JD: We need to take a few moments to actually look at Revelation chapter 12. Who is the woman, who is the child, and who or what is the dragon and how do we determine this from the Biblical text?
DJ: One of the things we need to understand is that the book of Revelation although it’s largely chronological it’s not completely chronological. When I’m teaching about the book of Revelation I explain it as something like a movie as John is seeing these visions. And what happens in a movie many times as you’re going along you get to a point in the story you have a need for some background information so there will be a flash back.
Looking into the past from John’s prospective that Jesus
Christ was born of a virgin. The woman would be the nation of Israel and we
know this is the nation of Israel from a couple of different perspectives. One
there are 12 stars upon her head one for each of the 12 tribes of the nation of
Israel. This woman is the nation of Israel because later in the
passage it talks about in verse 6 that she flees into the wilderness where she
has a place prepared by God and this is after the child is called up to heaven.
We understand from the Biblical text that the red dragon is
Satan; we understand that very clearly. If we jump ahead to Revelation chapter
20 where the dragon of old is specifically and explicitly identified as Satan.
So, as we always say you have to have a proper hermeneutic to interpret scripture
and it’s really not that difficult.
JD: David lets take a moment and turn our attention to the
zodiac. The teachers who believe John’s vision will be fulfilled on September
23rd and they’re not guilty of astrology; the two very much
different. One astrology an abomination unto the Lord and of course astronomy a
science of the heavens.
DJ: Well the zodiac actually comes from a Greek term, which
actually means circle of animals. People are familiar with the zodiac signs
understand that some of them are animals and then of course you have the woman
the virgin but most of them are animals. It traces back through the Greeks
through the Babylonians to the ancient Samarians. And if you remember Biblical
geography the nearer east where the tower of Babel was where Nimrod that mighty
hunter established a one-world government and a one-world religion and oversaw
the building of the tower, which was a part of that religious system who’s top
would reach the heaven. So, this goes back all the way to the first religion.
And they say from the earliest time the zodiac has been universally used to
predict or reflect characteristics of personality and that today we call
astrology.
Furthermore, they use the movements of the stars to predict
and Satan I would say is mimicking what God does in prophecy and directing
people away from the Revelation of God to the creation itself. That leads to
looking at the stars to try to predict future events and that is what these
guys are directly into.
JD: David James with the Biblical explanation of the so-called
prophetic phenomenon.
Bible prophecy is absolute if you use the Bible not the
zodiac.
