. Not only do individuals have to take responsibility for their own decisions but so do nations.

5. This has always been the pattern of history, therefore it is part of the historical trend which explains not only the Jewish holocaust but the rise and fall of nations and empires.

6. Satan with his active arrogance frustrated by his fall from heaven is the instrument of punishment of the Jews’ in the last half of the Tribulation. They through their own cosmic involvement have entered into a state of passive arrogance, and passive arrogance always attracts active arrogance against it.

7. Therefore the group, the nation, or the people who practice anti-Semitism generally possess an active arrogance plus evil. This causes them to gravitate to passive arrogance and attack it from a position of evil. In other words, passive arrogance is the victim of active arrogance.

8. This does not justify anti-Semitism but explains it in terms of historical trends.

9. The Jews who will be the victims of Satan at the seventh trumpet in the middle of the Tribulation are those apostate Jews who have developed passive arrogance through their residence and function in the cosmic system. Passive arrogance attracts persecution from active arrogance.

A third principle

1. Both ideology (like communism) and religion destroy virtue and with the destruction of virtue the natural instinct of grace and tolerance.

2. This is because religion, unlike Christianity, produces arrogance, ignorance, cruelty and persecution which overrides tolerance. It substitutes for tolerance cruelty. When tolerance leaves cruelty arrives.

3. Since a religious society cannot think or reason it becomes emotional with blind arrogance. This emotion produces mob violence, persecution of passive arrogance, cruelty resulting in the holocaust for its victims.

4. In other words, religion stifles freedom — illustrated by Spain in the time of Charles the fifth and Philip the second — the function of free will and self-determination. Therefore religion loses toleration as the essential part of freedom.

6. Religion does not allow others to make mistakes but persecutes them vigorously.

7. Medieval history not only records the rise of towns and cities but the inevitable rise of mobs to function under the principle of arrogance and intolerance, therefore terrorism of active arrogance. Mobs are emotional and they tend toward the terrorism of active arrogance.

8. Therefore anti-Semitism alternates with tolerance toward the Jew but never for more than three or four generations.

Active arrogance always seeks and attacks passive arrogance. The Jews had developed passive arrogance before they were persecuted under the principle of anti-Semitism. Hence the principle: All of us as individuals and nations — not just the Jews, Gentiles as well — are the products of our own decisions, and when our decisions lead us to the point of passive arrogance there is always some barbaric group, like the communists, with active arrogance ready to attack. Again, this does not justify anti-Semitism for a part of Christian virtue of impersonal love toward all includes the Jews.

A fourth principle

1. A great nation is built on humility, never arrogance. Humility tolerates; arrogance persecutes. Humility produces virtue; arrogance produces evil.

2. When humility and virtue existed, and wherever it existed, the Jews were tolerated and accepted. But where arrogance existed the Jews were persecuted under the principle of anti-Semitism.

3. However, the Jews themselves who were the victims had developed a passive arrogance to attract the active arrogance of anti-Semitism. This is not only true of Jews, it is also true of Gentiles, it just so happens that our subject in Revelation twelve is anti-Semitism.

4. Active arrogance is inspired by an outside source, Satan and his cosmic system, but passive arrogance is produced from an inside source, by bad decisions from a position of weakness.

5. Passive arrogance is subjective toward its victims while active arrogance is objective toward it victims and therefore initiates the anti-Semitism, the cruelty. This is also true in historical disasters among Gentiles.

6. Active arrogance is motivated by hatred, implacability, vindictiveness. Passive arrogance is motivated by a sense of superiority, self-righteousness and hypocrisy. That is what happened under the Third Reich.

7. Passive arrogance persecutes in a civilised way — through sarcasm, through ridicule and slander; active arrogance persecutes in a barbaric way through violence, cruelty, destruction.

8. Passive arrogance does not kill its victims directly but active arrogance tortures, mutilates, murders, annihilates.

9. When active arrogance attacks active arrogance we call it war, but when active arrogance attacks passive arrogance we call it persecution.

A fifth principle

1. Many Jews have escaped anti-Semitism. That is because they lived in the environment of Christian virtue which emphasises residence, function, momentum, in the divine dynasphere and therefore results in impersonal love toward all, which means tolerance.

2. In the environment of toleration the Jew is accepted, loved, respected and, again, even tolerated under principles of establishment freedom.

3. Such environment requires a large pivot of mature believers and general prosperity in the client nation.

4. That large pivot of mature believers becomes the nucleus not only for the client nation to God but for its prosperity. Inevitably such a nucleus provides that blessing by association known as national prosperity.

5. From national prosperity often comes arrogance, failure to pass the prosperity test. The leaders and the majority of the citizens become involved in the cosmic system which has various categories of arrogance which destroy the client nation.

6. The arrogant nation under the influence of the cosmic system develops two basic categories of failure: holocaust, in which active arrogance persecutes passive arrogance; historical disaster, which includes social degeneration, economic depression, and military disaster.

7. The nation involved might be classified as apostate and have a triple collective identification, identified through the principle that national decisions from a position of weakness: firstly, like socialism and activism that destroys the nation; secondly, historical loss of a national sense of destiny, or even a false sense of destiny like self-righteous interference in the local affairs of other nations; thirdly, national loss of control through bad foreign or domestic policies, or both.

A sixth principle

1. Under the principle that passive arrogance attracts persecution from active arrogance it must be concluded that the holocaust cannot exist apart from bad decisions on the part of the victims.

2. Individuals and groups must take the responsibility for their own decisions, and many bad decisions from a position of weakness on the part of the victims cannot be ignored.

3. The Jews who rejected Christ as Messiah and saviour at the time of the Roman empire had rejected through their own free will the signs which God had provided for Israel. All of these signs are rejected by strong negative volition which in turn creates first passive arrogance in cosmic one and then active arrogance in cosmic two. This means that the Jews are the products of their own negative decisions, even though they continue to use Deuteronomy 6:4 in their ritual.

