Bible Study - September 9, 2020

Just to bring us a little bit up to date on where we were last week. We had gone through a little bit of chapter 11. We talked about the two witnesses. If you recall, the little book of Revelation 10. And we got involved in some discussions with the temple and some other things. So tonight we will go, we'll finish chapter 11, get into chapter 12 a little bit, maybe into some of chapter 13. I've got a plan on where we will be by the Feast of Trumpets. We'll see if we get to that plan or not. But one way or the other, we'll get through the book of Revelation. As we all come to the Feast of Trumpets, we'll be well versed in what the Bible says about the events leading up to the time of Christ's return and that day that's ahead of us. But last week, when we went through chapter 11, I think a lot of chapter 11, when we're talking about the two witnesses, we can read it and look at the words and see that this is going to be a monumental time on earth. I mean, it's a tremendous conflict between the Beast Power, as we're going to talk about in chapter 13, that is speaking blasphemy. That's going to not only against God, but against heaven, about everything that has to do with God. And the two witnesses who will be preaching at the same time, they will be preaching on who exactly that Beast Power is. The Beast Power, are we speaking against God? You can kind of just imagine the back and forth that will be going on during that time with the whole world watching. Because the False Prophet will be, of course, performing some miracles that will get people's attention. And the two witnesses that we read last week, they're going to be able to do some miracles as God gives them the power and the ability to do that as well. So you'll have this tremendous time on earth where you'll see a battle of Satan's forces and a battle between that and God's witnesses. It'll be quite an interesting time. It'll capture the attention of the whole world, I'm sure. So we read through that. We know that the two witnesses, you know, they are given their power by God. And these are two men, you know, it says that they're clothed in sackcloth there. These are two men that through their lives have been marked by humility. They have really gotten to the point as they have yielded to God and allowed His Holy Spirit to change them, to mold them into who God wants them to be.

They truly are walking with God and they are completely yielded to Him so that the words they speak are the words that God is giving them to speak. The power that they display in their response to the beast power and in their preaching, it's the power that comes from God. They have no pride in themselves. They know everything they're doing is from God. It's a beautiful state, you know, for us to look forward to that we would have that to the complete reliance and trust in God, that He would work through us and allow His work to be done, you know, as we yield ourselves to them. But as we talked about the two witnesses last week, I kind of felt maybe we rushed it a little bit. And there were maybe some more questions, some more comments, because I think we all learned from each other on some of the things that we've learned over the years. And some things as we look in the verses and the words here that we can pull out to give us more understanding. So I wanted to go back to Chapter 11 and begin in verse 4 in one of those inset verses there about the two witnesses that, you know, God ties them back to the prophecy in Zechariah 4 that we talked about last week. You know, in Chapter 11, verses 1, 2, and 3, you know, we talked about the measurement and measuring the spiritual temple of God. We talked about the witnesses that will be preaching there, prophesying for three and a half years. And in verse 4, John writes, these are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. And then in verse 5, it goes back to something that we can relate to. We can read those verses and know exactly what's going to be happening with the two witnesses there. But if we look at that in chapter in verse 4, God takes us right back to Zechariah 4, the prophecy. So let's go back to Zechariah 4 and look at that again. Because there is something, and I don't know that we will tonight be able to identify everything God wants us to understand about those verses. I still find myself contemplating it and understanding more of what God is wanting us to understand there in this picture that he gives of the lampstands, the two trees, the candlestick, the bowl on top of it. So I don't think we need to go back and read all those verses again. But let's read Zechariah 4 and verse 11 down to the end of the chapter there. This is Zechariah answered, I answered and said to him, What are these two olive trees at the right of the lampstand and at its left? And I further answered and said to him, What are these two olive branches that drip into the receptacles of the two gold pipes from which the golden oil drains? And he answered me and said, Don't you know what these are? And I said, No. So he said, These are the two anointed ones who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth. And so God paints a picture there of what in Zechariah 4, the same picture that he paints in Revelation 11 there. And I'm going to share here a screen because I mentioned last week that Dr. Ward had talked about that in one of our ministerial classes.

And I couldn't find the drawing he did. But the drawing he did was, you know, just kind of mapping out the bowl and the candlestick and the trees. But I did find... Can you see that? Can you see that? I've got something going on in my... Oh, there we go. Okay.

So you can see that picture there. And this is kind of... You can find just about anything on the Internet. And as you try to find pictures or artists' rendering of what Zechariah 4 in Revelation has, everyone's got something. But this looked to be the closest one. Ignore the writing on it. That's their kind of interpretation of the trees and everything and what they have written there. But you see the bowl at the top of the candlestick. You see the candlestick with the seven... with the seven, you know, the menorah thing. And then you see the two olive trees standing right next to it. And from those olive trees, you see the direct pipe going into the bowl. So God uses these olive trees to signify in Zechariah 4, you know, the two men primarily responsible for the construction of this temple, the Rubabel and Joshua. And he says these are the two anointed ones that stand beside the Lord of the whole earth. Then we come to Revelation 11, and we see this prophecy come out again. And this time it's the two witnesses. These two witnesses are pictured by the two olive trees. We have the candlestick there in the middle, which the lamp stand. And that represents the churches, I guess, or the Church of God that's there, and the bowl into which the olive oil is being poured. Now, if we think back to the time of the tabernacle of the temple, there are features of the tabernacle and temple, you know, that are our perpetual commands of God. We talked the last couple weeks about the incense altar and how incense was supposed to be offered on the incense altar day and night. And back in Exodus 27, if you want to turn there, you know, we have the perpetual burning of the lamps that are mentioned there as well.

That this picture and this picture that God paints for us here would draw us back to the tabernacle. Again, so many things of the tabernacle point to something that is in the future and that we, as part of God's way of life with us. In Exodus 27 and verse 20, you know, God commands Moses, He said, You shall command the children of Israel that they bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light to cause the lamp to burn continually. So we have, you know, here the responsibility of the children of Israel. You know, the priests were going to keep the lamp lit continually and all the work that goes on with that, you know, however, whatever they had to do to trim the wick and keep it clean and keep the oil and everything that goes on with that. But the children of Israel had a piece of that as well. They had to bring the oil of the pressed olives for the light that would cause that light to burn continually. Verse 21, in the tabernacle of meeting, outside the veil, which is before the testimony, Aaron and his son shall tend it from evening until morning before the eternal. It will be a statute forever to their generations on behalf of the children of Israel. So we have the scene of an ever-burning light. And we know from Revelation talking about Jesus Christ walking among the seven lamps. We are supposed to be ever-burning lights to the world. Jesus Christ is a light to the world, and we're called to be lights. Our light should always be shining. And so the way our lights shine is that we are fueled by the Holy Spirit. We can't have a light without any fuel, and we have to have God's Holy Spirit. To be the light that God wants us to be, we have to continually work to be using that Holy Spirit, exercising it, letting it lead us, letting it mold us, letting it change the way we think and act, and all these things to become more and more like God. So we have our responsibility in that we have to keep the oil. God gives us the oil, but we have to keep working on it to keep that fire burning brightly in us, just like Israel and the priests work together in order to keep those lamps burning brightly. So in this picture that we have, we have the candlestick, we have those, it's burning. We've got this bowl on top of it. I'll have to be honest, I'm still putting together in my mind how that bowl all fits together. But we see the two olive trees, and instead of the oil, right, because from the olive tree, we get the olives, they're pressed, the olive oil likes the lamp. But here in this picture, the olive trees, the oil, or what's fueling this, what's being poured into the bowl, what's being poured into the lamp stand there, is oil directly from the olive trees.

And that's an interesting concept, I think, and I'm going to invite comments, and I know people have some thoughts on this, and I think we can all learn and think about it. But, you know, if we think about olive trees and the position that they take in the Bible, I think that, you know, we talked about olive trees maybe in a sermon back a year or so ago, and various type of trees.

