A great sign in heaven

[Copen]

From the beginning of Revelation Jesus gave the order in which the Revelation to John would be:

(1) the things are things which John has seen,

(2) things which were presently happening, and

(3) things which shall be afterwards.

The letters to the seven churches are the things of (1) and (2). John has seen these things in the churches and they were happening right then. Those end at the end of Chapter 3. Then Chapter 4 starts with the third things - (3) "things which shall be afterwards."

The "things which shall be afterwards" are eras, which, (for John), were yet to happen. Notice, John was caught up to heaven to show him "things which must be hereafter" - as though he were climbing to the top of a mountain to look over and see what was coming. One era followed another like horses.

Next comes Revelation 12. THIS CHAPTER IS A FLASHBACK. It gives the account of Jesus being born of spiritual Israel, seen as a woman in heaven. The devil tried to kill Jesus as soon as He was born. In trying to do this, the devil pulled his recruits from their stations in heaven and put them to work on earth. They were not successful. Next, Jesus preserved this spiritual Israel woman (the church) in the wilderness while He taught for 3 1/2 years. (The wilderness is true worship away from official priests and earthly buildings.) As Jesus hung on the cross dying, the devil decided that it was the perfect time for a heavenly coup. There was war in heaven. The war was so violent, the sun was blackened for 3 hours. The devil lost. Now, his angels have showed their true allegiance. They can no longer enter heaven. They are confined to earth seeking to destroy born again Christians' lives on earth.

Next the spiritual woman, (the church), morphed into a rich looking b- - - h, a harlot -- she sells herself with religious trinkets, sermons, entertainments rather than worship. She has power to influence kings with her many humanitarian projects. She begs, cajoles, manipulates, and perverts inspired scripture to please Christians in order to entice them out of their money. The true spiritual woman of the wilderness was preserved with two wings of an eagle (Roman empire making Christianity the official religion and Colonial American swallowing up the persecution that followed Christians looking for religious liberty). The harlot is next seen walking out of the wilderness. She is fully in the world. She is the false Christian church with strong ties to earthly Israel. God says to born-again Christians, "Come out of her MY PEOPLE." Shows Christians are so blind, they are in her and don't even realize it.

[Vatic]

Hello G'G' (or should we call you Holly Golightly?)

A Word of advice on passages such as this. You average authority isn't going to have a clue what this passage means. Spare yourself a trip down the garden path since your typical preacher will be effectively ignorant or indoctrinated by some off the wall interpretation.

That being said, you have to understand this style of writing os Apocolyptic prophecy and is written in code metaphors telling of literala events with symbolic code and allusions. To actually understand it, you would have to find the cultural critical basis of the code associations and the origins of the codes.

For instance the sun and the moon is a cultural referance to Abraham and Sarah, which in turn is an allusion to the Hebrew nation embodied by the woman. The nation is giving birth to the great King. The ruling with an iron rod is a cultural referance to the Pharaohic style of monarchy in which the Pharoah would represent other nations as Jars within his throne room. The Pharoah from time to time would represent breaking a nation (by war) by breaking the jar that represented that nation with a Rod of Iron. This is how the Great King is depicted in this passage, as like Pharoah in His own subjecting of the nations.

The great Dragon is a cultural referance to the adversary of God which comes from Hebrew contact with the Babylonians and their creation accounts. In the Babylonian creation accounts, the Dragon is named Rahab, which happens to be the very same name as the harlot of Jericho which helped the Hebrew Spies before the Hebrew concquered Jericho. The Dragon Rahab is the Dragon of chaos. God grapples with the Dragon and subdues it bringing order out of the chaos by his mighty strength. Thus by Babylonian accunts, creation is held together by God's strength over the dragon.

Now in this passage the Dragon is given chracteristics such as numerous heads and horns. Heads and Hrons are cultural depictions of rulers, nations and alliances. So to understand this we have to look at a nation with the chracteristic numbers of rulers and horns to corrolate with the dragon's heads and horns. Many believe it corresponds with the Romans, but I'm not convinced of that myself.

The woman is selt into the wilderness for epic periods of time, but preserved there. I personally believe this corresponds to the world exile of the Hebrew people with took place from the time they were conquered by the Romans, and ended when Isreal was reborn as a nation in 1948.

The wings of the eagle is a Hebrew cultural referance to being saved by God and moved from captivity to deliverance. When the Hebrew people came out of Egypt, God said to them, "Behold, I have brought you out of Egypt on eagles wings." Thus the code is established culturally.

I'm saying this just to give you an idea of how much research you would have to be grounded in just to start pciking at this kind of obscure prophetic style. It is not easy. And it frankly is very hard to put together and certainty is alomost impossible. Just pick up what you can and don't get wound up by some crazy preacher's "end times" nonsense. He's probably just a hick who's off on a tangent.

[Timothy]

Wow, that font sucks!

[ZaraKitty]

It's a purple blob on my screen. Yay.