A seventh principle

1. Like the double entendre which we studied in Revelation 12:2, to the unbelieving Jew the Messiah has never been born, there has been no virgin birth. Therefore his historic suffering is called the holocaust pregnancy — anti-Semitism during the time of his dispersion. Unbelieving Israel in the Tribulation “was tortured” — that is the future holocaust of the last half of the Tribulation, “to give birth.” To the unbelieving Jew Christ is not yet born and has not yet come and the labour pains continue in the last half of the Tribulation.

2. Since to the unbelieving Jew the virgin birth of Christ has never taken place his historical and eschatological suffering from anti-Semitism is classified as holocaust pregnancy, the intense labour pains with no delivery.

3. Therefore the holocaust syndrome basically has three parts. First, the Jews make negative decisions from a position of weakness when they reject the sign of the virgin birth, which become tantamount to rejecting Christ as saviour. So there are always negative decisions, rejection of truth, as the first phase of the holocaust syndrome. Secondly, this decision from a position of weakness means loss of control of their lives because they are outside of the plan of God and do not have the protection of the plan of God against holocaust or historical disaster. Thirdly, the Jew who rejects Christ as saviour cannot properly relate to the messianic passages of the Old Testament, therefore he has no personal sense of destiny without these passages. So the third part of the holocaust syndrome is of loss of personal destiny.

4. Since man is the product of his own decisions, not his environment, he brings on the holocaust of anti-Semitism through his own personal decisions. This does not mean that because the Jews have made wrong decisions we should enter into any antagonism against them.

An eighth principle

1. In the eschatological holocaust of the Tribulation born-again Jews are delivered by the second advent. Hence, under the analogy of the double entendre the deliverance of Christ at the virgin birth is analogous to the deliverance of believing Israel at the second advent.

2. Believing Jews with Bible doctrine come through those three and a half years of holocaust that is anti-Semitism totally unscathed because they are in the plan of God for the Millennium.

3. Unbelieving Jews of the Tribulation follow the analogy of never being delivered, for to them Christ has not yet been born. Hence, they are not born-again but continue in the labour pains of holocaust.

4. The unbelieving Jews want the crown without the cross. They always assume that the Millennium is going to come but they have not accepted Christ, hence the analogy between the Jewish holocaust of the Tribulation and the torture of the pregnant mother who cannot be delivered. The labour pains of the holocaust continue unless the Jew is born-again through faith in Christ. Until they accept the virgin pregnancy and birth they possess the holocaust pregnancy from which deliverance can only come through a spiritual birth, i.e.. faith in Christ.

Verse 14, the deliverance of regenerate believers or true Israel in the first half of the Tribulation. We have the tendency to think that once we get into unstable times, once we get into any form of historical disaster, that somehow the opportunity is gone for the believer. In fact, the opportunity and spiritual impact is even greater. We do not need historical prosperity for Christian blessing. Christian blessing comes in any circumstances. There is no question about the fact that we are in a transitional period as far as human history is concerned. Therefore there are terrible uncertainties, many instabilities, many people losing out, many people gaining, that is always the way it is in history, and people become very concerned and insecure. One of the manifestations of the insecurity is the phenomenal drug abuse today. But, again, no matter how great the disaster, whether it comes from war, famine, disease, economic depression, social degeneration, it does not change God’s plan for your life and it does not hinder your opportunity for impact nor the fantastic blessing that can come to you through the daily exercising of your options.

We begin verse 14 with the conjunction kai, emphasising a fact as surprising and noteworthy. It should be translated “Nevertheless.” The subject of this verse is composed of seven Greek words. First we have a nominative plural from the definite article a(i, and with it we have an indeclinable numeral duw. Then we have a nominative plural which is the actual subject from pteruc which means “wing.” Then we have two definite articles in the genitive singular, tou, and the possessive genitive of a)etoj which is used for an eagle, sometimes a hawk, and sometimes a large buzzard. This is followed by the descriptive genitive from the adjective megaj. Altogether it says, “Nevertheless the two wings of a great eagle.”

In Exodus 19:4 the Lord was speaking to Moses and to Israel, and said, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians [at the Red Sea], and how I carried you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to myself.” The Jews weren’t picked up on eagles’ wings and carried to the Lord. They didn’t die and they didn’t ride eagles! It simply is used here for the Lord’s logistical grace protection of the Jews in their Exodus wanderings. They wandered into every kind of trouble, they made a lot of trouble for themselves, and along the way a lot of people made trouble for them. But the point is, eagles’ wings in Exodus 19:4 are simply used for systems of divine protection.

In Deuteronomy 32:9-12 another eagle passage is pertinent to this. “For the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the allotment of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land [in slavery in Egypt], and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him [God cared for the Jew and the Jew didn’t care for God], he guarded him as the pupil of his eye. Like an eagle [an analogy] that stirs up its nest, that hovers over its young, takes them out, and spreads it wings and catches them: so the Lord alone guided him, and there was no foreign god with him.” So it is the spiritual training of Israel during those forty years. “Like an eagle” is an analogy.