And when God pictures men as trees, the qualities that we have. I wrote down a few qualities of olive trees. You know, they're a symbol of peace and beauty. Of course, the olive oil is a symbol of God's Holy Spirit. It's used in, you know, anointing for sickness, anointing kings. It's used in the lamps being burnt. We have to have the olive oil in order to survive, in order to our light to stay burning. You know, it was mentioned in the afternoon session of the Bible study that, you know, olive trees, they're among the oldest trees on earth.

Someone sent me something after the afternoon Bible study that showed olive trees that are 900 and more than a thousand years old. They can grow in wet regions. They can grow in very dry regions. And they are a slow growing tree that reaches its maturity after a number of years. And so when we just take the time to think of what olive trees are, it is a picture of the Christian life that we go through. And the number of things that come from it.

So from these olive trees, you know, we have the oil going directly into the bowl, going and just fading the candlesticks. And we know that the two witnesses at the end time, while we think of them, you know, prophesying, prophesying about God, you know, showing the world and exposing the beast power for what it is. So it's all true, and that's part of what they do.

They preach the gospel. They are a witness to the world of who God is, of what this power that is now extant on earth is. But at the same time, they're also preaching to a group of people that are there in that time, that are coming through that time of the beast power, that time of the mark of the beast, who are rejecting the beast.

Who have a victory over the mark of the beast by the Holy Spirit that is in them. And these prophets, these two witnesses, are inspirations to them. And, you know, and so just as the church today, Jesus Christ gave it a two-fold commission. Preach the gospel as a witness to all the world, but also feed the flock, repair the people that are there, you know. And so the prophets, the witnesses in that time will be doing the same thing. They'll be preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. They'll also be feeding the people that are there that are going to be coming through that time that we've talked about.

So let me just pause there. I did make some notes here. Let me see if there's anything I missed here. Nope. Okay, so I don't know. Any comments? Any thoughts that anyone has on that? I think, you know, more and more as we contemplate this, we'll understand a little bit more what God is showing through this picture that He has placed there in Zechariah as He's building the Second Temple.

And also in Revelation, you know, as He's completing the building of the spiritual temple, Christ will return to. That one place you read that Aaron was to keep it burning from dust until daylight? Yes. Does that mean it needs to burn during the dark? And maybe they didn't keep it burning during the day? No, no, no. No, it says, Aaron and his son shall tend it from evening until morning before the Lord. So it was burning, you know, it was there. It says outside the veil.

Prestol is for the light to cause the lamp to burn continually. So it was burning night and day. So they kept it burning all night and then it burned through the day and then evening they tended to it again. Makes sense? This one does well, should it? Okay, thank you. Some of these, you know, some of these things, boy, you have to take some time. That's where the meditation, you know, comes in with the Bible. Just letting that sink in and asking God, you know, to help us understand what it is, because there is something He wants us to understand that's deep about these witnesses and what He's doing.

Anyone else have any thoughts, questions, just observations on that verse? We'll just move forward, if not. Yes. I've had a thought connected to, please ask me, where it says, what has been will be? Well, the first two witnesses were Moses and Aaron, and they were brothers, and they were Levites. Is it a, I'm just throwing it out, it's a possibility that the other, the second two witnesses will also be brothers and will be Levites. I mean, it's a possibility. We won't know until it happens, but it's just speculation based on, God does everything the same way over and over and over.

He uses families, He uses the same families and the same people over and over. It's a possibility. No one knows who the two witnesses are. So anything is a possibility. God knows, but we'll find out when that time comes. Another biblical guess would be, like it says, there's Zechariah, you have Zeru Verbel, and you have Joshua, you have someone of Judah, and you have someone of Aaron.

You have the governor, and then you have the high priest. Right. So the people that call on you repent at a specific time in the future, and that's why they have on the cyclot, etc. And they wholly turn to God, realizing their error. It could be. Again, God knows who and what the attitudes of these two are. Mr. Shavi, Revelation 1.20 gives us the interpretation of the Lomstand, which is the church, the Church of God.

And so the two witnesses will be feeding them, or encouraging them, teaching them during those twenty-half years. And the oil is coming from them, from the branches of the school. And then there are also seven lamps, but there are seven pipes to each lamp.

That's how the Hebrew was supposed to be understood. So there will be forty-nine pipes. So there will be a lot of probably feeding from the school, encouraging us, because those are times where there might also be persecution, of course. Yeah. I think you're right. They're feeding the church, and there will be people coming and understanding, right? God will call people during that time, and they will understand that they will reject the beast and be part of that group that we read about in Revelation 7.

But there will be a time of the dearth of the hearing of the Word. And so when the witnesses are speaking, they may well be the only voices on earth that can speak. Everyone else will have been quelled.

There won't be the Internet that we have today, where people can listen to sermons, no webcasts. The only voices that will be preaching the Gospel of God, or the Gospel of Christ, will be those two witnesses. And everyone will be able to hear them, because the Word of God never, never totally dies out.

It's always alive on earth, no matter what Satan or his government's throw at it. Okay? Yeah, I think they're feeding the church. That's alive at that time, too. There will be an inspiration to the people that are there, and there will be an inspiration. Okay. Well, let's move forward. We can come back. If you have any thoughts, and you want to talk about something in there, you know, we can come back to this. We can come back to this again.

So, you know, I don't know that we need to. I think last week we did read through the verses about, you know, the power that these men have that come from God. And, of course, we want to draw our attention to Zechariah 4, verse 6, where God, you know, tells the rubavals, not by might nor by power.

It's not by our individual power. It's not by any group of people that these things get done. The only way we stand, the only way we survive, the only way that we go through this and come out into the kingdom of God is by relying on the power of Jesus Christ, or I'm sorry, the power of His Holy Spirit. So that's one thing to remember through it all. The rubabel was told that, and these two witnesses understand that, and they're living it.

So when we look at verses 5 and 6, and 5 and 6, where they have the power to, you know, to devour their enemies, to, you know, for fire to devour them if anyone wants to kill them. They have the power in verse 6 to shut heaven so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy. You know, they pray, they ask God, they have that faith. You know, back in James 5, we talked about Elijah when he prayed that there would be no rain for three and a half years, and then he prayed that there would be rain.

He asked, it wasn't him who did it, it was God who did it, but he knew that God would, and he had the faith in him. These witnesses had that same type of faith, complete faith in God that what they ask, well, they're so perfectly, I don't know if I want to use the word perfectly, they're so in tune with God's will that when they ask, they know it's God's will, and God does it.

You know, in verse 7, you know, there's going to be great mirth on the earth because for three and a half years, you've got this conflict going on, beast power versus these two witnesses, and then one day, the two witnesses are killed. And so you can imagine, as it says in verse 10, that the people of the earth who are against these witnesses, who want them just shut up, who have been trying so hard to do everything, to kill them, to stop them, to stop this message, they finally win.

So there will be merriment on the earth. They will be celebrating. They will be, as it says, giving presents to each other. It's like, you know, we have beaten God. We have beaten the Word of God. And Satan, you know, I think Satan is smart enough to know he hasn't really won the victory, but he's got a momentary victory when these witnesses are dead and laying in the streets there for three and a half days.

They won't even allow them to be buried because they're just so thrilled to see their dead bodies laying there. And then you see the power of God in verse 11, that after three and a half days, God breathes life back into them. And they stood on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. You know, there will be some when they see that happening that they finally realize the power of God, especially when we read down in verse 13 here. But that's going to be a tremendous thing because the eyes of the Internet, the eyes of the world will still be trained on those two witnesses.

There will be the victory and the pride of the beast power that says we've conquered it. You know, there's no other power on earth now except us. But then when these people, when these two witnesses are resurrected, it's going to stop the world in its tracks. There is going to be, you know, that gasp when they see that this has happened and they know, you know, they know and they understand that it is God.

Some of them, you know, some of them will just harden their hearts even more because we know that eventually they will, you know, they will fight against Christ, gather together at Armageddon to fight against Him. So we hear, you know, so we see here, and I think we did talk a little bit in the evening session last time about the resurrection of the witnesses.

