Join us as we unravel the future tribulations of Israel and the protective care promised by God. With deep biblical insights, discover what the Scriptures reveal about the woman clothed with the sun and the profound significance of her connection to the nation of Israel. We explore the historical and prophetic tribulation moments, analyzing how these events pave the way for the Messiah’s second coming.
The last half of the tribulation is called the time of Jacob’s trouble. Every Hebrew prophet spoke about it as a day of terrible judgment and pain and torture and persecution and gloom and darkness and the worst period of time in the history of Israel. Jesus said in Matthew 24, then will be great tribulation such as has never been in the history of the world. Never.
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Never.
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War erupts in heaven. Michael and his angels take the field. The dragon strikes back, fierce, violent, relentless. The sound of battle echoes through the heavens. And then a decree. The accuser is cast down. No more access. No more place. Satan is thrown to the earth in rage. And a cry of victory rises. They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. This is the clash of the ages. The forces of heaven against the powers of hell. You’re in touch with Hope for Today, the Bible teaching ministry of David Hawking. And on today’s program, David is returning to Revelation chapter 12 for day two of a lesson that reveals the battle behind every battle and the victory that belongs to God. First, here’s David with a special word.
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We sure appreciate all you folks who listen to our radio broadcasts. And we have told you before, we don’t have a church or a gigantic organization behind us. We depend on the listeners in every broadcast area. So many difficulties in seeing those funds raised that will pay for the broadcast. We need your help. Would you please, even though you’ve been giving regularly, would you give a special gift right now and let us know that you’re out there, that you appreciate our studies right now in the book of Revelation, and tell us that you’re praying for us as well, how we need that prayer.
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Well, thank you, David. And to partner with us in this ministry, call 800-75-BIBLE. That’s in the U.S. 800-75-242-53. In Canada, call 888-75-BIBLE, 888-75-242-53. And to give securely online, go to davidhawking.org, davidhawking.org. And we’ll give you our mailing address after today’s lesson. All right, turn to Revelation chapter 12 now for day two of Great Signs in Heaven.
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We read in verse 1 and 2 and verse 5 and 6, some six things about the sign of the woman. It’s called a great wonder or a great sign. This woman is Israel. We see the connection with religion. She’s a woman. That’s a common illustration. Her clothing connects us with Genesis 37. Her crown of 12 stars reminds us it’s either the 12 tribes or the 12 apostles. Revelation, the cries of labor pain. These are quotations from the prophet Isaiah that deal with the nation of Israel. Now the fifth thing I’d mention is her child. Verse 5, 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. I mentioned two things here about her child. One, look at the authority which this child will possess. This is certainly an unusual child. It says she brought forth a man-child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. The authority of this child is incredible, and it cannot be anyone except the Messiah. Turn to Psalm chapter 2, what we call a Messianic Psalm. This unusual woman, clothed with the sun, moon under her feet, 12 stars, crowns, going through labor pain, bringing forth a man-child, brings forth a very unusual child with great authority to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And in Psalm chapter 2, this Messianic Psalm, I believe we have the exact quotation that we are looking at in Revelation chapter 12. Let’s pick it up, Psalm 2 verse 7. I will declare the decree… The Lord has said unto me, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Now, about whom was that said? About Jesus. The voice at his baptism from heaven came and said, This is my beloved son. Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Now he’s not talking about him being born that day. He’s talking about being chosen for a special role in ministry as Messiah. Now the father therefore is saying to the son in verse 8, ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen or the nations for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Remember in chapter 11, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. Now verse 9, thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Where do we get the imagery of the rod of iron? Revelation 12 says the man child who comes forth will rule the nations with a rod of iron. Here it is. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Now the instruction here, verse 11, serve the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling, and kiss the what? Son, S-O-N. Here is a clear reference in the Bible that we are to put our trust in the Son as well as in the Father, the Son of God. What a wonderful gospel message right there. A terrific application. According to the Bible, you must trust the Son. You must kiss the Son, recognizing His authority. The Bible says every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He’s Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now, this rod is of some interest. He will rule the nations with a rod of iron. Even in Psalm 23, it says, Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Now the staff is that shepherd’s staff that you all can picture in your minds now that has that little hook at the end. You say, what’s that for? Well, when a little