The Bible dictates divine protection for true or regenerate Israel in the first half of the Tribulation. There is a great evangelistic push right after the Rapture when 144,000 Jewish evangelists have a phenomenal response to the gospel. This divine protection may be administered through angels but actually the divine protection, the eagle, is administered through the content of the scriptures, such as Matthew 24:15ff. Here is an eschatological warning to true Israel or believing Jews living in Palestine in the middle of the Tribulation. These people have been evangelised by the 144,000. They are now warned to flee to the high desert country, and in obeying that command they are going to be protected, as per our passage, “Nevertheless the two wings of a great eagle [divine protection of true Israel].” Both groups of Jews in the Tribulation, those who believe in the first half and those who believe in the second half, are delivered by the second advent of Christ as per the Word of God, but they must follow the Word, otherwise they wind up martyrs. All to often, but not always, martyrs are the stupid ones, the non-flexible ones. There are a lot of martyrs in the Tribulation because they are stupid, arrogant, inflexible. Each group must use the faith-rest drill but with a different application. One group runs away and the other group stays and fights. True Israel in the first half of the Tribulation must flee using God’s logistical grace described in the context of the two wings of the eagle; the second group of true Israel in the second half of the Tribulation must take the opposite application: they must stand and fight. To stand and fight for the first group means certain death and, conversely, for the second group to flee is certain death. Each group must make the faith-rest application from the rationales and it will result in the flexibility which will preserve them.

Next phrase in our passage is the aorist active indicative of the verb didomi. Anything given by God is always a matter of grace. It isn’t given, it isn’t deserved, and therefore this is classified as logistical grace provision. “Nevertheless the two wings of a great eagle [divine protection of Israel] had been given.” “Had been given” is the translation of the culminative aorist tense, contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety but regarding it from the viewpoint of existing results, the protection and the eventual deliverance of those believers of Israel in the first half of the Tribulation, those who follow instruction, those who utilise the general mandate for the faith-rest drill and the specific mandates for fleeing to the high desert country. The passive voice: the regenerate of Israel receive the action of the verb, specifically those of the first half of the Tribulation. The declarative indicative mood represents the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality, and the reality is simply this: the positive believer advancing to maturity in any time of historical disaster is not an any way deterred by the adversities of history, from the blessings that belong to that individual who advances to the winner’s gate, gate eight. There is no promotion, no system of prosperity, that you cannot have in the greatest time of historical adversity.

Principle: God’s plan continues and has the same blessings, the same rewards, the same promotions, in historical adversity as in historical prosperity. God’s plan does not take cognisance of circumstances; God’s plan works in all circumstances of life. So no matter how bad things become God’s plan for your life doesn’t change, the momentum factor does not change as a mandate from God, and you are not deprived of any blessings because you move into a time of historical adversity.

With this we have the dative singular indirect object from the noun gunh, referring here to Israel, specifically regenerate Israel in the first half of the Tribulation. The dative of indirect object has the connotation of indicating the one in whose interest the act is performed. This becomes, therefore, a dative of advantage. It is to the advantage to be a believer in times of historical disaster. The advantages of being a believer are obvious eternally but the advantages of being a believer are just as great in time of historical adversity as in time of historical prosperity.

With this we now have a purpose clause and it is introduced with the conjunction i(na, translated “that” or “so that,” and with it we have the present middle subjunctive of the verb petomai which means to fly, “that she might fly.” We notice the futuristic present denoting an event which has not yet occurred but is regarded as so certain that in thought it is contemplated as already happening. This is a way of emphasising the assurance of deliverance to those who follow instructions given in doctrinal form. Those who follow Bible doctrine never lose but they have to be persistent and they have to be consistent in the perception of doctrine. Those who follow instruction through the application of eschatological doctrine to the historical circumstances are going to come up winners in time of the greatest historical disaster in all of history. The futuristic present here is dealing with a future eschatological function, the direct middle in which the subject acts with a view toward participating in the outcome, the deliverance from anti-Semitism in the last half of the Tribulation. The potential subjunctive mood implies a future reference and is qualified by the element of contingency, namely the perception of pertinent doctrine and application through the function of the faith-rest drill.

The question arises whether this is a literal or a figurative use of flying. The Bible does not say certain things. What the Bible does say is that flight from Jerusalem and Judea is necessary. The means is not specified. The trouble is that people like to be sensational when they come to eschatology and the eagle is not an aircraft as some of the more sensational have tried to indicate. But God’s logistical grace and deliverance in time of disaster is the issue. They are not actually literally flying, they are being delivered by logistical grace.

We then have a prepositional phrase in this sentence, e)ij plus topoj plus the descriptive genitive of a)utoj, “in her place,” feminine because the woman is the feminine gender referring to Israel, “so that she might fly to her place.” This place of refuge is described three times in eschatological passages: Daniel 11:31, the land of Edom, Moab and Ammon; Matthew 24:16 — “the mountains”; Revelation 12:6, “the high desert country.” All three descriptions are accurate. God has prepared a special place of refuge for those regenerate Jews of Palestine who accept Christ as saviour during the first half of the Tribulation. The place is the provision of logistical grace and the challenge to perpetuate the faith-rest drill once they have arrived.

Next we have the temporal clause which is the provision of logistical grace. Always remember that no matter how great the adversity to an individual or to people collectively as a nation God still has a plan for your life and logistical grace is still functional. So the temporal clause begins with the particle of place, o(tou, translated “where,” plus the adverb of place e)kei, “in that place.” The adverb of place emphasises the fact that the plan of God at the right place at the right time is only arrived at by the use of Bible doctrine previously given. You are not left in the dark. So that if you are not in the right place at the right time it is your responsibility — negative volition. God has never left any generation of believer without a place of refuge, without protection, and the fact that believers are destroyed in any given generation, overcome by historical disaster, simply means they have been negative toward doctrine. They have rejected the Word of God, they are the products of their own decisions. We are always the product of our own decisions, not our circumstances.

The next verb is the present passive indicative of the verb treqw. Treqw means to be sustained. If ever there is an important verb for us as we face the possibility of historical disaster in our own time, and for those in the future, and those who have adversity in the past, it is this word trepqw. It means to nourish when dealing with children but when dealing with adults or people under adversity it means to be sustained. Again, we have the futuristic present denoting an event which has not yet occurred but is so certain in thought that it is contemplated as already occurring, even though it wont happen until the Tribulation. The passive voice: those Jews, true Israel, who believe in Christ in the first half of the Tribulation and who follow the instructions of the Word of God, receive the action of the verb in the form of logistical grace provision. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of logistical grace support of those Jewish believers who obey the instructions —Matthew 24:15-20.

