The Prophetic Importance of Jesus’ First Advent

Part 2

Tim Moore: Well, Nathan, obviously we want to begin our conversation by reading from another account about Jesus’ birth, and it’s an account that most people would not think of being associated with Christmas, but it is from the revelation that God gave to Jesus Christ to share with His bond servants about what must soon take place. And so following the description of John encountering Jesus on the island of Patmos, being translated in the twinkling of an eye to the Throne Room of God, and even Jesus, the Lamb who was slain, the Lion who was coming, breaking the seals, and pouring out the Seal, and then the Trumpet Judgments, we have this set aside passage about a metaphoric representation of Jesus’ First Advent in Revelation chapter 12. Let’s read that passage and unpack what it has to tell us about Jesus’ birth.

Nathan Jones: Okay, and you’re not kidding, I don’t think I have ever heard Revelation 12 read during a Christmas service.

Tim Moore: And we’re going to today.

Nathan Jones: All right, the great sign of Revelation 12 begins in verse one. “And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and on her head, a crown of 12 stars. And she was with child, and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven, and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and 10 horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she gave birth, he might devour her child. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who’s to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. And her child was caught up to God and to his throne.”

Tim Moore: Well, let’s be very frank, someone reading this text in isolation might be very bewildered. And even as I say that I’m reminded of Daniel Boone, the great explorer of Kentucky, who once confessed, “I have never been lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.” And Nathan, we don’t want to be lost or bewildered, so let’s unpack this passage phrase by phrase, or at least reference by reference. And we begin with this verse one, where it says, “A great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and on her head, a crown of 12 stars.” And that’s not just a symbol that stands in isolation, that actually hearkens back to a prophetic vision that is revealed in the Book of Genesis.

Nathan Jones: Absolutely. You know, the beauty of the Book of Revelation, people say, “Well, it’s too hard to understand.” If the Bible gives a symbol in the Book of Revelation, there’s usually always an interpretation of what it is, or in the Revelation context. But sometimes, you have to go to other parts of the Bible to get it. And for this one, we have to go back all the way to Genesis 37:9-10, where Joseph was having a dream of his parents and brothers bowing down and worshiping him. His father, Jacob, was the sun, his mother, the moon, and his brother, the stars. And so this personified the tribes of Israel or the nation of Israel. So what he saw there with the woman was clearly the nation of Israel.

Tim Moore: Obviously, yes. And so we sometimes speak of a ship having a female gender, if you will. We talk about other vehicles or other entities having male or female personification. Not that we ascribe any kind of real personal attributes to them, but that’s just the way we talk. So in this case, we can think of a nation like America. We love America. We refer to her sometimes in a female gender. In this case, that comes directly from Scripture.

And so the woman with the 12 stars as crowns in her head is none other than Israel. And she is represented wearing glorious apparel, signifying her elevated status in the nations of the world. But most importantly, back to Revelation chapter 12, is she is carrying a child. So even though, again, in Joseph’s vision, she had 12 sons, 12 stars, in this personification in Revelation chapter 12, there is a singular male child that this personified nation is to bring forth and give birth to.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, and so you have to go even back further to Genesis 3:14, where we learned that one of the first prophecies is that a seed would be born of a woman. Now, seed only comes from the man, so how could a seed be born of a woman? Well, a virgin birth is what we’re talking about here. But tied into the context here, this child, this miraculous child born of a virgin, is also born of the nation of Israel.

Tim Moore: It certainly is. And that is a mysterious passage in and of itself, because you’re exactly right, Scripture reveals that the seed, when two people come together, a man and a woman, it is the man who provides the seed, the woman has the egg, and so that is the way that God designed humans to reproduce. As a matter of fact, all creatures who have that form of reproduction have the same kind of coming together.

But in this case, the Lord in chapter three of Genesis reveals that this seed of woman, who would crush the head of the serpent, would be singular in that he would not emerge from the seed of man, and we have to ask why. Why would God say this is not going to be like all the other children born in the Earth? And we know that’s because Adam was culpable. He was the one responsible for the fall of sin. Now, Eve had a part, too. Let’s not let her off the hook completely.

But the stain of sin carries forward from the Father down through all the lineage of mankind except for this one unique child to be born, who would be born of a virgin, not stained by the sin of man, but instead coming only from her singular seed, and we know that in the fullness of time, the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, and the virgin gave birth.

Nathan Jones: Yeah. And it’s very common in the Church Age here to say that the child is the Church. Yet the Church, were we born of a virgin, or do we come from the nation of Israel? You would have to spiritualize that interpretation to come up with that the church is the child. It’s clearly here.