You know, we come down to verse 14 and it tells us the second low where the sixth trumpet is passed. And you remember in verses in chapters 10 and 11, we've been, you know, catching up, if you will, looking at what's going on in the world up until the time of the sixth trumpet. At the end of chapter 9, you know, we had gone through six trumpets and seen what's happened.

And now we take a step back in chapters 10 and 11 and see what's been going on in the world. And now we come back in chapter, in verse 14 of chapter 11 to the sixth trumpet. So we kind of see what has been going on in the world during that time with the two witnesses and this. But in verse 14 says the second low is passed. It's in verse 15 that it says the seventh angel sounded.

But the resurrection of these two witnesses occurs, you know, right at the time, however the timing is, right at the time of the seventh angel, right at the end of the sixth trumpet. These witnesses are resurrected and the world, and I hope the world hears God say, come up here. Because that will be a dramatic time when he's, you know, when they hear him say, come up here, these witnesses ascended into heaven in much the same way that Jesus Christ ascended into heaven.

Again, it'll be a time. Go ahead, Paul. Oh, it says God breathed life into them, much like he did Adam. Wouldn't you take that as a physical resurrection right then? After three and a half days, the breath of life. Yeah, that was one of our conversations this afternoon. We, you know, I guess one thing I might mention here, you know, would be helpful. And I should have mentioned that maybe a few weeks ago, if maybe between now and trumpets, people got out the book of Revelation, you know, unveiled booklet and read through some of it, you know, I think it'll help even pull all the things that we were talking about in the Bible study together.

It's helpful to go through the verses and kind of put ourselves in the position of where we are as we look at what God is doing and kind of sense and appreciate what is going on because, you know, we're going to most of us are going, well, providing how long it is until the God sends Jesus Christ to return to earth.

Now, we'll live through this time. We'll live through this time. We'll see this happen before our very eyes. You know, especially if we continue to yield to God and Jesus Christ and be led by His Holy Spirit. And there is a discussion, and someone brought out this afternoon, that the booklet does indicate that in verse 11, when this resurrection of the two witnesses occurs, that it is the resurrection of the first fruits. Now, if whether it is or not, I think only God can let us know at this time, because it might be because when we come down to verse 15, the seventh angel sounded.

And we can turn back to 1 Corinthians 15 verse 51. We can look at 1 Thessalonians 4, and it does say that at the last trump, as the last trumpet sounds, the dead in Christ rise first. So we have the verbiage in 15, the seventh angel sounds. 1 Corinthians 15, 51 tells us, the saints are resurrected at the sound of the seventh trumpet. And we have this resurrection of these two witnesses as the second woe of the sixth trumpet is passed, and the seventh trumpet is sounding.

That's what the booklet would indicate. Now, verse 11 could be, because we don't know the answer, right? Verse 11 could be a resurrection to physical life, because we know that Jesus, that God called Elijah up. Elijah, when he was taken up into heaven on a chariot, he disappeared, but he wasn't turned into spirit. He wasn't taken into heaven at that time. God translated him someplace else. And it could be that he takes these two witnesses and plants them, you know, maybe where the woman who was being nurtured for time, times, and a half a time from the face of the serpent is.

So we don't know for sure, but we have two...we know something...well, it's significant whatever happens. And we do have a seventh angel sounding here in verse 15, and then we don't hear about the seventh angel again until we get through chapters 13 and 14.

In fact, it's in chapter 15 that we...I'm going to get ahead of myself. Forget I said that. Let's go back here to chapter 15. It's in chapter 16, then, that we see the vials, you know, of the seventh angel beginning to be poured out. So we have this kind of break in here, and then we're going to go back and see what the history of the church has been in the New Testament times.

We're going to see the beast power come to rise. We're going to read about the first fruits in chapter 14, and then in verse 15, it's like we pick up the action again as we fill in all the blanks of what's going on, you know, in the meantime here.

But there is something significant here. In verse 13 of chapter 11, it says in the same hour. You know, hour means it's a very short period of time. It's not a day, not 24 hours. It's not a year for a day concept here. Very shortly, you know, in that same hour that a voice is heard that says, come up here.

There was an earthquake, a tenth of the city fell, 7,000 people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven. And so, often in key events, you know, we've talked about this, that God will mark them by earthquakes, lightning, thunders, noise. This is God speaking. This is God intervening in the course of the earth. And it's this notable thing when the two witnesses are resurrected, and they ascend into heaven before the eyes of the world.

God is letting people know, this is me. This is me. Earthquake. And then we have people giving glory to God, and it tells us the second woe is passed. That's done. But behold, the third woe is coming quickly. Now, you'll remember, if we went back to chapter 8, you know, the angels in heaven, they were singing, you know, there would be delay no longer. Once the process starts, there will be no more delay. We have that delay of a half an hour when the trumpets begin to sound. It's like there's a breath, a pause taken to let it sink in what's going to happen.

But once the trumpets start sounding, they just keep sounding. And so, from verse 14 to verse 15, we see the six trumpets and the events that are associated with it are done, and the seventh angel sounds. And as he sounds, we have loud voices in heaven. You know, someone asked this afternoon, will these be trumpet blasts that the world hears, or are they just kind of symbolic of prophecy moving forward and we'll know as we see the progress?

I don't know. I hope there are trumpet blasts. I hope the whole world hears God blowing that trumpet and that sound, and they're put on notice that God is at work and he is judging the earth. And these things are happening as a result of his intervention of the earth. I hope that's it. Whether that is true or not, we'll just have to kind of wait and see.

But it's notable that as John is living in this vision, in recording this vision, he hears the angel sound. And then there were the loud voices in heaven, saying, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.

But Christ's return isn't just yet the seventh angel sounds, but there's an awfully loud that goes on during the time of that seventh angel. There's the seven bowls that will, or vials, whatever you want to call it, that we'll be reading about in chapter 16. That doesn't all happen in one day. There's a period of time that the seventh trumpet plays out. We have the gathering of the armies at Armageddon. We have a lot going on. But we do have some things, some notable things, that in this song that the 24 elders sing in verses 17 and 18, tells us what the state of the world is. And as we are just less than two weeks away from the Feast of Trumpets, we'll be talking about everything that the day signifies. It signifies or symbolizes the return of Jesus Christ. It teaches us about the resurrection of the first fruits. We know it's a time of alarm, and all these things are happening in the world as God exacts his vengeance. It's a time that God courses wrath out on people. It's the day of the Lord. It's all these things that we talk about on the day of trumpets. There's a lot happening on this day that leads up to the return of Jesus Christ. And so, during that time, we have things going on. We don't know exactly at what point some of these key things take place. Well, they happen during the seventh trump, but the seventh trump isn't just one day. So, when we look at this song that the 24 elders sing, as the seventh trump sounds, because here's the final step before the return of Jesus Christ that we will read about at the end of chapter 19 of Revelation. And they know that it's pretty much done. You know, heaven is looking forward to the time of Jesus Christ and as these events occur in their minds, they're looking to that sweetness of that book that we read about in Revelation 10. Jesus Christ will return. This is just another step closer to His return that's going to be ultimately good for all of mankind. But notice what they say in verse 17, the song that they sing. You know, 24 elders, they fall on their thrones, they fall on their faces, they worship God, and they say, We give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the one who is and was and who is to come, because you have taken your great power and reigned. The nations were angry. Now, we're going to see the nations being angry. You already see the nations being angry. They have been at war with the two witnesses and at war with God during this entire three and a half year period that the witnesses have been preaching. The nations were angry, and your wrath has come. It has come. The seventh trumpet is going to be God pouring out His wrath in a way never before seen on the earth. And notice what it says, At the time of the dead, that they should be judged. Here, just as the seventh trumpet sounds, they say, At the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that you should reward your servants, the prophets, and the saints, and those who fear your name, small and great, and that you will destroy those who destroy the earth. And so we have them referencing the resurrection, the first resurrection, here, right after it mentions the seventh trumpet sounding. And before we get to the bulls and all of them being pulled out. Let me just leave that there, because that's all I'm going to say about it. God will fill in, like I said, all this for us. We'll understand more and more as we get closer and closer to the return of Jesus Christ. Let me pause there before we get to verse 19. Any comments, thoughts? Anything that anyone wants to discuss?