lamb is caught in a thicket or over the side of one of the crevices of those mountains, the shepherd just uses that hook. It goes right underneath the neck of the little lamb and pulls him right up. That’s how they do that. Well, what’s the rod for? The rod could even be a long stick that he has carved himself. What is that for? Well, to be blunt, it’s for spanking. Now, you can see this along the road when you watch a little, it could be just a little shepherd boy with his flock. And if one of the sheep wanders away, he just gives him a little tap on the behind. And I like to think sometimes that all we, like sheep, wandering away, going his own way, that every now and then God comes along with his rod and just kind of gives you a little tap. Amen? Amen. And it’s all kinds of stuff that he uses. The Lord loves whom he chases. And he uses a rod of correction, which is mentioned in the book of Proverbs, for parents to use with children who they are disciplining. Now, where should the rod be applied? The Bible says that the rod is for the back. Now, technically in Hebrew, that’s the middle of the back. So if parents, you have any problem about where to spank a child, just get out a tape measure and measure your little child. And approximately, I think you’re going to find that the middle of that little tape measure is this little fleshly protrusion in the backside. We call it the bottom, right? And that’s where you’re going to spank the child. You are not going to hit the child anywhere else. That’s abuse. But God prepared a divinely ordained spot. Okay? Everybody got that right? Impossible to hurt the child, but just don’t miss. Okay. Now God, you know, in the shepherd’s psalm, Psalm 23, he says, thy rod and thy staff, they what? Comfort me. You see, the psalmist wrote in Psalm 119 that in my affliction, you comfort me. God literally brings chastening to your life out of his love. And behind that is God’s wonderful comfort. But the rod is also used as a weapon. And when we say it’s a rod in the hand of the Messiah, notice the ingredient is not a stick made out of wood. It is a rod of iron. And what the Bible is picturing here is judgment. Somebody unleashing tremendous devastation. and this Messiah is going to rule with a rod of iron. In Ezekiel 20, at the end of the tribulation, God is going to have Israel pass under his rod, and he’s going to purge out the rebels in Israel. Zechariah 13, 8 and 9 tells us that two-thirds of the nation of Israel living at the time of the end of the tribulation are not going to believe in the Messiah and will be purged out as rebels. one-third of the nation will turn to the Lord at the end of the tribulation period. Right now there’s about 17, 18 million Jews in the world, so you’ve got about 6 million of them turning to the Lord at the end of the tribulation if things stay as they are now. Turn to Revelation chapter 19. This is not the only passage, chapter 12, that deals with the man-child with a rod of iron. We have very clear direction in Revelation as to who we’re talking about in Revelation 12. In Revelation chapter 19 and verse 15, we see the Son of Man, our Lord Jesus Christ, coming out of heaven on a white horse. He who is called the Word of God, verse 13. And verse 15 says, Out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations, and he shall rule them with what? a rod of iron. He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God, and he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So really there’s no way to escape the overwhelming points here from Revelation 12. We’re talking about Israel is the woman and the man-child is the Messiah. Now let’s come back to Revelation 12. Not only is the authority of this child presented here, but also the ascension of the child. Talk about an unusual illustration. Look at verse 5. Her child was caught up unto God and to his throne. Caught up, Greek, harpazo, means to seize or rescue from danger. 1 Thessalonians 4.17 says… that when the Lord himself descends from heaven with a shout and the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the dead in Christ who rise first. We’ll be caught up to meet them in the air, the clouds of the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Interesting that the same language here, the child was caught up ascended to the Father, caught up to God and to His throne. By the way, it’s also used to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12. He speaks about an incident that happened in his life when he was stoned and left for dead at Lystra. And he said he was caught up. into the third heaven, caught up in the paradise where he received an abundance of revelations that we now have recorded in the New Testament. And so that he wouldn’t become proud, God sent a thorn in the flesh to humble him. And he learned that God’s grace was sufficient and his strength made perfect in weakness. But the same words, he was caught up into the third heaven. And here the child is caught up to God and to his throne. We have the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ clearly indicated there. and also perhaps a connection also with his people being caught up. Now, putting this all together, what we have is a woman who’s going through a lot of pain and agony and then brings a child. Israel was in pain and agony as a nation when the Messiah came. Did the Messiah come out of the loins of a woman of Israel? Absolutely. Mary was in the line of Nathan through Solomon. And the prophecy of Psalm 132 is that out of her loins is going to come the Messiah. And I find this a very interesting point that Israel was travailing and in pain. I think we sometimes forget that Israel, the northern tribes, went into captivity at 722 B.C. to Assyria and then lost their national identity by being amalgamated. The Assyrians did this under Ashurbanipal, amalgamated the Assyrians with the Jews, and as a result we have