Tim Moore: Or that the church is the mother of the child. Jesus didn’t come from the Church, Jesus created the Church and He raised up the Church, so the child was born of none other than Mary, obviously.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, the Church isn’t found anywhere in the great sign of Revelation 12. But unfortunately, many interpret that to be the Church, when it’s clearly the woman is Israel and the child is Jesus.

Tim Moore: So we obviously point back to the Book of Isaiah when we talk about the virgin who will give birth. It’s in chapter seven, verse 14. “Therefore, the Lord himself will give you,” this is Isaiah talking to the children of Israel, “A sign, behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel.”

Nathan, I don’t even believe that this was fulfilled in its entirety there in the Old Testament day and age. Isaiah is providing a forward-looking sign where Israel would have a child with a virgin who had never been together with a man, and that His name would be called Immanuel, which simply means, “God with us.”

This was a great sign of encouragement even as judgments and the Lord’s wrath is about to be poured out in a small measure on Israel, that eventually there would be great promise of this child who would come.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, the prophecy that Isaiah’s wife didn’t have children, that she was a virgin, doesn’t make sense, because Isaiah did have children, so she wasn’t a virgin.

Tim Moore: Right.

Nathan Jones: And the idea that it was fulfilled in Isaiah wouldn’t make any sense then. It had to be someone who–where the sin nature skipped over because man wasn’t involved, and that’s like you said, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, and that’s why Jesus does not have the sin nature that the rest of us have.

Tim Moore: And one other completing of the circle about Israel being the bearer of this child, you can go all the way back to Genesis chapter 22, and when the Lord said in verse 18 to Abraham, “In your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice.”
So, Abraham’s seed we understand to be the chosen people of Israel, his genetic descendants, that was men and women, but as a nation, that nation’s greatest offering of blessing to the world, yes, includes the Bible, includes the revelation of God as the one true and living God, it includes so many things, to this very day, but the greatest blessing is none other than Jesus Christ, who came from that virgin, untainted by the seed of man.

Nathan Jones: Absolutely. Well, then there’s the trouble. This is the conflict. All of a sudden, a red dragon appears. Now, it’s interesting. It’s a dragon. It’s red. It has seven heads and 10 horns, and its heads have seven diadems. Now, we see that imagery earlier in the Old Testament, correct?

Tim Moore: We certainly do. We’ve got to go back again to Genesis chapter three, where we see that the devil, Satan, comes to deceive the world. Obviously, in the Book of Genesis chapter three, he appears as a serpent, and he leads astray mankind. He deceives; he sows rebellion against the Lord God. He convinces both Eve and then Adam to sin by violating the one rule that the Lord had laid down.

And so how did he do that? What was his modus operandi, as we’ve talked before? He first cast doubt on God’s Word, asking, “Did God really say?” And then he denied the truthfulness of God’s Word, “You will not die,” and then he planted a seed of pride, if you will, saying, “You can be like God.”

And Nathan, throughout the age of humanity, people have been trying to be like God, create a tower to raise up to Heaven, ascend to the Almighty’s level of Godlikeness, and even today, we have people who reject God, want to be their own God, and say, “I will choose what’s right and best for me,” and that is in violation of God’s Word.

Nathan Jones: Another place where we can find the same reference is Daniel chapter seven, where he has his prophecy about various beasts. And he prophesies this terrible and dreadful fourth beast, which we know is a prophecy of this little horn, where Antichrist will rise up. But this monster, this dragon, is a symbol of the world, final world system under the Antichrist, who’s possessed by Satan, or in other words, it’s Satan.

Now, when it comes to angels, we all kind of picture them as blonde, curly haired guys with wings and feathers and white togas and all, but the Bible describes angels in all sorts of varieties, especially part human and part animal. And so it’s very much believed that Satan, as the greatest of all creation, looked actually like a great dragon. And all of human history has mythoses about dragons.

Tim Moore: Yes, they do.

Nathan Jones: Of their beauty and grandeur, but also their deceptiveness and their ability to lie. And that comes from the belief that Satan in his true form looks like a dragon.

Tim Moore: You think almost of “Lord of the Rings” and some of those movies where you have…

Nathan Jones: Smaug, right?

Tim Moore: Smaug. And he is crafty and cunning, and he’s very intelligent. And yet he uses that to deceive and to lead astray. He loves riddles, as we’ve learned.

Nathan Jones: That’s true.