One comment, Brother Shaby. Exodus, when God appeared on Mount Sinai, there was trumpet blasts for all the people to know that he was ascending on the mountain and he was there. And then when the trumpet stopped, he spoke. That's the only thing that came. Very good. Very good. Yep. They certainly heard it. Very good.

Yeah, I was going to say, Mr. Shaby, I agree, because I really hope it's going to be really loud and deafening so that people have no, you know, whatever they're doing, it'll stop them dead in their tracks. And they're like, hey, what's going on with this, man? Because, you know, it's going to be so awesome to hear the trumpet blast, you know? And I'm just wanting to do my part to be on the right side of those trumpet blasts, you know? Yep.

So it doesn't go bad.

Yep. I totally agree. I think it's going to be an awesome time. And the world is going to be awesome and inspiring and exciting. But at the same time, watching what the world has to go through as they learn who God is and how far they've departed from Him, the lessons they have to learn. Mr. Shaby. Yes. This is just a summary of my observation. When the two witnesses are here, 1290 days, they're doing their prophecy and everything. We have the Word of God, the famine of the Word of God.

So the 1290 days is very interesting because similar numbers. World War I was 1,567 days. It started from July 28, 1914 to 11 November 1918. World War II was 2,193 days. It started September 1, 1939 and ended 9 to 1945. So 1,500, 2,193 for World War II. Perhaps World War III, 1290 days. So those are very interesting durations where the world is under stress, turmoil, and that might be the final timeframe that is very significant because it would be all commotion, all kingdoms. In the end, it concludes with the seventh term that the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of Jesus Christ.

So those are very interesting numbers that have precedence. And also, living through it for three and a half years is going to be quite a long time. I have people who lived through World War II. That's quite a long time for the world to be at war. Anyone else? Let's look at 1,19 because here's another sign from heaven.

We've got the 24 elders who are singing this song. Whether the world hears it or not, God hears it. They are marking the fact that this milestone has occurred now. It says in verse 19, Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple, and there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail. So here we have God, and if we take it at its word, the heaven opens, and there's this sight that's up there. Again, it's like God revealing to himself, He is judging the earth.

If indeed this is a literal opening, and I guess we have no reason to believe it's not, because God wants them to know who is judging them and that He exists. So you have the temple of God opened in heaven. I think as we get these glimpses of the temple opening, we begin to see how things are in heaven and how He instructed Moses and Solomon and the temples that are on earth that appear, similar to the temples that are there, as God creates on earth as it is in heaven.

But we see in chapter 15, we mentioned that we go through a couple of chapters here where we learn what's going on in the world, the true church, the beast power. And over in chapter 15, verse 5, after we talk about the 144,000, the first fruits, chapter 15, verse 2, we've talked about seeing people on the sea of glass. They've had the victory over the beast. They are singing the song of Moses.

And in verse 5 of chapter 15, it says, John writes, he says, After these things I looked, and behold, the temple of the tabernacle, the testimony in heaven was opened. So whether that's another occasion of the temple opening, or whether this is just tying us back to 11, chapter 11, verse 19, and as we have the incense of 12, 13, and 14 up to this time, then in verse 5 of chapter 15, we see the temple of the tabernacle, the testimony in heaven opened, and out of the temple came the seven angels having the seven plagues clothed in pure bright linen and having their chests girded with golden bands.

So we have a continuation of the trumpet at this point. So it's like chapters 12, 13, 14, and up to chapter first 5 is inset periods of the vision that bring us up to date on what is happening during that time so that we come back to the opening of the seven vials when the seventh trump is blown, it sounded.

So let's look at chapter 12. We've been in chapter 12 quite a bit, but even though we've talked about it, and we've talked about the 1260 days of the New Testament church, the 1260 years, let's go through it, and let's go through it in the context of everything that we've been talking about. And understanding this is a history, if you will, of the church that Jesus Christ started back in Matthew 16, 18. He started the New Testament church, and it's had a troubled history. Satan has always been against God's people, Israel. He certainly is against God's church, the true church. It's been persecuted throughout time. We have lived in a very pleasant, if you will, period of history where we haven't felt the persecution and tribulation that the Christians before us did in the Middle Ages and in the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth centuries and down to recent times. But we will be seeing that again. So in chapter 12 and verse 1, it gives us this sign, this sign as we move into this kind of history of the church and the persecution of it. Chapter 12 verse 1 says, a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. And as John sees the vision, this is what he records. Now, you know, we've talked about woman pictures, church, woman can picture false church as well. You have to look at the context. But here, as God introduces now this period of history, He has this sign appear in heaven, and this woman is clothed with these, you know, these celestial signs, if you will. What might that, what might God be trying to show us there, and what might He be trying to draw our attention to, that that would be part of this vision that John is seeing?

And anyone think of a similar vision? Remember that as we're in Revelation. Revelation, you know, is the end time events. And much of what we read in Revelation, you know, we can relate back to the Old Testament because God has a plan from the beginning, from the foundation of the earth, and we see pieces in the Old Testament that fit perfectly with the completion of His plan here in the Old Testament. Anything in the Old Testament that might ring a bell as we read verse 1 of chapter 12? Yes. In the chapter 2, Joseph's dream? Exactly. Joseph's dream? Yes. Yeah, let's go back. Let's look at Genesis 37.

Now we know the prophecies, without going through all those again, you know, when Jacob was dying, he gave the prophecies.

What would befall his children in the end days? Joseph, you know, Ephraim and Manasseh, he put his name on Joseph. But in chapter 37, we have young Joseph having a series of dreams, and those dreams are irritating his brothers, and one in particular kind of even irritates Jacob. We'll find that in Genesis 37 here, and in verse 9. You know, it precedes a dream of the sheaves precedes this, but in verse 9 of chapter 37, Joseph had said, his dream is still another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, look, I've dreamed another dream, and this time the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bow down to me. Now you can imagine what the brothers thought, but even Jacob, when he heard that dream, thought, you know, Joseph, you're a little arrogant. We're all going to bow down to you. And just as the scope of the dream, and what it meant to have the sun and the moon and the stars bowing down to him. And as we go through Joseph's life, we see what the fulfillment of that was in his life. But it's an identifying thing with Joseph, and you know, Joseph, you know, Joseph had Israel's name on him, God's people, and as we are back in Revelation 12, perhaps God has another meaning, but one of the things that could be there as we open this is God is identifying, you know, his people, the woman. And, you know, it might here mean Israel, the woman that's there because Jesus Christ was not born through a Gentile, you know, nation or ethnicity. He was born through Israel, God's chosen people that Abraham, their forefather, obeyed and followed. And so he was born through this nation into the world. A great sign appeared in heaven. A woman, clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and under her head, a garland of twelve stars. God's people, an identifying sign, perhaps. And she, being with child, cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. Jesus Christ was born there in the nation of Judea, in Bethlehem. Being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. Child is always born through the mother, nurtured in the womb, ready to be born to assume its physical life.

And another sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great fiery red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his head. So we have a child being born with the symbol that this is through a woman that is identified with God's people. Jesus Christ. We'll see that. No one can can refute what's in verse five, talking about the child. And then we have the dragon right there. So we have this eternal conflict, you know, or the eternal conflict until Satan is put away.

Of Satan there, ready to devour the child as it's born. So we have, when we get into chapter 13, we look at the picture that we have of Satan here, the dragon. You know, he's got seven heads, he's got ten horns, he's got seven diadems or crowns on his head. And when we get into chapter 13 and we see the beast power, you know, we see these same numbers showing up. We see crowns, we see seven heads, we see all these resurrections. And it's a mark of the beast that's got the same identifying sign in heaven that is associated with Satan.