The subject “she” refers to regenerate Israel of the first half of the Tribulation, “where in that place she [regenerate Israel of the first half of the Tribulation] will be sustained [the provision of logistical grace].”

We have one more phrase for time. Time is used in the singular for one year, xairoj, plus times [two years], and then we have the phrase for a half year, e(misuj, “for three and a half years,” the last half of the Tribulation. Then there is one more phrase in the verse which has to do with the serpent or Satan: the preposition a)po plus the ablative of separation from proswpon which some time means face and sometimes means presence. Here it means from the presence of. Then the possessive genitive from o)fij, the general word for snake, “from the presence of the serpent.” The serpent is used instead of Satan or devil because during the last half of the Tribulation Satan will attempt to lure or get born born-again Jews to leave their place of refuge. They are safe as long as they stay in their place of refuge and apply Matthew 24:21-30 as a part of the faith-rest drill. Just as the serpent tempted the woman in the garden so the serpent will tempt the woman Israel in the place of refuge — Matthew 24:23,24. Satan knows that the Jews are safe in that high desert place and therefore must lure them out of their place of safety, their place of refuge.

Translation: “Nevertheless the two wings of the great eagle [divine protection of true Israel] has been given to the woman [logistical grace provision for regenerate Israel in the first half of the Tribulation] so that she [true Israel] might fly to her place of refuge [Edom, Moab, and Ammon], where in that place she will be sustained for a time [one year], plus times [two years], plus one half time [one half year], from the presence of the serpent [Satan].”

We now move to the first attack of the third demon assault army in verse 15. The nominative singular subject is o)fij, the word we noted in verse 14, an onomatopoetic Greek word as so many words in ancient languages happened to be. The o)fij is the hiss of the serpent, defined in the context (Revelation 12:9) as the title for Satan. With this we have the sequential use of the conjunction kai indicating that this attack follows Satan’s expulsion from heaven, and it begins the eschatology of the devil’s desperation. The first item on the agenda of the third woe (or the time of the devil’s desperation) is the seventh trumpet or the great Jewish holocaust of the last half of the Tribulation.

The aorist active indicative of ballw follows. The word means generally to throw. It is used, however, with the ablative singular of the noun stoma which means mouth, and e)k plus stoma plus ballw reads: “Then the serpent projected from his mouth.” The word “his” is the possessive genitive of the intensive pronoun a)utoj used as a personal pronoun, third person. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. Here the action is the attack of the third demon assault army. “Projected from his mouth” means he gave the orders for the attack. The active voice: Satan commanding the third demon assault army personally produces the action of the verb. The accusative neuter singular direct object from u(dor is translated “water”. Water is used here as in Isaiah 8:7,8. Water as a flood is often used for invading armies, and here it refers to the third demon assault army which has been defeated in the battle of heaven and the remnants of it, along with the first and second demon assault armies have been pulled together for this last great historical disaster.

We have a comparative conjunction which follows, o(j, translated “like” or “as.” It connotes that what is coming is going to be an analogy. Then the appositional accusative potamoj, another word for water: water in a river. It usually means a river but it actually originates from an Attic Greek word, the verb petomai, and it means to move with a tearing speed, hence it is used in noun form for water rushing quickly. It is used in the Attic Greek as an analogy for violence. So we translate it, “water like the violence of rapids” or “like the force [power] of a flood.”

Then we have an improper preposition o)pisw plus the genitive singular of gunh, used here for Israel, “after [overtaking] the woman [Israel].” Israel overtaken, destroyed in the holocaust, refers to unbelieving Jews. Those believing Jews who followed the instructions of Matthew 24 are safe. The attack of the third demon army is compared to a helpless person about to be taken in the rapids or a wall of water of some kind of flood and drowned. It is obvious from the analogy that Israel is helpless apart from divine intervention. But God keeps His word and there will be live Jewish believers to receive the promises of the unconditional covenants at the second advent. While Satan seeks to destroy all Jews in this great attack the evangelising of Jews, their following the Word of God, growing in grace, learning doctrine, using the three stages of the faith-rest drill, will ensure their survival.

Principle: Believers with spiritual maturity not only survive in times of disaster but, more than that, they even have fantastic blessing. The function of supergrace blessings to winners who achieve gate eight continues in historical adversity as well as in time of historical prosperity.

This means that there never was a disaster in history that did not have its survivors. Survival is not a matter of reading books on it but having a phenomenal flexibility and having developed already as a believer the habit of making good decisions from the application of doctrine. So that survival is a matter of grace, not a matter of great wisdom in planning. When disaster hits you must always be flexible. Flexibility starts with the ability to think and to improvise from thought solutions in the place where you are located. It means the absence of fear. Fear is the inability to think under pressure. The greatest thing you have going for you is not some plan that you have developed and everything related to it, the greatest thing going for you is the ability to think under pressure. And you have to start out with a spiritual factor: God has a plan for your life, you are still alive, God has a purpose for your life; and since God has a plan for your life and a purpose for your life you must improvise in whatever area God has placed you. Flexibility is one of the marvellous things that accompanies the development of virtue in the divine dynasphere.