Tim Moore: But he obviously is bent toward evil and the destruction of mankind. In Revelation, as you mentioned earlier, we don’t have to wonder about the identity of this particular dragon, because we’re told straight out that it is the great dragon of old. In verse nine of chapter 12 in Revelation, “And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old, who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world, and he was thrown down to the earth his angels were thrown down with him.”

So, we’re not going to get into all that description of what is to follow, but we know that this dragon, described as seeking to devour this child, is none other than Satan.

Nathan Jones: And that’s why the two great passages that explain Satan, Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, describe, like you said, Satan’s modus operandi, why he does what he does. He couldn’t overthrow God, so he wants God’s children to worship him. Everything that Satan does here on this Earth is the purpose to worship him. So, he can’t have competition.

So when Israel gives birth to the Messiah, what’s the first thing he wants to do? He wants to destroy that child when it’s born, and we know in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, Satan got into Herod’s mind and sent Herod in to try to kill all the boys in Bethlehem, which is a fulfillment of yet another prophecy, the weeping of Rachel. But so that was the attempted destruction of the Messiah.

Tim Moore: You think of Herod being almost a representation of Satan on this Earth. Herod was possessed of great intellect. He was a great architect. He was a great builder. When we think of Herod the Great, that’s actually a recognition of his ability to build. He had great cities, great fortifications. You think of Masada, Caesarea Maritime, even the Temple that he beautified and enlarged, and the Temple Mount. Herod had great skills.

But Herod also was completely paranoid, and he was possessed, if you will, by this desire that no one would threaten his power and his authority. So, as Satan needled him to be angry that this supposed new King of the Jews would be born in Bethlehem, he was inspired to seek to murder the newborn king.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, anyone who studied the Bible would know where the Messiah was coming from. So even though Herod was surprised when the Magi told him where Jesus was born, he could have called his scribes together and said, “Look at the prophecy in Micah,” and know that’s where it was.

And it’s interesting that he believed that he had the power and ability to kill the divine Son of God. And we saw that again in Jesus’ crucifixion, where the Sadducees and Pharisees and all believed they could kill the Son of God.

Tim Moore: Well, let’s extrapolate that one further. It wasn’t just Herod who had the audacity to think he could kill the divine one of God, it was Satan who thought he could actually kill, in the manger, in the crib, so to speak, the baby born to save the world. And so I believe absolutely that Satan knows Bible prophecy. He probably knows it as well as any of us do, because he knows Scripture inside and out. So he would’ve known that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

But what Satan did not know was the timing of the Messiah’s arrival. He did not know who exactly the Messiah would be. In other words, which family or which mother would produce this child. Otherwise, sort of like the Terminator, he might have tried to kill the mother so that she couldn’t have a son. He did know, again, that Jesus the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, and so as soon as Jesus was born, he began to manipulate and motivate Herod and others to want to kill Him.

Nathan Jones: One of the things that protected Jesus was the fact that everyone else was expecting the Messiah to come in all the grandeur and riches.

Tim Moore: Of course.

Nathan Jones: You know, to be a king. And He will when He returns. But the Lord kind of hid Him by giving Him to a poor teenage mother and father, a young carpenter, to go into it. Bethlehem wasn’t any major town. It was the outskirt sticks of Jerusalem at the time period. And so the Lord was able to protect Him. And then again in Egypt for a time, and then up in Nazareth. Nobody went to Nazareth.

Tim Moore: Yeah, what good thing comes out of Nazareth?

Nathan Jones: Yeah, that comes out of Nazareth. So, the Lord protected Him by keeping Him, you know, basically in obscurity, until His ministry. Now, once He’s out in His ministry, He’s up in front of everybody. But it’s interesting, the passage says that the Messiah, or the child, was taken up to Heaven.

Tim Moore: Right.

Nathan Jones: So we know that after Jesus resurrected from the dead, what did He do? He left us with the Great Commission and then He ascended to Heaven.

Tim Moore: Ascended to Heaven. You know, even as we talk about Bethlehem, one of the important points we have to make is there are Jews who still believe the Messiah is yet coming. In other words, He hasn’t arrived. But they dismiss the prophecies pointing to Bethlehem.

And I will make it very clear, there is no way a baby, a Jewish baby, will be born in Bethlehem today, because for the last number of years, Bethlehem has become a closed city. It’s currently under the authority of the Palestinian authority. It’s walled off, and Jews are verboten. They’re not allowed to go.

