The Hand of God in Prophecy
By Glenn Davies & Clay Willis
There is little else in the Bible that so succinctly illustrates the misapplications of prophecy as the various interpretations of this chapter of Revelation. We will show you that the 12th chapter of Revelation is a “summary” of the future (as seen from John’s time) of the children of Israel.
This prophecy does not indicate a specific ”place of safety” for Christians to run to when a supposed “great tribulation” falls on the earth for a period of 3 ½ years before the long awaited “second coming” occurs. It makes no mention of “rapture” or of that second coming.
Some interpreters of prophecy predict the total destruction of the earth’s surface by fire and the “saints” walking on the ashes [Malachi 4:1-3] of anyone who isn’t a Christian at the moment of Jesus’ return. That might be the case if a nuclear WW3 were to occur but that event is not contained in this Bible prophecy.
Some churches teach that a specific place such as Petra – a largely inhospitable and almost uninhabitable valley near Jerusalem – is where Christians may flee to escape “the great tribulation” that they foresee coming during a period of 3 ½ years before Christ’s return. They usually refer to this part of chapter twelve of Revelation as supporting that view or understanding:
The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that
she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert [wilderness – KJV], where she would be taken care of
for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent's reach. NIV Revelation
12:14
The word “woman” is sometimes allegorically used to represent the church that Jesus established – the “bride of Christ”, for example. It is assumed therefore that this verse refers to Jesus’ church and so the doctrine of “a place of safety” stems from their understanding of this passage.
There is also a “prophetic period of time” mentioned in this verse of either 3 ½ years or 1260 years – “time, times and half a time”. For those unfamiliar this term, at the time the Bible was written, a year consisted of 360 days, not the 365¼ days that we now count. A “time” is one year; “times” is two years, and “half a time” is one-half of a year so 3½ times 360 days equals 1,260 days – 3 ½ years. However, there are many instances recorded in the prophets of the equating of a “day for a year” [Numbers 14:34; Ezekiel 4:4-7 et al].
Is it the “church” to which this scripture refers? Is the prophetic time mentioned 3½ years or 1,260 years? Is the “woman” (the church) to remain “out of the serpent’s reach” during some 3½ year “great tribulation”? Is it possible that the “tribulation” could last for 1,260 years? Let’s examine the context and all of Revelation chapter twelve to see if that interpretation is true.
In Biblical metaphor, the serpent is often identified as “Satan”. Many cultures and religions have a “dragon” in their mythology representing the “forces of evil” – so that symbolic language is readily understandable whether or not the reader believes a real “devil” exists. The Bible does describe a great archangel named Lucifer who was renamed Satan (which means “adversary”) and who now represents the forces of evil. That subject is not our concern in this article but a entity referred to as a “serpent” or a “dragon” does play a crucial role in the events of Revelation.
The 3½-year or 1,260 day prophetic period appears many times in the Bible. A great many interpreters of prophecy use the “dual fulfillment” of prophecy to teach correctly that Jesus’ “Olivet Prophecy” (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21) was fulfilled in 67 – 70 AD when the Roman Army destroyed the temple and Jerusalem but they incorrectly (and for no reason based on the Bible) assert that this prophecy will again be fulfilled in our future during the aforementioned “great tribulation” just before the return of Jesus.
We’ve covered that whole scenario at great length earlier in this paper so we won’t go into it again.
Why are these things relevant? Simply because there has been so much emphasis placed on “a place of safety” for Christians to run to when the “great tribulation” comes. The fear of that tribulation drives Christians to seek a way of escape from physical death so much so that much of Christianity is so consumed and so driven by the events portrayed in Mathew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 that they have missed entirely the meaning of some Old Testament prophecy that does show our true future.
Unlike most of the book of Revelation, the 12th chapter appears to be linear – beginning in John’s time and continuing into our future.
1 A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a
woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve
stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was
about to give birth.