So we have survivors, and these people survive because of this phenomenal flexibility, but flexibility isn’t the whole answer, it is only the attitude you must take when you find yourself in disaster. The grace of God always meets the flexibility of believers who apply doctrine in adverse conditions. Without God’s grace all the flexibility in the world cannot survive but while this flexibility is manifesting itself in the application of doctrine — the use of the three stages of the faith-rest drill, whatever it may be — the grace of God is always providing that way of escape, whatever it is. Disaster limits what you can own and have and possess but disaster is unlimited in the field of thought and flexibility and application for survival. Grace provides options for grace-oriented people but you have to recognise the way of escape, you have to be able to apply the doctrine, you have to have common sense and use it. Historical peril and greatest dangers from disaster do not shut down the volitional options of the Jews who are the recipients of this attack. God imputed life to all of us; God has a purpose for our lives, at salvation He imputed eternal life; God has even a greater purpose and therefore God’s purpose can be accomplished. The people who do not survive, the losers, are simply those who didn’t have the doctrine, the preparation, the grace orientation, to make the right decisions when the time came.

There’s nothing like enjoying and having capacity to enjoy the wonderful blessings that you have in historical prosperity, but you must never permit the great blessings of historical prosperity to suddenly become the greatest source of danger in historical disaster. It is always a possibility unless you are very flexible. You must be able to enjoy what you have and to walk away from it at any time that the balloon may go up.

The objective of Satan’s attack is given in a purpose clause. It is introduced with the conjunction i(na, “that,” Next we have the aorist active subjunctive of the verb poiew, and we have an accusative singular direct object from a)utoj, “that he might cause her.” Now how do we get the word “cause” out of pioew? The culminative aorist views the objective of Israel’s destruction in its entirety. Satan has a plan: destroy Israel. He now has his third demon assault army and the remnants of his first and second demon assault armies and pulls them altogether to destroy Israel. So the culminative aorist tense views the objective of Israel’s destruction it its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of its potential results: no Jews left to receive the fulfilment of the unconditional covenants. He wants the return of Christ with not a Jew left alive and, therefore, Christ will not be able to keep His promises. So he is going to try to destroy all Jews first. Now, where do we get the word “cause”? The active voice. This is a causative active voice in which Satan as the subject performs the action through intermediary means. In other words, he does it through the demon assault armies, he doesn’t personally lead the attack. This is equivalent to the hiphil stem in the Hebrew. The idiom often occurs in using an intransitive verb in a transitive sense. The subjunctive mood is potential, it forms a purpose clause and implies a future reference. The potential subjunctive is qualified by the element of contingency. The contingency is based on the potential success of the attack made by the third demon assault army.

With this we have the accusative singular direct object from a compound noun, potamoqhthj, and it means to be drowned in a flood water. So we have: “that he [Satan] might cause her [Israel] to be swept away by the rapids [or, drowned in the flood waters].” The objective of Satan, then, is twofold: to bring Israel to the point where she has lost control of her own destiny, like a person swept away in a flood and drowned, and to destroy Israel so that she has no destiny. This adds up to frustrating the plan. Frustration of the plan of God is always Satan’s objective. Only those Jews who believe in Christ and learn Bible doctrine will have a personal sense of destiny in this crisis. They will maintain control of their lives in this crisis and they will continue to make decisions from a position of strength in this crisis; and for those reasons they will be able to survive. Those Jews who had believed in Christ and advanced through the perception and application of doctrine continued in the greatest adversity to have a personal sense of destiny, to maintain control of their own lives, and continue to make good decisions from a position of strength. From the time of Abraham to the present and continuing into the Tribulation and up to the second advent Satan has always been the enemy of Israel. Israel only has a personal sense of destiny when related to Jesus Christ, the God of Israel, and when not related to Jesus Christ the Jews flounder in their terrible attacks from Satan which we call holocausts. To be a racial Jew does not imply a personal sense of destiny. To be a racial Jew and to reject Jesus Christ as saviour substitutes arrogance for a personal sense of destiny. Apart from faith in Christ no one can have a personal sense of destiny for the plan of God begins at the cross.

Strictly speaking, the waters in this verse could just as easily have been flood waters or rapids or tidal waves, or any great flow of water which has a power representing the principle of great adversity. The attacks of the third demon assault army, the devil’s guards, are pictured as a wall of water pursuing Israel. To be overtaken by the wall of water, whether it is a tidal wave or rapids, and drowning is the destruction of Israel by analogy. Hence, to be more consistent with the completion of the analogy in the next verse rapids probably can be used to represent this passage.

Translation: “Then the serpent [Satan] projected from his mouth water [the third demon assault army] like the rapids [great force and violence] to overtake the woman [Israel], in order that he [Satan] might cause her [Israel] to be swept away by the rapids [drowned in the flood waters].”

Dictators

Dictators are people who always know what is best for everyone else and seek to impose that knowledge on others without their consent. Therefore a dictator rejects freedom of choice and self-determination as the right of every individual. Dictators can be social, political or religious, seeking to impose their ideas on what is best for you totally apart from the function of your own volition. They refuse to permit you to make your own mistakes, they only want to make mistakes from their bad decisions, not yours. Consequently, dictators are both arrogant and self-righteous since the two characteristics are joined in the unholy matrimony of tyranny. Dictators use force to superimpose their will and ideas on the masses and therefore dictatorship inevitably rejects the principles and doctrines related to human freedom, self-determination, and the laws of divine establishment. Dictators insist on having their own way because their arrogance assumes that their way is superior. Hence, dictators assume perfection for themselves and imperfection for everyone else. They can only exist and function in the atmosphere of the cosmic system. A maximum number of people living in the cosmic system creates a vacuum for the rise of dictatorships while only the pivot of mature believers creates environment for the dynamic function of human freedom.

The dictatorship of Satan reaches its historical peak in the last half of the Tribulation because a maximum number of people in the world at that time demand such evil. Satan moves into that vacuum created by their negative volition. The mind must be exploited by Bible doctrine to make significant decisions for freedom.

Intolerance

One of the most fascinating periods of history is the Renaissance which preceded the Reformation. Most people think that the Renaissance was a time of tolerance but historically it was one of the greatest periods of intolerance in all of history. The new discoveries, the great talent, the rise of neo-classicism, all of these things produced one of the strongest areas of intolerance in history. The Roman Catholic church was intolerant of the Renaissance. The Renaissance resented the Roman Catholic church so the active arrogance of the church and the passive arrogance of discoveries such as Galileo’s inevitably lead to great conflict.