You know, all this clamoring in the Western media about apartheid in Israel, the only place there’s apartheid is in the Palestinian areas. Because Jews are not safe to go there. They’re not welcome there. As a matter of fact, my own guide will not enter Bethlehem, because he said, “I’ll be torn limb from limb if I dare to set foot in Bethlehem.” How could a Messiah come from Bethlehem today? Impossible.

And yet the Lord orchestrated that Jesus was born even through the unlikely circumstance of a tax census. So we know that Joseph brought Mary, his betrothed, down to register for the census, because the Caesar wanted to have a new tax, and so even that, shall we say, bad reason, was motive enough to get Joseph to come down, because Jesus was going to be born in Bethlehem.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, the only problem when you go to Bethlehem is being assailed by their very pushy salesmen up and down the streets.

Tim Moore: Yes, they are.

Nathan Jones: Hamas doesn’t want to kill you because they want to sell something to you. Well, you know what’s amazing is you get to chapter 12 verse five, you know, we got the gave birth to the male child, and this is where the prophecy of Christmas. Folks, you’re wondering, why in the world are we talking about the great sign of revelation?

Well, here it is right here in verse five. “This child will rule all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child then was caught up to God and to his throne.” And that, we get into verse six, where the woman flees into the wilderness. So, we’re actually spanning more than just Christ’s First Coming, we’re also tying it into a time period called the Great Tribulation, where Jesus will return again at His Second Coming.

Tim Moore: You know, I’m just amazed at the sweep, and really, of the scope of these five verses, because we get a perspective, a heavenly perspective, on all the things that transpired to orchestrate Jesus’ first advent there in Bethlehem. We see that Satan was awaiting this miraculous event, but not to celebrate, as the angels did, as the Wise Men did, obviously as the shepherds did, but so he could seize that child so he could devour or kill Him, again, right in the crib.

And yet all of this sweep points to the firstborn Son of Israel who was the glory of the people of Israel. You go back to Luke chapter two, and the Lord is revealing, through even the man Simeon that, “a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people, Israel,” has been born. Simeon rejoiced that he was able to see with his own eyes the Messiah who had been promised.

We know from Isaiah chapter nine, just as is stated here in Revelation, that Jesus will rule the nations with a rod of iron. And that doesn’t point to His first advent, Nathan, that points to His Second Coming, and a period of time that you’ve written about, referring to the Millennium.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, this is a prophecy that points not only to the First Coming, not only to the Second Coming, just as you said, but it points to a time where Jesus does rule with that rod of iron. A lot of terrible things have to happen first. We have a seven year Tribulation. Half of it, the second half, is the Great Tribulation, where Satan–and this is where we see Satan is kicked out of Heaven, right? When he tried to overthrow God.

But there is a second fulfillment of that in the middle of the Tribulation, where Satan last time, one more time, goes to the Throne of God, tries one more time to overthrow God, gets kicked out, gets sent to Earth, and Revelation says that he’s very wrathful, he’s roaming like a lion, because he knows his time is short. So, we’ve got very interesting here. God, who sees all time, isn’t giving us a chronological detail, He’s giving us across multiple events.

So, once the Lord returns and defeats Satan, the Antichrist, and the false prophet, yeah, the fulfillment, that fulfillment of that Christmas prophecy is that Jesus will rule and reign on this Earth with a rod of iron, means that in justice and in righteousness. No waiting two years for appeals. The Lord looks in the heart, He knows the heart of the people of the Millennial Kingdom, and He will judge wisely.

Tim Moore: So we can almost say that even this passage touches on some of the high points. And we could dare say we’re living through one of those periods that’s not described specifically in this prophecy, but we are looking forward to Jesus coming again so that He will rule with a rod of iron, and we know that there is a long intervening period of years. It’s been almost 2,000 years right now since Jesus ascended into Heaven to be at the right hand of God the Father. But this verse that we read on promises that He is coming again, and sure enough, He will reign on the Earth.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, it’s amazing, too, that the Lord is also providing for the Jewish people, because if Satan was allowed to run amok without any kind of protection of the Jewish people, he would kill them all before Jesus returns. The Lord promised that He would not return until the Jewish people cried out, “Blessed as He who comes in the name of the Lord.” So Satan’s strategy, kill all the Jews, we don’t have to worry then about the Lord returning, so he protects those…

Tim Moore: Amen.

Nathan Jones: It talks about the dragon goes after the woman and her child. There might be a reference to the Church there, the Christians, the Tribulation Saints during that time. But a remnant of the Jewish people is protected. It’s believed Petra.