3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven
heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. 4 His tail swept a third of
the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front
of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the
moment it was born.
5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations
with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his
throne. NIV Revelation 12:1-5
Since the church did not exist until Jesus established it (it was still in the future when He was promising it to His disciples [Matthew 16:18]), it’s obvious that the woman referred to represents Israel – “twelve stars on her head” – because Jesus was born a Jew of the tribe of Judah, one of the 12 tribes.
It’s not the first time in the Bible that God metaphorically refers to Israel as a “woman”. Consider the following statement by God made through the prophet Ezekiel:
The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, there
were two women, daughters of the same mother. They became prostitutes in
Egypt, engaging in prostitution from their youth. In that land their breasts
were fondled and their virgin bosoms caressed. The older was named Oholah, and
her sister was Oholibah. They were mine and gave birth to sons and daughters. Oholah
is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem. NIV Ezekiel 23:1-4
Note: In this prophecy,
“Samaria” refers to the northern 10-tribed kingdom, Israel, while “Jerusalem”
obviously refers to the kingdom of Judah, consisting of that tribe plus
Benjamin and most of Levi.
It was Israel [Revelation12: 5] that gave birth to Jesus, the “man child”, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter”. That phrase is also used in Revelation 2:27 and which in turn is a quote of Psalms 2:9 and both refer to Jesus, the coming King of all mankind.
Now verse 6:
The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her
by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days. NIV Revelation 12:6
There is absolutely no logical reason for verse 6 to be associated with the church that Jesus founded. Verse 4 says that Satan (in this case through his minion – King Herod) was waiting to “devour” the child as soon as it was born [Matthew 2:1-15].
Why don’t the
churches that teach that it is the New Testament church that flees to the
“place of safety” quote Revelation 12:1-5 as referring to the church also? Because it is obvious that “the church” did
not give birth to Jesus and including those scriptures denies the
interpretation that Revelation 12:6 and 12:14 are referring to the church
fleeing to “a place of safety”.
Therefore it is this woman – the Israelite nation (“12 stars”) – who was to flee to a place “prepared by God”. Since God knows “the end from the beginning” [Isaiah 46:10], most of those twelve tribes began to flee to that place “prepared by God” from the time the “10 lost tribes” were taken captive in 721 BC. Many Jews were among those captives also.
Where
was this place “prepared by God” to which the Israelites could flee to that was
in a “desert” [Revelation 12:14]? We will
show that it was somewhere that the Romans couldn’t get to them easily.
In our rebuttal of Michael
Baigent’s The Jesus Papers, we pointed out that he
claimed Mary (Jesus’ mother) fled from the Holy Land with Jesus after a “faked
crucifixion” to a Jewish colony in southern France. There is, of course, no real evidence of
this. There does however seem to be
quite a body of evidence to suggest that many of the Israelites actually fled
to another land well known to them – Ireland or the British Isles, as we showed
above in the paper “The Hand of God”.
Continuing in the 12th chapter of Revelation:
And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the
dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong
enough, and they lost their place in heaven.
The great dragon was hurled down--that ancient serpent called the devil,
or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his
angels with him. NIV Revelation 12:7-9
Whether or not one believes in an actual devil or angels, an interesting question does arise. Some churches teach that angels inhabited the earth before man was created, but this scripture indicates that Satan and his angels being cast down to the earth was a relatively recent event – perhaps in Jesus’ day.
He [Jesus] replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from
heaven. NIV Luke 10:18
This event may also have happened during the days of the Babylonian empire because the archangel Gabriel was clearly engaged in battle of some sort in Daniel’s day [Daniel 10:20-21].
Even though Satan and his angels rebelled against God, perhaps millions of years ago, they may not have been banned from heaven until Jesus’ qualification to replace Satan as ruler of this world – officially after his temptation [Luke 4:1-13]. Since no time frame is given in the Bible, we can only speculate.