You know, we've got the signs in heaven that identify the woman, and then the beast power has the same type of signs associated with it that we see Satan marked with in verse 3. And in verse 4, Satan, it says, his tale drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. You know, what we know is that those stars represent angels.

And Satan, you know, Satan, who was one of the three archangels, who would have had one third of the angels assigned to him, if you will, who reported to him, if we can use the modern vernacular of an archangel and those that are subservient or that serve him. You know, he was able, through his strong influence, to get all those angels under them, all those angels knew God. You know, it wasn't like overnight. It wasn't Satan like he was created one day and the very next day he's against God and he hates God and he finds himself by hatred toward God.

This all happened over the course of who knows how many, you know, millions or billions of years. But Satan was able to take all those angels under him and turn them against God. They all saw God. They all knew who God was in the beginning. They would have understood the plan of God as it related to them. They understood what their mission was. They saw the joy in heaven.

They saw the unity. They saw the harmony. They saw the work they were doing. They knew they were created beings. They knew that everything that they had was given by God. But somehow, Satan, and it's a reminder to us and a caution to us of just how clever, cunning, and convincing Satan is. That he could even get all those angels, all those angels to turn against God and follow him.

You know, we can think about Adam and Eve. And there's Adam and Eve. They find themselves in the Garden of Eden. Adam's named all the animals around him. It's a beautiful place. God walks in the garden with them. They have this relationship. And then Satan appears in the form of a serpent. And somehow, after Adam and Eve see everything that they've been given, they literally were not there one day.

And then they're in this beautiful garden. They have life. Adam has seen God provide Eve to him. And somehow, Satan was able to deceive Adam and Eve to turn against God. It just shows how powerful and how cunning and how clever he is. And we should never, ever minimize Satan's influence. We should never, ever minimize what goes on in our lives and always be aware that he is out there. And he was able to turn people who had a relationship with God, you know, really a face-to-face relationship with God, against him.

And we don't want to let that attitude or the things of Satan ever creep into our lives. We always have to be on guard against that. And when we see it happening, and we have to know God's word, we have to have his Holy Spirit in us that lets us know and exposes those wrong attitudes and those wrong ideas in us and the sin in us. And we want to cast it out of us, you know, immediately. And God will provide us that knowledge and insight when he sees that that's what we really want.

But here we have Satan, and I just want to draw your attention, you know, to look what he's done. And this is later on in this chapter, we see that Satan deceives the whole world.

You know, verse 9 tells us, he's called by name. He's called the devil and Satan, and he deceives the whole world. Well, there's no wonder that he's deceives the whole world. He was able to deceive all the angels under him. He was able to deceive Adam and Eve. So the whole world is powerless under his sway. The same way you and I would be.

If it wasn't for God's Holy Spirit, we wouldn't have a chance against Satan. We would be like all of them. We owe it all to God and his Holy Spirit that we even know what we know, or that we even have a chance.

That we even have the chance, and that only chance is us choosing God and using his Holy Spirit that we can stand through this and then be there when Jesus Christ returns. Well, you know, let me pause.

I've said a lot. I hope, you know, again, people are looking to chime in, just interrupt me at any time. So, I'm going to catch my breath here a minute. So, let's go on in verse 4, then. So we have the child being born. We have the dragon standing right there. As Christ is about to make his physical entrance into the world, the dragon is right there.

And we're told in verse 4, the dragon stood before the woman and was ready to give birth, who was ready to give birth, to devour her child as soon as it was born. And so we have this, you know, when we look at Satan, right? He knows who this child is. He knows what the prophecies are. He knows that this child will be the one who ends his reign on earth and ends his life as he knew it.

And I caution people when they're being baptized, right? And really all of us all through our lives. You know, when we are born, when we're baptized and we have our sins washed away from us, and I say when we come up out of the waters of baptism, we are a newborn babe in God's eyes, one of his children. He sees us that way. The sin is washed away. He's put his Holy Spirit in us. And we begin our spiritual life.

And we live that life and we grow just like a child does, you know? And we're in the womb of the church during the time that as God has done until the time that we're born as spirit beings and we begin our role in God's kingdom.

Through this time, we're being nurtured and we're fed and we're developing into the spiritual maturity that God wants us to have so we can be born as spirit beings, just like a child is born and develops all that in the mother's womb and is ready to breathe and ready to assume its life on earth independently from her when it's born.

We're never independent from God. But when we're young and we're a babe in Christ, Satan wants nothing more than to attack us and kill us at that time.

And so I was cautioning people, you will have a trial. Whether it's doubt that enters in your mind and you think, what have I done? Whether it's faith in a problem of faith, whether it's temptations.

Whatever it is that Satan knows that we respond to and where our weaknesses are, people always go through a trial because Satan will try to kill the babies immediately.

If he can get them when they're young, that's what he's about. That's what he wanted to do with Jesus Christ.

But God, if you recall, had Mary and Joseph go to Egypt. And while Herod was busy killing all the baby boys, the Hebrew boys, to and under, you know, Jesus Christ was safe in Egypt.

Same thing that Satan did with the children of Israel when Pharaoh turned against them and began killing all the babies back in Egypt as well.

So we have this picture and Satan is ready to devour this child and to have it dead before it ever breathes. Or the minute that it's born, he would like to see it gone. And in verse 5 it says, And incidentally, I sometimes mention that when you look at the commentaries in Revelation, they don't know what they're talking.

Every single commentary I looked at about verse 5, they all had it exactly right. Everyone knows that's talking of Jesus Christ in Revelation 12.5.

They don't understand the rest of the prophecy, what it's talking about. Some of them come pretty close.

When they look at the history of the church and what happened in the first 12 centuries here of the church after Jesus Christ began it.

And in verse 6, when Jesus Christ is taken up into earth, we see persecution beginning to come in.

Nero became emperor. He turned against Christians and tortured them in ways that we can't even imagine.

And there was that persecution on the church. We're told that true Christians had to flee from Jerusalem to Pella. They did.

History would tell us that all the true Christians did. They all left when they should have, and no true Christians were left.

The Jews suffered horrendously during the time of Nero and up during that time. But the church had to flee.

And the history of the church during that time was they were moving from place to place.

They were getting the history of the world, as you recall, in that history of the true church handout that I provided that we talked about in the 7 Churches of Revelation.

You see the history of the church, and finally in 325 AD, the Council of Nicaea meets, and it pretty much outlaws true Christianity.

No longer is it lawful to meet in your home. No longer is it lawful to keep the Seventh-day Sabbath. No longer is it lawful to keep Passover.

It becomes against the law to worship God in the way that he wants to be worshipped.

And so you have the church at that time that pretty much has to go underground, because they are persecuted, they are killed, and it enters a period of time from the 300 AD all the way up until the 1500 AD, where the Bible is subdued by the Catholic Church, which had us beginning with the Council of Nicaea.

If you were caught with the Bible, you could be earned at the stake. If you taught the Bible, you were going to be tortured because death wasn't good enough for you.

You were going to pay for it. The Catholic Church did everything in its power to subdue and eliminate the Bible from the earth. They wanted no one seeing it. For 1200-plus years, if we go to 325 and 1260 years later, it would be 1585, you know, we see that the Bible is nowhere on earth except among the true Christians.

They suffered immensely. There were, who knows how many martyrs during that time. They stood true. They had their problems like we do.

They would become weak, and then they would become strong again when they had a prophet come to them.

God never allowed his church to die out. They were very small, but he provided for them during all that time.

They never died, and he provided them a place to go whenever persecution arose.

You might want to just look back through that history again and see how God did that and how the church survived during that time.

It gives us what happened to the church that we read about here in verse 6.

The woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God that they should feed her there 1,260 days.

And in this case, the 1,260 days is 1,260 years. It's the day-for-year principle.