Tim Moore: Possibly.

Nathan Jones: Possibly, in Jordan. If you’ve seen that third Indiana Jones movie, that’s where that is. And the Lord protects them supernaturally for the remainder of the Tribulation so that you have people that’ll go into the Millennial Kingdom.

Tim Moore: Amen. And we’re not authoritative about declaring that it will be Petra. That is speculative. But we just know the promise of God in verse six, that He will protect this woman, again, figuratively, Israel, during the time that Satan, the great dragon, tries to devour her.

And so down to this day, we saw that he had motivated Herod. He’s been motivating Hitlers and Hamas and the Houthis and Hezbollah, a lot of H’s, Haman in the Old Testament. And so Satan is always motivating someone to try to destroy the Jews because he hates them. Why? Because the Jews brought forth this great blessing to all the nations of the world, Jesus Christ.

And in the End Times, he will try one last time to destroy the Jews, just as you said, so that Jesus can’t come again. Well, that won’t work out. The Antichrist will be thwarted, even though he will kill a great number, because Scripture reveals, a remnant of the Jews will be protected in this place, Petra or otherwise, so that they can come to the end of themselves, look upon Him whom they have pierced, and weep and then cry out, “Baruch haba b’shem Adonai–Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

What a great affirmation to all of us that Christmas didn’t just happen in the past, it is still ongoing, this great promise of Immanuel, God with us. Nathan, we don’t just look to the past or the future, we can have God with us right now.

Nathan Jones: Yes, if we have asked Jesus Christ to be our Savior, to approach Him in repentance and ask for His forgiveness, to acknowledge that He’s the Son of God, that He promises that He will dwell in us, He will be our Savior, He will be our Lord, and promises us that we will rule and reign with Him in that Millennial Kingdom, and then on into eternity.

Tim Moore: Amen. So within the flow of Revelation, John has given a clear overview of the miracle of Christmas, along with the sweep of history prior to and following that glorious event. And so for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, the Word of God in Revelation affirms the prophetic truth that Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One of Israel. He has come, and He is coming again. And on that note, we have a tremendous resource we’d like to share with you that you can then share with others who you hope will come to know the Anointed One of Israel.

Resource

[Narrator] Are you ready for what’s coming? The Bible tells us the Rapture could happen at any moment, and time is running out to share the truth. That’s why Lamb & Lion Ministries is offering a powerful new evangelistic tool, the tri-fold tract, Read This Before It’s Too Late. It’s bold, it’s clear, and it could change someone’s eternity. Right now, you can get 10 tracts for just $10. Hand them out at church, share them with family and friends, even leave one where someone in need might find it. This simple message could open hearts, spark faith, and point people to Jesus before it’s too late. Don’t wait, call us now at the number on your screen or visit us at lamblionresources.com to order your bundle. You’ll be glad you did!

Closing

Tim Moore: A blessed one of Israel came during a time of great darkness in the land of Israel. Hopes were misplaced and fears were multiplied under the oppression of Rome. But in the dark streets of Bethlehem, the everlasting Light shone bright.

Nathan Jones: 2,000 years later, many people clamor for Heaven on Earth, but reject the One who already came as Immanuel, God with us. Others hope for a savior to fix the world’s wrongs, but deny their own sin and refuse to be subject to the Lord God.

Tim Moore: If this episode has touched a nerve in your heart, call the number on the screen and ask for a copy of our November/December Lamplighter magazine. It focuses on the hopes and fears that were met in the Holy One of Israel.

We pray that you and your family enjoy a very blessed Christmas full of warmth and love. But more important than that, we pray that you know the Prince of Peace who was born in a humble stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. You can receive Him right now. Just pray, Lord God, I am a sinner. I do not deserve your favor, but I put all my trust in Jesus Christ and believe that You will welcome me with loving arms to Your family, giving me the assurance of eternal life with You.

If you do that, the Holy Child of Bethlehem will descend to you, cast out your sin, and enter in. He will be born in you today. If you have come to know Jesus as your Blessed Hope, He will drive out all your fears, and He will prepare a place for you in His Father’s house so that He, the Lord Immanuel, God with us, can abide with you forever.

From all of us here at Lamb & Lion Ministries… Merry Christmas, and Godspeed!

Prophecy Partners

Narrator: Christ in Prophecy is made possible through the faithful and generous support of viewers like you. Please consider making a donation to Lamb & Lion Ministries so that we can continue broadcasting the message of Jesus’s soon return. Thank you, and God bless you.

End of Program