Something happened to cause Satan to panic when the full realization of what his defeat at Jesus’ hands meant in terms of his continued authority over this world. It was then that Satan set out to pursue not only the church, but also the scattered remnants of the Israelite nation as these next verses attest:
When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth,
he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given
the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for
her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and
half a time, out of the serpent's reach. NIV Revelation 12:13-14
Note: In
verse 6, the time span where the woman was “taken care of” was 1,260 days; here
it’s called “a time, times and half a time”.
These time spans are identical – see the explanatory note above if it
seems confusing.
To understand where the Jews and a great many Christians may have fled to after 67 – 70 AD, and where the Israelites from the northern kingdom that fell in 721 BC and many Jews of that time may have fled at that time, to be “taken care of” [“nourished – KJV] and to be “out of the serpent’s reach”, we need to ask and answer some questions:
Q. Who were the agents Satan was using to pursue both the survivors of the Jews and Christians as well as the rest of the Israelites?
A. Throughout the book of Revelation, the Roman Empire is shown to be an “agent of evil”. In describing the great evil “mystery Babylon”, the angel told John:
"This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads
are seven hills on which the woman sits." NIV Revelation 17:9
I will assume that you know the city of Rome sits on “seven hills”.
In describing the great evil “beast” (nation) that would wreak such havoc on the whole world, the angel told John:
This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him
calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666.
NIV Revelation 13:18
We should recall that John was a prisoner on the Isle of
Patmos [Revelation 1:9] and at least some of Revelation’s metaphorical language
can be explained by the fact that if John had written openly about his Roman
captors, he would have been beaten, tortured or perhaps executed and might have
brought such punishment upon other prisoners there with him. While we don’t have time to offer absolute
proof, a great many Bible scholars have researched the number “666” as it’s
written here and determined that number refers to Caesar Nero, emperor of Rome,
the head of the “beast” at the time John was writing.
Men worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to
the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, "Who is like the
beast? Who can make war against him?" The beast was given a mouth to
utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two
months. NIV Revelation 13:4-5
Since we’ve identified the “beast” as imperial Rome – the Roman Empire – then we see that this “beast” was given power and authority for “forty-two months” – 1,260 days or 3½ years – the same time period referenced in Revelation 12:6 and 14.
Q. Who did the dragon [Satan] and his minions, the Roman Empire or the ‘beast’ mentioned in Revelaton13, pursue after the 67-70 AD destruction of Jerusalem and the temple?
A. The offspring [“seed” – KJV] of “the woman”, i.e., the Jews and the rest of the Israelites including all Christians, who are “spiritually” the descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, if not genetically related.
Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river,
to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. But the earth helped
the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had
spewed out of his mouth. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went
off to make war against the rest of her offspring--those who obey God's
commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. NIV Revelation 12:15-17
Note: It seems the
ordinary non-Christian Jews of in 67 – 70 AD may have taken more notice of
Jesus’ warning to flee into the mountains than we might think, because the
evidence indicates that a great many of the Jewish nation not only headed for
the hills of Judea during that 3½-year period but later left the country
altogether in droves and dispersed into many nations.
Still Satan, working his evil through the “beast power” of Rome, pursued the Jews and Christians throughout the empire with no letup until the emperor Constantine came into power in the 300’s AD. After that Roman emperor converted to Christianity, the hierarchy of the church became corrupt and gained ever more secular power and it wasn’t long before those “popes” and religious officials continued the “tribulation” of Christians and Jews who didn’t bow down to their authority using the forces of the Roman Empire to do their bidding – the woman’s seed and the “commandment keepers”.
So the actual answer to that question is another scripture from Revelation:
He was given power to make war against the saints and to
conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people,
language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast--all
whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb
that was slain from the creation of the world. NIV Revelation 13:7-8
It can be seen from these scriptures that after “the great tribulation” of 67 - 70 AD, Satan and his henchmen (the Roman Empire) were given carte blanche to go to war against Christians from that time on. The whole of the book of Revelation deals with aspects of that war from the apostle John’s time right down to our present day in fact and even beyond our time right now.
Hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered by the hierarchical church in Rome because they refused to submit to the authority of that church. The most infamous action in this regard was called “The Inquisition” and you can examine the “tribulation” that Christians experienced because of the leaders of that church seeking power by looking up the Inquisition in any encyclopedia, at your local library or on the Internet. The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia gives the history and gory details of that great persecution of Christians and others who refused to submit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition
The carnage of that movement continued for centuries even after the secular power of the Roman Empire came to an end in the 1400’s.
Only last century, the despot Hitler and his regime in Germany murdered some 6 million Jews and more than a few from other ethnic groups – gypsies, etc.
Is that persecution or “tribulation” still going on in the world today? You bet it is! Search any newspaper carefully and you’ll likely find where Christians have been oppressed or even slaughtered by various factions. The Chinese are notorious for their persecution of Christians and there are sporadic reports of entire groups of Christians being wiped out in Africa and across the Middle East where Muslims feel free enough to act out their jihad.
We should not forget that Christianity itself is under assault throughout Western Civilization by the increasingly hostile media, the entertainment establishment and the “liberal” end of Christianity itself. An example of this is covered in our rebuttal of Michael Baigent’s The Jesus Papers, but those examples are readily available in any newspaper, on many television shows, at the movies and more often now in our daily lives.
Why is this taking place? Because whether you believe in the devil or not, there are evil forces at work in this world and they are personified in Satan, whom Paul called “the prince of the power of the air” [KJV] or as it is translated in the NIV below “the ruler of the kingdom of the air”.
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you
used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of
the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are
disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the
cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the
rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. NIV Ephesians 2:1-3
What does that mean – the “prince of the power of the air” and “the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient”? We checked some pretty good commentaries on this scripture and though it seems everyone agrees that it is Satan to whom this refers, they – for the most part – steer clear of that phrase “prince of the power of the air”. One Catholic commentary suggested that this phrase referred to Satan’s leadership role over the evil spirits or “fallen angels” who were cast down to earth with him.
We’ve heard some suggest that the “power of the air” might refer to radio and television broadcasts but that’s farfetched and it certainly had no application to those to whom this scripture was addressed.
I think the NIV may be more accurate here in calling it “the kingdom of the air” and that it does indeed refer to the evil side of the spirit world. In any event, the reference to the presence of evil “in the air” around all of us is true and those who are not following God’s ways are more susceptible to that influence.
Of course, that influence is there and Satan is still pursuing the people of God, both the physical descendents of the Israelites and those who are part of God’s church.
Using a combination of the writing of some Old Testament prophets and that of the apostle John and a little imagination we can now offer our readers a very realistic scenario – if not indeed the actual one – of where the world is headed, directed and led by the “hand of God” who created it – a point-by-point summary of nearly all that has been “covered” and “uncovered” in this article.
The summary of the history of the Israelites in Revelation chapter 12 leaves us with an open-ended period from the 1400’s AD onwards. But we know that during this period, both the Israelites’ descendents and the true believers of God’s original religion of the apostles’ era were and are still relentlessly pursued by Satan’s agents.
It’s likely that what will happen to them in the future must be covered somewhere in prophetic writings: that is certainly worthy of further investigation.
But the promise of the “woman” being hidden “from the face of the serpent” does give reason to believe that the destruction of the Spanish armada by a “storm” and even Hitler’s attempt to invade God’s place of safety (England) were indeed thwarted by the “hand of God”. The might of Hitler’s Germany was unable to conquer tiny England and the retreat from Dunkirk and sparing of the British expeditionary force at that time was nothing short of miraculous.
We’ve shown that the 12th chapter of Revelation describes God’s people being moved to a “place of safety” after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 67 – 70 AD. Where can we turn in the Bible to find what happened to them?
