Jehoshua is on the throne of David in New Jerusalem and He is the King of a New Israel
Below is my study on what bible prophecy really tells us concerning the controversy between Satan and Christ. While many so called prophets and prophecies are filling the land the bible says we have a sure word of prophecy that is a lamp inna dark place. Don't pay attention to the wild speculations of man or someone who says "I have a word from Lord", God's word has already told us what is gonna happen and what the main issue is between Satan and the church.
The battle of the church age part 1 Often lost on most Christians is the heart of what Satan's war against the church is about. When we look at the book of Revelation we see this war being played out throughout the new covenant church age leading up to the second advent Christ. In this study I want to focus on Revelation chapters 11-15 and show what is at the heart of this war. Most Christians because of the man made traditions they love will not like this study because it exposes them as being on the wrong side of the war. Jehovah God is merciful and winks at ignorance but then calls those ignorant ones to repentance once they are exposed to the truth. As we will see in this study, the commandments of God play a central role in the battle that Satan has aged against the church. The eye opening reality is that Satan is not necessarily employing the obvious and overt enemies of the Kingdom in this war but is primarily using those who call themselves Christians against those who keep the commandments. Let's start where this battle began between Satan and the new covenant Israel: Revelation 12:1-3 1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. The woman is Israel and the twelve stars represent the 12 tribes of Israel. Israel throughout it's history was laboring to bring forth the promised Davidic Christ. Israel finally gave birth to the Davidic King fulfilling Isaiah 9:6. The great red dragon is Satan and also the 4th beast of Daniel. The 4th beast is the Roman empire and at the time of Jesus it is in it's Imperial form. The seven heads represent either seven successive empires or seven forms of Roman government and the 10 horns representing the divided Roman empire. Revelation 12:4-5 4And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.5And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. Verse looks back to original fall of Satan and the angels he deceived. Immediately upon the birth of Jesus Satan represented by Imperial Rome sought to kill Jesus as Herod the great mass slaughtered male children two years and under in his search for Jesus. Israel brought forth it's Christ i.e. the man child who was to be enthroned as the King of Israel and come back to dash the nations to pieces like a potters vessel (Psalm 2). Here the reader is being shown that Jesus is the prophesied eschatological Davidic King. In verse 5 we see the ascension of the Son of God into heaven to Jehovah God's throne. It's important to understand that the throne of David was referred to as the throne of Jehovah. Revelation 12:6 "And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days." The woman is the church the new covenant Israel and in connection with the ascension of the Son of God into heaven she flees into the wilderness. The wilderness experience of the church begins right away and it is symbolic of old covenant Israel's experience in the wilderness. The reference to the wilderness has more to do with spiritual circumstances than it does geographical location although there is a literal application as many times throughout history the church has had to find refuge in mountains, hills, the catacombs of Rome and basically go underground. The time period mentioned is a symbolic number representing the length of the new covenant church age. Revelation 12:9 "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. As a result of Christ ascension into heaven, Satan and his angels were permanently cast out of heaven. We will see that this casting out of Satan and his angels will ignite a brutal war against the church by him (Satan). Revelation 12:10 "And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night." This passage shows that Satan's war against God's church begins right after the ascension of the Son of God to the throne of David in New Jerusalem. Satan is cast down in conjunction with the ascension of Jesus to the throne and this is why the voice in heaven can say that the Kingdom of God has come (present tense) and salvation showing that the new covenant age of salvation runs concurrently with the Kingdom of God. The phrase "power of His Christ" shows that the reign of the Davidic King has also begun. The Father and Son are ruling together presently in the new covenant age just as Jehovah ruled over Israel with the Davidic King as His vice regent in the old covenant age. Revelation 12:13-14 13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.14 And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. Notice that the Dragon (Satan) starts persecuting the woman (new covenant Israel) right after being cast to the earth showing the time period of a time, times and half a time start right at the ascension of the Son of God into heaven and the subsequent casting to earth of Satan. This is important fact and is it will show us that the responsibility to keep God's commandments is for all Christians and not limited to Jews leading up to AD 70 or Jews after some pre-tribulation rapture. Both of those theories were created to harmonize the mainstream Church's doctrine that the commandments are done away with in the new covenant. Preterism posits the 3 and a half years as being from 66 AD -70 AD and applying this to the persecution of Jews and Jewish Christians therefore they can say Revelation 12:17 only applies to them. However, clearly the 3 and a half years starts right after Satan is cast to the earth so this could in no way apply to 70 AD. Also, the Jews that were persecuted in AD 70 were not Messianics as they had fled Jerusalem by the time the persecution started due to Jesus warning in Matthew 24. Futurism posits the 3 and a half years as right before the coming of Christ and after a pre tribulation secret rapture. This then leaves them free to break God's commandments because the 3 and a half years will be for Jews to be the commandment keepers of Revelation 12:17. Again, the fleeing into the wilderness is not necessarily about geographical location but moreso to do with circumstances of persecution where the saints will find shelter from the persecutors whether in the literal wilderness or right where they are at. Revelation 12:15-16 15And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.16And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. The flood is persecution and again this persecution takes place right when Satan is cast to the earth. The woman is the church. Satan's goal since the ascension of Christ and His enthronement is to destroy the church. The earth helping the woman is analogous to the woman being taken to the wilderness as a place of refuge. The earth and the wilderness are the same thing, places of refuge for the church in order to be safe from severe persecution. We can easily see this has happened throughout church history. The Christians in the Roman empire had the Catacombs, the Waldenses had the Italian alps, the Anabaptists had the forests. Revelation 12:17 "And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." Satan's war is only against one church and that church is identified as those who keep God's commandments and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Satan is not at war with any other church. The woman is new covenant Israel and her seed is the remnant meaning the little flock who have been given the Kingdom by the Father as Jesus said (Luke 12:32). The offspring of the woman is the church and the only church at that. There are no multiple categories of the church, you are either part of the remnant or you are not. Israel as a nation brought forth the Christ and the remnant of her seed are those Israelites who believed in the Son of God as well as the Gentiles who by faith are grafted in. The Israelites who rejected God's Christ were cut off. Just as in the old testament the remnant of Jehovah God in the new testament keeps His commandments. The remnant church also has the testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of prophecy (Revelation 19:10). This means that the true remnant church will have a proper understanding of bible prophecy as a whole but especially how prophecy looks forward to and is fulfilled in the Son of God Jesus Christ. Much of today's church lacks in this area. When the remnant church preaches about Jesus they root their testimony of Him in what the prophets said about Him in terms of His identity and what He would fulfill. They stay away from the mystical speculations about Jesus and glean their understanding of Him from the prophets, Himself and the new testament writers. Now we will go to Revelation 13 to see this war play out between Satan and God's commandment keeping church. Revelation 13:1-2 1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. This beast is the 4th beast of the book of Daniel which chronologically follows Grecia. This is the Roman empire. In Revelation 12, the dragon had crowns on its heads as the dragon represented Imperial Rome and Satan. Satan used Imperial Rome to persecute the Christ of God. Here in Revelation 13 the crowns have shifted to the 10 horns showing that the Roman empire was now in it's divided phrase having broken off into 10 kingdoms. The blasphemous name on the heads of the beast show that it is a religious power in opposition to God. Notably on Pope's mitre are titles that belong to our holy Father and the holy Spirit. Also, the triquetra is on the Pope's mitre representing the blasphemous trinity doctrine. This beast is a composite of Babylon, media-persia and Greece. This again shows that this is Rome which chronologically followed those three beasts. The Dragon gave this beast his authority and power. As mentioned above, the Dragon of Revelation 12 represents both Satan and Imperial Rome. Imperial Rome gave the Papacy its seat (throne) and authority. In the 4th century, Constantine had moved his Headquarters and throne from the western empire (Rome) to the eastern empire (Byzantine). In doing this, he left the Papacy in charge in the western end of the empire and left the throne of Rome to him (the Pope). We also see in 534-538 AD, Justinian the Roman emperor put together the "Justinian Code" and hand over authority over all the churches in the empire to the Roman papacy. Of course Satan was the one orchestrating this. Revelation 13:3 "And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast." Many modern Christians think a future political antichrist will be shot in the head and then miraculously come back to life. However, we if we understand that the Roman Papacy actually experienced a deadly head wound then we see that this prophecy has been fulfilled. The Papacy suffered a religious wound during the protestant reformation in the 1500's. This resulted in the Roman Catholic Church losing a significant amount of power of Christendom in the west. Many former Catholics became Protestants or Anabaptists and Catholicism's stranglehold over Europe in spiritual matters ended as they now had to compete for souls with the aforementioned groups. Subsequently the Roman Papacy suffered a civil-political head wound from the French army led by General Berthier in 1798 when the Pope was taken captive and eventually died in captivity. This was a severe blow to the Papacy's civil power. The deadly head wound of the Papacy was to be healed which would result in the whole world wondering after the beast. History shows that for the most part this has already taken place. In 1929, the Vatican was given sovereignty by the Italian government and a newspaper article even headlined deadly wound healed". God used a secular newspaper to show the world that bible prophecy had been fulfilled. Increasingly, throughout the 20th century, the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope have gained increasing influence and power over the nations of the earth. In the 1980's the Pope worked with Ronald Regean to bring down the U.S.S.R. and both were featured on Time Magazine's cover with the headline "Holy Alliance". In 2015 Pope Francis came to the United States on a whirlwind tour where he visited the White house, the site of ground zero (911), the world council on Families in Philadelphia and the United Nations headquarters in New York City. During his visit the Pope spoke at the United Nations on climate change and also had ecumenical worship services with Protestants and Pagan religions in attendance. On the religious side, the 500 year anniversary in 2017 of the Protestant reformation officially ended the protest against the Papal Catholic Church as the Protestants, Evangelicals and Seventh Day Adventists reached out to the Roman Catholic Church in unity through a peace accord. This really was the final nail in the coffin of a long drawn out process of the Protestants and Evangelicals reaching their hands across Rome to reunite with their Catholic mother. Moreso than ever, the world is wondering after the Papal beast as Pope Francis is the most popular Pope outside Catholic circles that the world has ever seen. The Pope was given the royal treatment upon his visit to the U.S. in 2015 and received immense positive publicity. Revelation 13:4 "And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?" Both in the time of Papal rule in the days of the holy Roman empire and in the soon future it was/is futile to make war against the beast . During the days of the holy Roman empire the Papacy had the armies of Europe to enforce his decrees and punish so called "heretics". In the time after the Papacy's deadly wound is healed, the United Nations led by the United States will back the Vatican and punish those seemed heretics by the Pope. Pope Francis has already spoken out against those who take the bible literally who he also calls fundamentalists. The war against fundamentalism has also been taken up by the government of the United States who lists them as possible terrorists. Amazingly many Christians and many denominations are also adamantly against fundamentalism and taking the bible literally. This is because they without controversy speaks against Homosexuality and Lesbian and the murdering sin of abortion. These are America's favorite sins so the cowardly churches of America have bowed down to the world because of their desire to be a friend of the world. These churches are scared to be hated by the world so instead they love what the world loves.
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