the Samaritans, and the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. The very word Jew is really off of the tribe of Judah. Before they were called the children of Israel. But then when the kingdom was divided after the united kingdom of Saul, David, and Solomon, then it split between Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, and Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel a sin, and set up the two golden calves. So the ten northern tribes of the divided kingdom were called Israel then, and the two southern ones, Benjamin and Judah, were both described as being Judah. Now, in 722 B.C., Israel goes into captivity and soon loses their total national identity as they’re amalgamated back into the land later as intermarriage with the Assyrians took place and they become the Samaritans. Now, also Judah. Talk about travailing in pain. In 586 B.C., Jerusalem is burned to the ground, destroyed by Babylon. Judah goes into captivity. They’re there for 70 years. Then under Cyrus the Persian, they come back to the land under the leadership of men like Ezra and Nehemiah. And we learned also about Joshua the high priest and Zerubbabel, the civic political leader who brought the people back and tried to rebuild the temple. Well, they never really made it into much. And the old men who were young men at the time of the Babylonian destruction, they remembered the beauty of Solomon’s temple. And they said, this is nothing to be compared with it. And they also received a message from the prophets that, well, neither one will be worth comparing with the temple that’s going to come, that the Messiah is going to build. But so they didn’t do much with it. It kind of fell into repairs. And really we have what’s called the 400 silent years. There was no voice from God. The priests who went in the temple, hey, the glory of God had departed. There was no Shekinah presence coming down like they used to have, the cloud and the smoke filling the temple. And the priests, 24 courses of them, kept their regular duties and would go into the altar of incense and wait every day to hear the voice of God. There was none. The first time God speaks, he speaks to a priest in the 24 courses named Zacharias, whose wife’s name was Elizabeth, and says, you’re going to have a son who will be he whom the Bible predicted would prepare the way of the Lord. And that’s the story of John the Baptist. That was the first time God had spoken in over 400 years. And you can imagine what excitement came to the nation of Israel. They were in pain. They are now under the heel of Rome and conquered Rome’s everywhere in the land. And they are suffering terribly. They are travailing in pain. In addition to that, we have the story of the birth of Jesus Christ, you’ll remember, and the fact that all the baby boys under two years old were killed, and it fulfilled a prophecy that in Ramah there would be mourning and lamentation and wailing and a woman travailing in pain. The whole point of it is, is God showing the agony of Israel, and out of that comes the man-child. Out of that horrible slaughter of Herod the Great, of those babies in Bethlehem, we have coming out of that the birth of the man-child, the he who would rule all nations with a rod of iron. Now he’s not done what Revelation says he will do yet, but you can see how this whole thing is being set up. The woman has travailed in pain. The interesting thing is that her travailing in pain to produce the Messiah will be nothing compared to her travailing in pain before the Messiah comes back and delivers her. She delivers the Messiah out of pain, and the Messiah will deliver her out of the pain that she will experience in the tribulation period. Very fascinating study, to say the least. Which brings me to the sixth point about the woman. We’ve talked about her connection with religion, her clothing, her crown, her cries of labor pain, her child. But look at her care by God during the tribulation. Verse 6, “…the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.” or three and a half years, or 42 months. The last half of the tribulation is called the time of Jacob’s trouble. Every Hebrew prophet spoke about it as a day of terrible judgment and pain and torture and persecution and gloom and darkness and the worst period of time in the history of Israel. Jesus said in Matthew 24, then will be great tribulation such as has never been in the history of the world. And he said, when you see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, this one who is the Antichrist is called the abomination, the one who makes desolate the sacred place of the temple. He will go into a rebuilt temple, which the Jews will put up, and he’ll desecrate the place that has to be worshipped. He’ll do it exactly like it happened years ago under a man named Antiochus Epiphanes mentioned in the book of Daniel. He’s going to do the same thing. He’s going to desecrate it and ask all of Israel to worship him. And then he unleashes a persecution of Israel such as the world has never seen. Jesus said, when that happens, you flee to the wilderness. And this is exactly what this prophecy is about. You know, I cannot help but think when I read, he’s prepared a place. of John 14. Jesus said, Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a what? A place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. The Messiah is going to protect his people. He’s going to feed her 1260 days. And Psalm 23, when it says, I’ll walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet it says, thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Isn’t that beautiful? God has promised his people that he’s going to take care of them, and he’s going to take care of you too. He’s prepared a place where he’s going to nurture them and feed them and protect them during this terrible period of time, three and a half years, the last half of the tribulation. Amazing.