Since a religious society cannot think or reason it generally becomes emotional with blind arrogance. This emotion produces first intolerance, an active form of arrogance, then violence and persecution, and the persecution is always directed toward passive arrogance, and cruelty results in some form of holocaust. Religion stifles freedom, the function of free will and self-determination, therefore religion loses toleration as an essential part of human freedom. Religion does not allow others to make mistakes but persecutes them vigorously.

There is no such thing as the perpetuation of tolerance, for the perpetuation of tolerance demands historically the perpetuation of humility. They go together. There never has been in the history of mankind the perpetuation of tolerance and humility for more than four generations. After that some form of active or passive arrogance rears its ugly head and the trouble begins again.

The Jews had to develop passive arrogance before they were ever persecuted, however. That is one of the basic principles of anti-Semitism. Passive arrogance demands persecution from active arrogance and there is always some form of stupid, ignorant active arrogance to persecute those who are in passive arrogance. Hence the principle: all of us as individuals and nations are the products of our own decisions.

Verse 16, the divine deliverance of Israel. God always delivers winners. Their preparation does not have to be of the nature where people are doing special things for survival, they have their survival built up and constructed in their soul through the perception of Bible doctrine and with this they have that innate ability to be flexible in every circumstance of disaster.

Verse 16 is a continuation of the analogy. This time instead of the analogy of disaster as in verse 15 we have the analogy of deliverance. We begin with the conjunction kai emphasising a fact as noteworthy, hence it is translated “Nevertheless.” With this we have our subject in the nominative singular gh referring to planet earth. Sometimes it refers to the land of Israel. The word has a number of meanings but here it refers to land as opposed to water in the analogy. Land means safety from water and therefore in the analogy God provides safety for Israel through the greatest holocaust of history. However the safety is only provided for those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and those who have advanced to maturity, those who would be classified as winners. “Nevertheless the land”, which means safety from water. For regenerate Israel in the first half of the Tribulation land would refer to a literal land mass. It refers to Edom, Moab and Ammon of Daniel 11:41, the mountains of Matthew 24:16, the high desert country of Revelation 12:14. This is the area designated for safety provided by God for those Jewish believers converted by the 144,000 evangelists in the first half of the Tribulation. In the analogy, however, there is more land mass than flood in this case and this becomes a picture of divine deliverance of Israel during the greatest holocaust of their history, the land mass protects from the water. The land can be construed both literally and figuratively and still communicates the concept of God’s faithfulness to Israel, their deliverance from the floodwaters of anti-Semitism both in the future as well as now.

Then we have the first verb, the aorist active indicative of bohqew which means to help, to furnish aid. We will translate it “helped.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: by analogy there was more land mass [divine power] than water [Satan’s power], therefore the land mass or divine power used as an analogy for the deliverance of believers, specifically believing Jews in the middle of the Tribulation when this terrible holocaust begins. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal idea from the viewpoint of eschatological reality.

Now how can we derive some understanding or blessing from this since it doesn’t apply to us directly? You always have to have the interpretation first. In this passage the interpretation deals with a future time, the middle of the Tribulation. But it does have some application to us today and it was written for our admonition as well. When you have tried everything to try to find a way of escape in time of historical disaster, whether it is economic, social or military, you go back to the principle: God has a plan for your life. As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ God has a purpose for your life. His plan and His purpose mean that He will deliver you in time of historical disaster provided, of course, that the historical is not used for your punishment. The protection, then, from historical disaster and the deliverance from historical disaster inevitably comes from your perception of Bible doctrine; for it is the function of the soul, the use of your free will, the decisions that you make, your thoughts, your ability to look at life from the divine viewpoint that makes it possible for you to be delivered. Deliverance is not physical. Deliverance is in the soul for those who are in the plan of God. If God is not using disaster to punish you He is using disaster to demonstrate His power, His grace, His deliverance and, above all, to reorient us to His grace; a process which has to continue all of the time. It is very easy for us to forget the grace of God as soon as we have any prosperity, any blessing. As soon as we get our eyes on the source, of course, we remember but by getting our eyes off the source of blessing, the source of everything that we have, and getting our eyes often on the gifts, we lose track of life and fail to remember that God still has a purpose for each one of us. No matter how great the disaster may be God can very easily deliver you from the worst situations that life has to offer.

“Nevertheless, the land helped the woman,” the dative singular, indirect object from the noun gunh, referring to true Israel. The dative of indirect object indicates the ones in whose interest the act is performed, and the act in this case are born-again Jews in the Tribulation. The analogy to water in the form of flooding represents the tremendous power of Satan in the form of the attack of his demon assault army. The land mass represents the power of God which dissipates and neutralises the violence of historical disaster. In other words, the strong current of the water does not have power over the stable land mass.

We have the conjunction kai again, this time it is the emphatic use translated “in fact.” Again we have the nominative subject gh referring to the land mass as the power of God in the analogy, in fact the land mass [divine power] protecting the believer in historical disaster. Then we have a second verb, the aorist active indicative of a)noigw, used here in the sense of opening, “in fact the land mass opened.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety: the deliverance of Israel from Satanic attack in the Tribulation. The active voice: the land mass, representing divine power, produces the action. The indicative mood is declarative for a statement of eschatological doctrine in the Tribulation.

With this we have the accusative singular direct object from the noun stoma which means mouth, but here we probably have more of a connotation of some draining system to drain off water, “opened its mouth and.” Then we have the deliverance in the aorist active indicative of the verb katapinw which means to swallow, to drink down. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. In the analogy the flood waters represent again the power of Satan and the third demon assault army. The land mass represents the power of God protecting Israel in the greatest hour of its need, the holocaust of the Tribulation, the time of the devil’s desperation. All Satanic attacks are made against the grace of God (one of the greatest is religion). The grace principle is the key to the land mass.