And we see that 1,260-year period exactly when it started and exactly what it ends. You know, God knows. So we see that from the 300s to the 1500s. This period of time where the church is in the wilderness, it wasn't mainstream, it was underground.

And it doesn't mean when it says wilderness, you know, that it was out in the middle of nowhere and it was, you know, like Israel in the middle of the desert out there.

You know, wilderness could just mean that they were in a place of refuge, someplace that God prepared for them. So they moved from place to place, and in that place of refuge, He was the one who was providing and watching over them, just like God watched over Israel during all those years that they were wandering in the wilderness until He brought them into the Promised Land.

So when we were in wilderness, it doesn't mean this desolate, awful place where nothing grows. It could mean that.

But it means a place where God is the one watching over us. So let me pause there. Let me pause there, because I've said a lot, and I hope I've been clear in what I've said.

Sometimes I get to talking too fast because I get excited about this stuff, and, you know, I hope everyone understands, but I want you to understand and ask any questions that you might ask.

Okay. Okay. Then I'm going to keep moving. You know, if you don't stop me, I'm just going to keep moving ahead.

Okay. So when we come to verse 6, we've reached a point where now, you know, this period of time is over.

If you remember in the 1500s, the Catholics did finally allow the Bible to be translated into English.

It happened during the time of King James. It happened in England.

And they finally took the lid off of the Bible, and then you had the Protestant Reformation. You had the Church of God beginning to become known again.

And we talked about that through some of the times of Sardis and some of the churches who had a name of God, but then they allowed themselves to die out and whatever.

So you have this time now, when the 1260 days is over, that the Bible is back and becomes in the mainstream as it is today.

But then we have a time later on during the time, a time that we might have entered into now or that is perhaps right ahead of us.

In verse 7 it says, War broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought.

So we have literal warfare going on.

So there's some conflict in heaven that leads to this, and it's a monumental point in history because Satan, who apparently has had access to God's throne, to, as it says in verse 9, cast, you know, accused a brethren day and night. You know, he's cast out.

So, you know, it says, War broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and the angels fought.

But they, the dragon and his angels, did not prevail. They lost.

You know, the Creator is never going to beat the Creator. Satan hasn't learned that lesson, but he still fights.

He still fights because his hatred of God, it blames him to the reality of the situation that he's in.

You know, you can't even see straight, and it's a kind of an awful part of human nature, you know, that you can hate something so much that you can't even see what you're doing in the process and how you're hurting yourself.

And as we look at the world around us and we see what's going on, you know, we see ourselves entering into a time where there's attitudes and kind of forces at work and influences at work that is just different than anything you and I have lived in before.

And we see hate continuing to mount, and hatred and division and separation and accusations.

All these things that mark Satan and what went on in heaven that God finally, you know, cast Satan down to earth that was going on at that time.

We see those attitudes, you know, beginning to appear before us at this time.

And it makes me wonder, has that war already taken place in heaven? Has God already cast Satan down to earth? And so that influence is here on earth because Satan knows when that happens, he has just the short time as it tells us about.

So verse 9, the great dragon, he was cast out, that serpent of old, and called the devil and Satan.

Verse 8, notice, though, that it says, there was not a place found for them in heaven no longer.

You know, that is the end. Satan and his angels will not ever again appear in heaven.

Satan cast down to earth, much like happened to Satan when you go back and look at Ezekiel 28.

Whatever happened back then, God cast Satan down to earth, and he was prisoner on this earth that was without form and void and in darkness until God recreated it and allowed him out of that prison, if you will, to be in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. The same thing is going to happen again. Satan has been cast down to this earth where God calls him the God of this world, and he will not be up in heaven again.

So we're told that Satan deceives the whole world. He was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

And so we have this monumental occurrence in heaven, another step closer to the return of Jesus Christ.

And as we get through these steps that we go through, it says, I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come, For the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.

So again, when heaven sees these, it's a glorified God like Jesus Christ.

The time of his return is imminent. It's about to happen.

That's the sweetness of that little book, you know, in Revelation 10.

But they're very well, they're very aware when we come to verse 12 of the bitterness that mankind is going to have to go through as a result of Satan having been cast down.

And now among us, with all the things that he did in heaven, the wars, the hatred, the animosity, the separation, the division, the total accusations, you know, you look at the world that we live in today.

It's just that kind of is defined by that more and more as Satan has his way and his influence on earth.

I saw it.

Comment?

Yeah, Mr. Shaby.

Yeah. So in verse 7, is it fair to understand that as the final ascent of Satan and his demons to fight heaven? Is that the case or did that happen before? Or is verse 7 the final attempt to...

That's the final attempt. That's why it leads into then him being cast down to earth and then ultimately to his thrown into the bottomless pit here when we get to Revelation 20 and the Day of Atonement.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

Okay. Verse 11. So we kind of see some of, again, as you read through these things, look at the attributes of Satan. What does he do? Do we see that in the world around us? And will we see it increasingly more as time goes on as his influence and his devices and his way begins to dominate the earth?

Verse 11. They, speaking of true Christians, they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony and they did not love their lives to the death.

Again, without God's Holy Spirit, we are hopeless. We are helpless. We cannot overcome Satan. We are powerless against him. We are the whole human race, except for those who God has called who allow the Holy Spirit to live in them and they're led by it.

We can't. We're no match. We're no match for Satan. And God reminds us of that. And so in verse 12, you have the heavens saying, rejoice. Jesus Christ's return is imminent. They see it happening. They can taste it. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them.

But here's the bitter, woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you having great wrath, because he knows he has a short time.

Satan knows the prophecies of the book of Revelation, you know, probably better than we do in some cases, but he knows when he's cast out of heaven, that final time. It's just a matter of time until Jesus Christ returns, that hands are laid on him and he's cast into that bottomless pit for a thousand years until God allows him to come up out of that pit again and to see him again, unbelievably, you know, being able to see people who have lived God's way of life for a thousand years and experienced the joy.

He knows he's got a short time and he is going to make use of it. He's going to make mankind pay. He's never loved mankind. He's always been about the death of mankind, the misery of mankind.

And for God's plan to fail, it means mankind has to be obliterated.

So in verse 13, you know, we see this recognition of him and the angels, even though Satan is going to take his vengeance out on the people of the earth.

When the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, just like back in Ezekiel 28, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.

Now in this verse, I'm going to do a little bit of speculating here. We know that Jesus Christ was born through Israel, God's chosen people.

He has physical Israel, his people. He has spiritual Israel, the church in the New Testament time, his people.

He persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. So the woman in this case could picture physical Israel, because we know about the time of Jacob's trouble in Jeremiah 30.

We know the times that Ezekiel has prophesied. We know the Great Tribulation. We know that the Israelites nations, God's people, who put through a time that has never been, that there's never been a time like that.

Daniel mentions it as well. And so he comes and he persecutes the woman, the people through which Jesus Christ was born, but also the woman, the church.

In the very next verse, we know it's talking about the church because it's no longer talking about the physical nations of Israel. It's talking about the church that Jesus Christ gave birth to, if you will. He started it.

In verse 14, what the woman was given two wings of a great eagle.

You know, that's a beautiful...it's a beautiful...looking at my notes here real quick.

It's a beautiful picture when we see that.

You know, someone mentioned this afternoon that Israel was taken on the wings of an eagle. We know there were no airplanes at that time. We know there wasn't this giant eagle that could have two million people playing with it.

It was placed on its wing and God would play them through there.

I was looking at the commentaries and the way this was translated to see what their take on this was and what we could find from that.

And I like the way one of the commentaries said that when we read wing of an eagle, it's indicating a people that is...

I want to write it...I want to read it exactly the way they said it if I can find where I wrote it down here.

A people that are ready to be...what channel? What verse is that? 12.

Ah! A people...a people that is prepared for rapid flight.

When you read that they're going to be taken away by an eagle, that given two wings of a great eagle, they've been prepared for rapid flight.

And when I read that description of it, I thought, well, you know, maybe that's it because you go back to Matthew 24.