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That’s David Hawking, and this is Hope for Today. David will be back in a moment or so to close out our time in the Word today, so do stay right there. First, Matt’s here, and together we’re going to tell you about this month’s featured Bible study resource.
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Matt? Visions of the Future. It’s a dynamic study of Zechariah chapters 1 through 14. Jim, part one is titled The Eight Night Visions and reveals marvelous prophecies showing the role and ministry of the Messiah in his first coming and the future second advent that will mark the beginning of the messianic age and millennial reign of Christ. Part two, covering Zechariah 7 and 8, has four essential messages to God’s people on rebuke, repentance, restoration, and rejoicing.
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And then in part three, your dad investigates the prophecies given to Zechariah, revealing… Two Burdens for the Future, The Rejection of the Anointed King, and The Return and Reign of the King.
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And also in this section, we see teaching on the appearance of our Lord, judgment of Israel’s enemies, mourning for the one they pierced, cleansing from sin, the second coming, and more.
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Well, discover some outstanding treasures in Zechariah with David’s book, Visions of the Future. And Matt, how much is it? Just $15. You can purchase it at DavidHawking.org or when you call. And consider adding a donation to your order to help us continue this ministry or become a regular monthly supporter. And join with us in ministry.
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And please faithfully pray for hope for today.
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Here’s those numbers. In the U.S., call 875-BIBLE. In Canada, call 888-75-BIBLE. Reach out and we’ll get your copy of Visions of the Future in the mail as soon as possible. And like Matt said, you can also click on davidhawking.org and get your copy there. Oh, and don’t forget that the Revelation series sermon notes are just $10. We also have a full audio set on MP3 of the series, all 48 messages in a pack on MP3. That’s just $30. And if you’d like to watch the Revelation series, you can get it on DVD, just $50. And you can order these resources as well when you reach out. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. You can give securely online at davidhawking.org or call us at 800-75-BIBLE. Again, that’s in the U.S. or 888-75-BIBLE in Canada. You can also write to us at Hope for Today, Box 3927, Tustin, California, 92781. Or in Canada, Hope for Today, Box 15011, RPO, Seven Oaks, Eppesford, B.C., V2S, 8P1. And let’s get back to David.
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Thanks, friends, for listening to Hope for Today. And we are in Revelation 12, and we’re talking about the great signs that are seen in heaven, the first of which was a woman clothed with the sun. No, this is not the Virgin Mary. This is referring to Israel. She is a woman who will bring forth the man-child, the Messiah, who will rule all nations with a rod of iron. Wow. And her child will be caught up unto God on His throne. And it goes on to discuss Israel in the time of tribulation, which we will look at in a future broadcast. But I appreciate so much the many letters that we receive as you are expressing how much you enjoy our study of Revelation. We believe in teaching the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. And in Revelation, we don’t skip over any verses. We look at them all and try to bring understanding to God’s people and to bring a challenge to those who are not sure of their relationship to our blessed Lord. Listen, when Jesus died, on that cross in Jerusalem. The Bible teaches that we were redeemed with the precious blood of Messiah as of a lamb without blemish or without spot. If we confess our sin, He’s faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Oh, it’s our deepest prayer that all of you may come to know the Lord. God bless.
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Thank you, David. And friend, if you’d like to know more about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we’d like to send you a free booklet called What Is Christianity? Along with a free Bible study by mail. Now, these are free if you don’t yet know Jesus. You’re not yet a Christian, but you want to know more. Or if you’re new to the Christian faith, call 800-75-BIBLE. That’s in the U.S. Or 888-75-BIBLE in Canada. And you can also request your copy online at DavidHawking.org. Well, next time, day three of our Revelation 12 study, the dragon falls, the earth shakes, and God’s people overcome by the blood of the Lamb. Wow. Don’t miss it next time on Hope for Today.