The accusative singular direct object of potamoj which follows represents the flood waters of the seventh trumpet, the anti-Semitism of the Tribulation. Again, water is often used in scripture for masses of people as invading armies, and here the water represents the assault of the third demon assault army. Just as land mass dissipates the power of flood waters or tidal waves so the land mass as the power of God neutralises the violent attack of the third demon assault army. Of course, the question is pertinent: What Jews are delivered in this greatest holocaust of all? Obviously this is true Israel, those Jews who personally accept Christ as saviour, who have followed the doctrinal mandates given in Matthew chapter 24, beginning at verse 15. They have utilised the faith-rest drill to be in the right place at the right time.

This brings us to a principle that applies to us today, those of us who are members of the royal family of God in the Church Age. To be in the right place in the right time is one of the highest achievements of life. It is impossible for any person to second-guess and decide what is being in the right place at the right time. The ideal in life is not to make money, not to go in for some form of achievement. Achievement is something you do not seek if you are in the right place at the right time. Achievement finds you, success finds you, greatness finds you by being in the right place at the right time. So for those who feel that they don’t have much going for them, don’t feel as though they are really achieving much in life, and therefore feeling a little despondent about lack of success, should remember this principle: being in the right place in the right time is often the key to success. How can you be in the right place at the right time in historical disaster? There is only one way and that is to firm up in the plan of God the modus operandi designed for you: residence, function, momentum inside the divine dynasphere. God has a plan for your life. That plan has been in existence since the day you believed in Christ as your saviour. It is very easy for you to spend all of your time under the plan of God in discipline. That means you will be in the right place at the right time for discipline. You will be functioning in a state of terrible misery. But for those who move on with Bible doctrine, for those who have consistent positive volition, there is the great principle of being in the right place at the right time provided by God. David would still be a shepherd and we would never have heard of David had it not been for the fact that he was in the plan of God. As a shepherd boy in the plan of God he wound up on the battlefield in the right place at the right time. He was the only one who heard the challenge of Goliath, the great Greek giant, and actually met that challenge. Why was he in the right place at the right time? Because he had taken in maximum doctrine, he had lived in obscurity, he had lived in a marvellous state of humility and virtue, and God put him in the right place at the right time. The right place at the right time with God’s help means success, inevitable success. It means that you will succeed in life and that you will fulfil the plan of God, and your success will glorify the Lord. The Jews who glorify the Lord in the last half of the Tribulation are in the right place at the right time.

The source of Tribulational anti-Semitism is then given in the last half of this verse — the accusative singular of the relative pronoun o(j, “which,” refers to the water, the tidal wave, the attack of the third demon assault army called “flood” or “rapids.” Then we have our subject, the nominative singular from drakwn referring to the dragon. It is a reference to Satan himself. Then the aorist active indicative of the verb ballw referring here to throwing out or projecting, “which the dragon projected.” The aorist tense is the constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The active voice: Satan personally commands this demon assault army. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the eschatological attack of the third demon assault army with the stated objective of destroying all Israel on the earth — “which the dragon [Satan] projected from his mouth,” e)k plus the ablative of stoma again gives us the concept as to where the attack initiates.

Translation: “Nevertheless the land mass [referring to divine power] helped the woman [Israel], in fact the land mass opened its mouth and swallowed the flood waters [the seventh trumpet, the attack of the third demon assault army against the Jews] which the dragon projected from his mouth.”

This results in a second attack against regenerate Israel, given in verse 17. When there is frustration and anger arrogance intensifies. Therefore the arrogance of Satan intensifies and expresses itself in his rage.

The conjunction kai introduces a result from what precedes, translated “then.” We have the nominative singular of drakwn, “then the dragon.” The verb is the aorist passive indicative of o)rgizw referring here to rage or anger. The aorist tense is a constative aorist contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety: rage which results from frustrated arrogance. The most dangerous people in the world are the people whose arrogance has been cornered and put down, people who are cowards, weak, unstable. Once you get them in a corner they are like a wild animal because their arrogance has been frustrated. Frustrated arrogance is motivation for a great percentage of the evils in the world, not just sin but sin combined into some form of evil. Satan himself, the inventor of evil, is in that category at this moment, “the dragon was enraged.” The passive voice: Satan receives the action of the verb from his frustrated arrogance. He has intense anger, resentment, animosity, indignation. He was infuriated because he was frustrated in his endeavour to destroy Israel. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of Satan’s extreme anger, and it is directed toward Israel, e)pi plus the locative of gunh, referring to the woman, Israel. It is always amazing that the arrogant person, when he attacks someone else and does not succeed in his attacks, becomes perpetually resentful toward that person.

The last half of the Tribulation, then, is characterised by a series of Jewish holocausts, the greatest in all of human history. Anti-Semitism as a policy of the last half of the Tribulation is therefore stated in the next phrase. We have the connective use of the conjunction kai, “and.” Then we have the aorist active indicative of the verb a)perxomai, “and he went off”. Often when there is frustrated arrogance there is also some form of neurosis or psychosis. In Satan there is psychopathic behaviour with regard to the problem. He will not take the responsibility for his own decisions and therefore frustrated arrogance gives him the motivation to continue trying to destroy the Jew right down to the point of the second advent. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. Satan again is producing the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of Satan’s action based on the policy of anti-Semitism.

We can learn something from Satan’s tantrum. Once you are in a state of arrogance and that state of arrogance is frustrated by some relationship with someone, and you become angry or enraged, this becomes motivation for a lifetime of vengeful activity: a lifetime, not just of sin but of intensified sin parlayed into evil, and therefore a life of self-induced and self-perpetuated misery.

