The Jewish Final Solution to the World's Problem - Revelation - The Ultimate Mother

[0:00] A couple of comments before we turn to Revelation chapter 12, which you may begin finding now. It's one of those books really easy to find.

[0:10] It's the last one in the Bible. And while you are turning to it, let me reiterate something that is in the bulletin. You do realize that there is an ultimate mother, do you not?

[0:25] She is found in Revelation chapter 12. And just happens to coincide with today being Mother's Day. This is number 26 in our ongoing exposition of the book of the Revelation.

[0:43] And it is because of this particular mother that we all have reason to rejoice. So, if you would please turn to Revelation chapter 12.

[0:55] And we will simply read verses that are there, which reinforce the concept of a cosmic conflict that has been taking place from ages past and will not culminate until the book of the Revelation closes.

[1:12] We are now in the midst of this time. There is a great war taking place that is referred to as the angelic conflict. But it is not the kind of war that is obvious to us because angels are spirit beings.

[1:27] And they have their own combative efforts that are very difficult for us to identify. But nonetheless, they are taking place. And if you will turn to Revelation 11, if you haven't already, I mean, sorry, Revelation 12, we will read what appears on the surface to be an extremely mysterious passage.

[1:46] But I assure you, it isn't mysterious at all. In fact, it becomes quite simple when you allow the rest of the Bible to interpret it, which is what we plan to do.

[1:58] Revelation 12, beginning with verse 1. And another sign appeared in heaven.

[2:30] And the dragon, having seven heads and ten 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.

[2:46] 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 is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

[3:03] And her child was caught up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she might be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

[3:21] And there was war in heaven. And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. And the dragon and his angels waged war.

[3:32] And they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old, who is called the devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world.

[3:47] He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come.

[4:02] For the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them before God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony.

[4:16] And they did not love their life even to death. For this reason, rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea!

[4:29] Because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time. And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.

[4:44] And the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman in order that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time from the presence of the serpent.

[5:00] And the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood.

[5:14] And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

[5:39] This is not only prophecy. It is history. And it is as absolutely, positively Jewish as it can be.

[5:53] This has nothing to do with Gentiles. This is exclusively Jewish. And it is through the Jewish people that God intends to resolve this thing called the angelic conflict.

[6:06] This is a war that broke out in heaven between God and his creation. And the creation had to do with the angelic sphere.

[6:17] And we will see, as the text indicates, that the first and foremost of all of the beings that God created is described as Lucifer.

[6:28] And Lucifer became overly impressed with his own importance and his own beauty and so on. And he actually rebelled against the maker. And he succeeded in recruiting one-third of the angels God had created to follow him.

[6:45] And so far as we can determine, those fallen angels are present-day demonic beings. And they are spirit beings, so no one has ever seen them because they are not enfleshed.

[6:59] But they are very real nonetheless. The difficulty we have in appropriating anything that is spiritual is that you can't touch it, you can't taste it, you can't feel it, you can't hear it.

[7:09] So we tend to discount it and give it no significance or objective reality at all. But I assure you that the spirit part of you is just as real as the physical part of you.

[7:21] But it is immaterial. And this is what makes it difficult for us to comprehend. So we've got this great conflict that is taking place here.

[7:33] And I don't know of another term to call it other than a cosmic conflict because it actually supersedes that of this planet, although this planet is the core place where these things are being carried out.

[7:46] And what we hope to do is give you a handle or an explanation of these events that are going to take place, some of which have already taken place, and enable you to connect a few more dots that maybe you haven't in the past and see how strategic the nation of Israel is to the plan and program of God.

[8:06] These constitute the chosen people. And they are chosen for a number of reasons. But perhaps the greatest reason that they are the chosen people is because God has chosen the Jewish people, this line, if you will, of Shem, born of Noah, and continued through Abraham, and continued through David until it is realized in the person of Christ.

[8:34] He is using this line to be the very crux, the core, for reserving or resolving the angelic conflict.