And we're told those prophecies, you know, that Jesus Christ in his words where he says, you know, two will be in the field, one will be taken and the other left.

You know, he says when it's time to flee, don't go back into your house. Don't look for the tunics. Don't pack up everything. Just go. Right?

Be prepared. Be prepared for rapid flight. When the call comes and however God lets his people know it's time to flee, whatever it is he has in mind, that we're in tune with him and we're just ready to go.

You know, we follow the principle that Christ said in Luke 9, you know, verse 62. Don't look back.

Don't take time to look back at the world because what's life learned when she looked back at the world, she turned into a pillar of salt.

And the people who look back at that time, who aren't just ready to go when God says to go, who haven't developed that faith in him during this time, and they look back, you know, maybe the door is shut at that time, just like it is for those five slumbering, deeply slumbering virgins.

And there is no escape at that time. So, you know, as we go through our lives and as God works with us in the various trials and tests that we have and the things in our lives that prepare us for the time of Jesus Christ's return, the faith that we have in him and the complete belief in him is something that we need to be always ready to go when he says and not say, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, I gotta check this out.

Because Jesus Christ says he who will lose his life is ready to leave it all behind. Those will be the ones that will find their life in him. So anyway, you know, that in mind, verse 14, it says to women, so we're talking about the church here that God is going to take to a place where she is nourished for time, times, and half a time from the presence of the serpent. She's given two wings by the great eagle. Yes. I had a I was wondering what you thought about Isaiah 40 verses 30 and 31 in the context of the great eagle, because kind of going along with what you were just saying there, it's like it talks about where, you know, it says even the youth shall faint and be weary, the young men shall utterly fail.

But in verse 31, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. So kind of like going along with what you're just saying, you know, God will for his people will give us the ability and give us the to not be weary, but we'll be up and we'll be ready to go. And God will inspire us and give us what we need to get to where he wants us to go, I think.

Yeah, I agree. However, God wants us to get there, we will be ready. We need to be ready to do that. Very good. That's a good verse to return to there. So. Okay. You know, a lot of people look at verse 14, and it's a comforting verse because it shows, you know, there's a group of people that God is working with, and he's going to take this group of people and he's going to take them to a place where they are nourished. I mean, he's going to feed them.

He's going to complete the training with them for three and a half years. We know where the three and a half years are in the scope of prophecy. We've read about the witnesses prophesying for three and a half years. When we get into chapter 13, we're going to read about the beast power that's in control for three and a half years. And for three and a half years, God takes this group of people and he nourishes them there.

He nurtures them there. And it says, again, a place in the wilderness, a place of refuge, you know, a place that God has designed for them, wherever that may be, and however that may be. You know, you look back in the Bible and you look at people like Elijah, you know, when they were, when Elijah, you know, was threatened by Jezebel, you know, who was the personification of Satan. And she has every intent of killing Elijah. And Elijah runs into the wilderness where God takes care of him.

He provides for him during that time that he's there and takes care of him. And the same picture we have of this, you know, we look at, we look at David, you know, when he's running from Saul, Saul who wants David dead, you know, just like Satan wants the people of God dead. And Saul is there and God, you know, David runs and God provides a place of refuge for him.

And it calls out the wilderness in 1st Samuel 13. And many places, as we read last Sabbath, you know, God will talk about, or David in the Psalms will talk about a place of refuge, a place that God has prepared. And in Revelation, you know, here in verse 14, we see that place. Whatever it might be, whatever God has in mind, and wherever that might be, it might be many places, but there's this people.

There's this people, this woman that is there, you know, that's taken from the face of the serpent and nourished for three and a half years during that time. And, you know, we can go back to Revelation 2 and clearly the two end time churches of the Philadelphia Church and the Laodicea Church. And we haven't taken the time to look at those, you know, messages of those churches in details, but you're very familiar with them.

To the Philadelphia Church, you know, here's a church that has patience in God. They haven't denied his name. God doesn't say anything negative to them. And he says, I'll protect you from the hour of trial that comes on the whole earth. Meanwhile, you have the Laodicean Church, another church that exists at the same time, meeting probably, well, not probably, meeting together with the same people of the Philadelphia era.

Not just one group and one organization, but God's true Christians all over the world. Some have that Philadelphia era where they are led by God's Spirit. Others still have a foot in the world, and they, he sees them as Laodiceans. And we have two groups at the end time that there, one God counsels, buy of me gold, try it in the fire. The other group, he's watched what they've done in the course of their lives and how they've progressed. And then when we get to Revelation 12, we see these, we see two groups of God's people here in these last few verses of chapter 12. One is taken to a place where she's nurtured or nourished for a time, times and a half a time from the face of the serpent.

And it's not an easy time that the, that this woman is taken to this place because Satan doesn't give up easily. He is still determined with all of his might to destroy the people of God, to destroy who God is working with. And it says in verse 15, the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood.

Now your margin, like mine, probably says Isaiah 59 and verse 19. If we took the time to go back to Isaiah 59 verse 19, you would see there that it indicates, it kind of compares the flood to an army, an army of people. So, you know, does Satan send an army? I mean, however large this group of people is that God is going to take to this place, is there a huge army that comes after him?

I don't know. It comes out of, you know, comes out of Satan's mouth. It says, as he spews water out of his mouth like a flood. So he's sending something that the people of their own strength would have absolutely no abilities to stand up against. But unlike the people of the Red Sea, when Israelites, when they had their back of the Red Sea, this people's faith will be in God. They won't panic. They won't be screaming, taking us, take us back to Egypt.

They won't be saying, I wish we had stayed there and just lived in that case. They will absolutely have faith in God, and God will take care of them, and he will swallow up. In verse 16, that flood, the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed up the flood, which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.

That kind of reminds us of Korah and the rebellion against Moses. When they stood up against Moses, God opened up the earth, and Korah and his 250 comrades descended into the earth. The same type thing, you know, if we're there at that time, we will see. We will see God's deliverance. And we won't panic, because through the course of this lifetime, we will build the faith in him and know that no matter what confronts us, no matter what confronts us, God will see us through and will protect us and guide us and deliver us as long as we are living his way of life.

So we have one group there in verses 14, 15, and 16. But then in verse 17, when Satan sees he's been defeated again, God's gotten, God's had the victory over him again. Those people have been protected. In verse 17, the dragon was enraged with the woman. You can imagine the frustration and the anger he has when he is so mad, he knows his time is short. He hasn't been able to get to this woman that he really, really wanted to get, that he really, really wanted to destroy.

He's enraged. And so what does he do? He can't get them. He can't reach them. So he goes back and finds the rest of God with his people, the rest of his offspring that are still in the world that weren't part of that group. Whether they're the Laodicean church or whatever group you want to call, they're the rest of the offspring who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. They're the ones. They're the ones who will be going through this time, the Bible would indicate. A time of great tribulation, a time when the beast power makes war with the people of God and has his sights on them because remember that beast, Satan is the one who gives his power and Satan's mind and his focus is on God's people.

I want to destroy physical Israel. I want to destroy spiritual Israel. He hates God's people. And so we come to the end of chapter 12. We're not going to have time to get into chapter 13, but I'm going to ask you for a few minutes because I want to take you to one verse here in verse 10 before we leave and we'll come back to chapter 13 next week.

Most of you know the things. We don't have the time to go through it in detail in chapter 13 because we've been schooled in many times. You might want to get, as I said, that Revelation Unveiled booklet out and read through some of those things between now and then to refresh your mind on all the places in prophecy and the Old Testament that this beast power is prophesied in.

Let me pause there as we finish chapter 12 and just open it up. Okay, well then, you know, I want to take you to verse 10 in chapter 13 and end there. We'll come back to the beginning of chapter 13 next week. But in chapter 10, it's verse 10 of chapter 13. Yes? Okay. In verse 10 of chapter 13, it's kind of a great...