What did Satan go off to do? The aorist active infinitive of poiew means to produce something. What is produced is determined by the accusative object of the infinitive which is polemoj which means to make war. So he went off to make war. The aorist tense is a constative aorist for an action extended over a period of the last half of the Tribulation, the time of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation. The active voice: Satan produces the action of the verb. He still has his arrogance, he still has his frustration, he still has his anger, he is therefore motivated to spend the last three and a half years as the ruler of this world in trying to destroy the Jews. The infinitive of intended result means simply that when the result is indicated as fulfilling a deliberate objective, the destruction of Israel, it is so used.

With this we have the fact that while the demon assault army destroyed a great many Jews they did not destroy the remnant, those who were believers and were advancing to maturity. They are mentioned in the preposition meta plus the genitive of the adjective loipoj, referring to those who were delivered and will continue to be delivered, the remnant, the survivors, plus the possessive genitive singular of sperma referring to the Jews specifically. It is generally translated “seed”, here it refers to posterity.

“Then the dragon was enraged with the woman. Consequently he went off in a huff [arrogance plus anger] to make war against the survivors of her posterity [those Jews who survived the initial holocaust in the Tribulation].”

By this time the remnant of Jews who had survived were mostly believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, as indicated by the word loipoj meaning remnant, survivors. Obviously some Jewish unbelievers were still alive to be dealt with at the baptism of fire when Jewish unbelievers will be cast into the lake of fire forever and ever, according to Isaiah 1:25-27; Ezekiel 20:34-38; Malachi 3:1-6; 4:1-2.

That brings us to the holocaust target for the next three and a half years. That target is specified in an interesting way by the articular present active participle of the verb terew. The definite article is used as a relative pronoun, “those who.” The present tense is progressive for the action of obedience on the part of those who survive. They survive not because they were in some safe place out of town but because they had doctrine resident in their souls and they were flexible. The active voice: the Jewish believers or true Israel produce the action. The participle is circumstantial, “because those who kept observing”.

Then we have the accusative plural direct object from e)ntolh referring to the mandates of doctrine. These mandates are said to belong to God, the possessive genitive of qeoj, “those Jews who kept observing the mandates of God.” The mandates of God have to do with Bible doctrine. These commandments or mandates are not the Mosaic law but divine commands given to regenerate Israel in the middle of the Tribulation. The concept of e)ntolh can be expanded to include the whole realm of doctrine, which implies application of doctrine to their own situation. Of course, this doctrine had to be learned before it could be applied.

Next we have a connective kai followed by the present active participle of e)xw, the verb meaning to have or hold or both, “those who keep on having.” The present tense is a progressive present for action in the state of persistence, present linear aktionsart. The active voice: Jewish believers, true Israel, produce the action of the verb. The participle is circumstantial, translated like a finite verb. The accusative singular direct object of the word marturia has to do with the testimony of life as well as lips; their testimony before God, before angels, primarily. It also has something to do with their testimony before the world but if the testimony before God is correct everything else falls in line, “and those who keep on having the testimony of Jesus”. The subjective genitive means that the noun produces the action. It could also be a possessive genitive, the testimony belongs to our Lord.

Translation: “Then the dragon was enraged with the woman. Consequently he went off in a huff to make war against the survivors of her posterity, those believing Jews who keep on observing the mandates of God and who keep on having the testimony of Jesus.”

The dynamics of doctrine in historical disaster

1. Bible doctrine in the right lobe of the mentality of the soul is the greatest power in life. No matter how great the historical disaster Bible doctrine is greater. Vincit omnia veritas: “doctrine conquers all.” The mind must be exploited by Bible doctrine to make significant decisions for freedom, for glorification of the Lord, for advance to maturity.

2. So it is with these Jewish believers who are delivered in the last half of the Tribulation. Through perception and application of doctrine they obey the mandates of God. They are the ones who are attracting persecution from Satan, not because of passive arrogance but because of active testimony for the Lord.

3. Through perception and application of doctrine they keep on having a witness or testimony to our Lord Jesus Christ.

4. While Satan is a genius and the ruler of this world he cannot contend with the active power of Bible doctrine perceived and applied in his domain, the world. Of course, doctrine is useless unless it is loaded into the gun -loaded into the right lobe. E)pignwsij doctrine is the only doctrine that can be applied.

Remember that man is inferior to the angels by creation, and through regeneration and perception of doctrine man as a believer is able to contend with fallen angels and their five attacks on the human race. In the next chapter, Revelation 13, Satan will fight believers both Jew and Gentile through temporal power. The temporal power includes both a Gentile and a Jewish dictator. Believers in the Tribulation will face both demonic [angelic] and human opposition, and never will there be a greater demonstration of the power of Bible doctrine resident in the souls of believers than in that future stage of human history.

In our Bibles we find seventeen verses in this chapter. However, in the Greek there is one more verse. It is not found in the English.

It starts out with the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “and.” Then there is a verb, the aorist passive indicative of i(stemi. It means to take a stand, “Then he [Satan] took his stand.” The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. Since i(stemi is an intransitive verb that means to offer resistance the verb means to take a stand. The passive voice in the intransitive use of i(stemi in the passive, which means that Satan or the dragon produces the action of the intransitive verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of Satan’s continued opposition to all categories of believers in the last half of the Tribulation. The place where he took his stand is mentioned by a prepositional phrase: e)pi plus a)mmoj. And with that we have qalassa, “Then he [Satan] took his stand on the sand of the sea”.

The sand of the sea refers to the next chapter and the two dictators who serve Satan during the time of the eschatology of the devil’s desperation. The sea refers to the sea of nations during the last half of the Tribulation. The sand refers to the fact that Satan is confined to the earth during the last half of the Tribulation. This verse is found in all the best manuscripts; it is not found in the King James version of 1611.