Unfortunately for those of us who like to have a scriptural version of events, it seems that the Bible does not tell us much, either in historical description or in prophetic writings, about what happened to God’s people.
However, we are given significant clues in Bible as to what was going to happen to God’s people from the time of the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in 67 – 70 AD down to the present time.
In “The Hand of God”, pages 16 – 37, we show that the hand of God was creating the “Stone Kingdom” [Daniel 2:34-35; 44-45] in which His people could live safely and that kingdom today is comprised of the contemporary nations of Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and the other nations that comprise the English speaking people of Western Civilization.
Rather than include that information here again, we ask that you read those pages or, if you prefer, just accept for that what we’ve stated above is true: God’s people for the most part reside within these nations in our present world.
While there are many Jews who live in these nations – the United States is home to the largest population of Jews outside of the nation of Israel – Bible prophecy seems to only cover primarily the descendents of Ephraim and Manasseh in terms of the physical blessings promised to God’s people.
The House of Israel and the House of Judah to be Reunited?
There are many prophecies in the Bible that predict the reuniting of the House of Judah and the House of Israel. The 37th chapter of Ezekiel is particularly clear about that reunion:
15 The word of the LORD came to me:
16 “Son of man, take a stick of wood and
write on it, `Belonging to Judah and the Israelites associated with him.' Then
take another stick of wood, and write on it, `Ephraim's stick, belonging to
Joseph and all the house of Israel associated with him.' 17 Join them
together into one stick so that they will become one in your hand.
18 “When your countrymen ask you, `Won't you tell us what you mean by this?' 19 say to them, `This is what the Sovereign LORD
says: I am going to take the stick of Joseph--which is in Ephraim's hand--and
of the Israelite tribes associated with him, and join it to Judah's stick,
making them a single stick of wood, and they will become one in my hand.'
20 Hold before their eyes the sticks you
have written on 21 and say to them, `This
is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations
where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back
into their own land. 22 I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of
Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be
two nations or be divided into two kingdoms.
23 They will no longer defile themselves
with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save
them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be
my people, and I will be their God. NIV Ezekiel 37:15-23
When is that supposed to happen? It certainly has not occurred yet, even though the Jews have lived in relative safely among the descendents of Ephraim and Manasseh and the leaders of those descendents arranged for the Jews to once again occupy parts of the Promised Land – today called Palestine.
Furthermore, since the establishment of the nation of Israel in Palestine it has been the Israelite nations of Great Britain and the United States that have guaranteed their existence to this very day. The nation of Israel today is completely surrounded by Arab nations (the descendents of Ishmael, Abraham’s other son) and others who declare openly their goal of destroying that nation. Without the military might of the United States and Great Britain available to hold off those enemies, that nation would cease to exist in a short time.
Yet there is a great deal of political tension between the nation of Israel and the rest of Western Civilization including the US and Great Britain. The Jews in Israel are not particularly friendly to Christians even though it is Christians who are Israel’s strongest supporters. There are, of course, a fairly large number of those who wear the name Christian who are highly prejudiced toward the Jews.
There certainly is little rapport between Christianity and Judaism other than their agreement that the Old Testament scriptures are the word of God.
The political left in Europe and the United States continually weaken Israel’s position by supporting the “Palestinians”. We put that word in parenthesis because the majority of those claiming that name within the borders of Palestine actually came from Jordan and there is only a small minority of them who can realistically claim that their homeland is Palestine. Yet the political left in the US continually pushes for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the nation of Israel.
Ironically, those Arabs who are lucky enough to claim citizenship in the nation of Israel are the only ones throughout the Arab world with a large measure of personal freedom, including the ability to help elect their national leaders.
Since we were able to trace the Israelites – the descendents of Ephraim and Manasseh in particular – to the English speaking nations today and the history of the Jews from the time of Jesus to the present is well-documented in secular history, what is going to become of these people so that the House of Israel and the House of Judah will be reunited?