Okay, can you repeat that again? You broke up a little bit. I only got a piece of your question. I'm talking about another woman, right? Representative Gentiles who came to faith through the tribulation. Verse 17. Verse 17. Oh, those are the people. That's your question. Are those the people who came to the faith during the time of tribulation?

Yes, that's a lot of commentary. Yes. Yes and no, because remember, look, it says, it says, the dragon was enraged with the woman and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring. So that means there are people who were...if I can put it in the modern vernacular, were part of the church, right? The rest of her offspring. And he's going to make war with them. They didn't...they weren't...as Christ said in Luke 21, they weren't counted worthy to escape, if I can put it that way, to the place of safety.

And they, as it says in the latest message of the Laodicean Church, you know, if they didn't have their gold refined and fired during the course of this lifetime, they will learn to do it in the course of the tribulation. So there are people who are called during that time. There are people who resist the beast's power and repent during that time. But there is this group of people in the church, you know, that are left behind, left behind, and aren't part of the woman that goes into the place where she's nourished for a time, times, and half a time.

Makes sense? Well, this is something I read from a commentary that said that, you know, those are the people that came through Christ, you know, paying to the faith in the tribulation. That's what I'm... And there are people...and Cynthia, the one thing, you know, it's fine to read those commentaries, but remember, when they get into Revelation, they don't understand. The commentaries don't understand everything.

So you got to watch what you read where they're interpreting, because they would be interpreting that as, oh, Christians will all be taken to a place of safety, and all these other people will be left behind. All the Muslims, Buddhists, and all these other people. So they're just kind of throwing the whole Christian church, and, you know, that's where they come up with.

They'll all be taken away. They'll all be raptured, and all you have to do is believe in God. You don't have to repent. You don't have to do anything other than say you believe in Jesus Christ, you know, the message to the world today in the Christian arena. And that's not at all what the Bible says. That's not at all what the Bible teaches us.

So there are people that are taken away, not at a rapture. There are people that, you know, the Bible indicates go to this place. But there are people who have the commandments of God, and who have the testimony of Jesus Christ like you and I do. But some are left behind because they haven't, you know, they haven't, they were too soundly asleep, you know, they were in that group of virgins that was too soundly asleep. Okay, you might, you might, this is where we're going to, you know, get out that Revelation Unveiled booklet, you know, it's there available online. And that'll help you through these verses too, and you'll see, you know, from the Bible exactly what it is, the groups of people that we're talking about here.

Not that sort of thing. Okay. This is James, Mr. Shader. Thanks. Can you hear me? Is that James? Yes, James. Yeah, you know, I just see the word martyr when I hear verse 17. These are martyrs of God for the reason that God chooses, I think, in the end time. I think they have the truth. I believe they have the truth. But there are, maybe it's like you say, Laodicean in a sense, but they do become martyrs.

I mean, that's a tough way to prove. I mean, that's where you really have your gold refined in the fire. And there may be some, as it was pointed out, you know, there may be some, you know, very, very strong Christians who remain behind too, right? That will be there to encourage these people that are there. That may be martyrs as well. Certainly the two witnesses are there in the midst of the beast power and their preaching and, you know, going through these things as well.

So there may be, you know, but they will learn to look to God. Right. Okay, let me just end with verse 10 here, you know, because in verse 10 we have the, you know, the segue, if we will, between the beast power, the governmental power, and then the little beast in, you know, that, you know, it is the papacy and is the Catholic Church. I'll just put it bluntly when we get into the latter chapter of verse 13 here.

But in verse 10, you know, it kind of, it tells us or tells, you know, us what we need in order to get through this time. You know, if we happen to find ourselves in the era of the beast power and we were part of the group that's there that has to live during that time. First sentence says, He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity. That's the principle of, you know, you reap what you sow. And often what, you know, an evil empire will do, God will bring that punishment right back on themselves so they understand what they've enacted to other people.

And it's interesting, you know, in a world that we live in today where everyone's against slavery, slavery is an awful world and we're all, you know, we're all awful because of that. That the world ahead of us, there's going to be captivity. It's going to be captivity.

There's are going to be take people taken into captivity. He who leads into captivity shall be taken, so go into captivity. So we'll kind of see that as we look at the beast power and how he ends up. He who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. And, you know, it tells us that this beast power, it's drunk with the blood of the saints. And so there will be many, many killed during that time.

It'll remind us of Matthew 26 when Jesus Christ was being arrested and Peter brought out his sword, cut off the year of Malchus. And Jesus Christ said the same words. He said, you know, put that sword away.

He who lives by the sword will die by the sword. We'll talk about that a little bit next time, right? And next time, because that, I think, has a bearing in what Christ is saying here, too. He who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. And then he gives us the key on how we survive that time. What the people who may end up, you know, giving their lives, you know, however it is that happens, it says, here's the patience and the faith of the saints.

Here's the patience and the faith of the saints. You know, that word patience that is there is the Greek hupomony. We've talked about the Greek hupomony back, you know, when we were in the book of James. And James, the first chapter of chapter one of James, talks about, you know, these trials and tests come upon us that our faith and that our patience, our hupomony, may be perfected. So as we go through these little things in life, and as our endurance goes on, you know, sometimes we may, you know, as Paul, as Paul, you know, suffered this thing with a thorn in his side, whatever that was, for all these years, and God never healed him.

He just had to endure. He never lost faith in God. And there are things that we endure in life and think, how long is this going to go on? God, can you just heal us? Can you just end this persecution? Can you end this, whatever it is that's going on in our lives that are difficult? But we learn through those elongated trials to have faith in God and grow closer to Him and develop that hupomony because that's going to be a key for the people in this time of the beast power. They are going to have to endure. It's not going to do them any good to get out their swords and start, or their pistols and start shooting people and whatever.

Revolution and rebellion against the government at that time isn't anything that God has ever preached. It isn't what He even preached to the Jews when Jerusalem was taken captive. But He says, have the faith, never lose faith in God, develop that during this time, and develop that hupomony that we need to have to endure to the end. And then as we get to the, as we get later on in chapter 13, we'll see what it talks about the little beast that rides the big beast as well.

But I kind of want to leave you with that thought tonight, and as we work toward, you know, the beast power and talking about it, to have that in our minds as we come back to this again next week. Okay, I'm done. Brother Shaby, with your last verse there, what came to mind was two instances in the Bible where Christ said, people will betray one another. They did the captivity. And then also John saying if there were all of us, they would remain, but they went out, they were not.

So maybe some of these people who were leading the captivity are people who sadly, shamefully turn against their brethren and say, take them, I'll go with the system. You know, you know what, that they well could be. That's right. Yeah, very good.

It'll certainly be a trying time. And the only way through it is faith in God and belief in Him. Matthew 24 verse 10.

Mr. Shaby? Yes, sir. On verse 6, a place prepared by God. Does that remind you of anything? A place where God chooses?

Yeah. What does that remind you of? Just like the Feast of Tabernacles. Oh, okay, okay, very good. A place where God is prepared, exactly. For us. Great places, His name, that's where it's going to be. Yep, yep. In season, Brother College. Yep. That's what Brother Shaby was saying earlier. Read what's in season. Yep.

Okay.

Any other comments or thoughts? Again, if you have them during the week, feel free to call anytime, etc., etc., etc. Reminder, in-person services in Orlando at 1130 this week. Webcast is at 1130. No in-person services in Jacksonville. Jacksonville later on this week, or probably later on this week, I'm going to send an announcement out to you. Everyone got the schedule for services for the rest of September, so you all know where we're going to be on the Holy Days and what's happening, times, and all those things. And Jacksonville later, I will send an announcement out to you as to why we're having trumpets in the afternoon in Jacksonville, because there is something else in Jacksonville later on that evening that I want you to be aware of. So, we'll talk about that later, but it doesn't apply to the Orlando people for now, so. Okay? Very good. Okay, then we will, everyone have a very good evening. We will see you, Sabbath, and we'll see you back here next Wednesday. Okay. Good night. Good night, everyone. Good night.