[8:44] And that will be resolved when we come to the end of the Revelation and we see the great wrap-up and are given a bird's-eye view of how this is all going to go down. While you're looking at chapter 12, I just want you to remember, if you will, and let's read verse 1 again.

[9:00] Now, this must have been an incredibly awesome picture. This is a vision that John is witnessing.

[9:15] And he has been instructed to write what he sees and describe it to the best of his ability. And that's what he's doing. And in this vision that he sees is this woman.

[9:28] And she is clothed with the sun. That gives me the impression that from her neck, probably to her feet, it looks as if the sun is her torso.

[9:43] And that she is standing on what is described as the moon. And on her head, a crown, 12 stars.

[10:00] Why 12? Things Jewish have to do with 12. And we will see that momentarily.

[10:11] And she was with child, and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. Now, before we go any further, it is essential for us to come back to the book of Genesis. And you may keep your place here if you want in Revelation.

[10:24] Genesis chapter 37. And we have told you in time past how everything in the Bible is connected to everything in the Bible.

[10:36] The Bible is its own best interpreter, and it is the only reliable interpreter. We make use of and benefit from commentaries written on the Bible by human authors.

[10:52] And my shelves are full of them, and I respect them. They are some of my best friends. I've gotten all kinds of information and ideas from them. But all of human commentaries are flawed.

[11:03] They are all flawed because the people who write them are flawed. But the Word of God is its own best interpreter. And wise and happy is the person who learns to compare Scripture with Scripture and allow the Bible to interpret itself.

[11:18] And in chapter 37 of Genesis, we read, Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned in the land of Canaan. These are the records of the generations of Joseph.

[11:31] When 17 years of age was pasturing the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bela, the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father.

[11:45] In other words, Joseph was a snitch. He ratted out his brothers. He says, Dad, the boys out there, they're goofing off. They're not doing what they're supposed to do, and so on and so on.

[11:55] And Joseph was daddy's favorite. So that automatically created some animosity with the other brothers. And let's read on. Joseph loved Israel, which, by the way, is another name for Jacob, loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a very colored tunic.

[12:21] And don't forget that Joseph was also the son of the only woman that Jacob really loved, and that was Rachel. Leah was sneaked in on him.

[12:34] Remember? You ever wonder about these women who wear the veils? Well, back in this day, in this culture, when a woman wore a veil, you weren't real sure who she was.

[12:46] Jacob probably thought it was Rachel, but it wasn't Rachel. And the morning after, when the veil was off and the deed was done, lo and behold, he had married her sister, Leah.

[13:00] So he's got to go through this thing again in order to get Rachel. But that's another story. So let's go on. Verse 5. Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.

[13:12] And he said to them, Please listen to this dream which I have had. For behold, we were binding sheaves in the field. This is my dream.

[13:22] This is what I saw. Binding sheaves in the field, tying the sheaves up together. And lo, my sheaf, the one I was working on, rose up and also stood erect, straight and tall.

[13:36] And behold, your sheaves, the sheaves you guys were working on, gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.

[13:52] What is this? Where is this going? Bow down to my sheaf. Hmm.

[14:06] And his brothers said to him, Are you actually going to reign over us? Is that what you're trying to tell us? Our sheaves bowed down to your... Or are you really going to rule over us?

[14:18] So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Now I had still another dream and related it to his brothers and said, Lo, I have had still another dream and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.

[14:40] And he related it to his father and to his brothers and his father rebuked him and said to him, What is this dream that you have had?

[14:51] Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground? And his brothers were jealous.

[15:05] His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind. Now I think what that means is that dad didn't know what to make of this. And he wasn't very pleased in hearing it.

[15:18] But he logged it in his memory. Hmm. I wonder. Could there be? What could this possibly mean?

[15:29] And his brothers sent to pasture their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, Are your fathers? And so on and so on. So we'll not read any further. But I wanted to share that with you because it spreads a ray of light on our passage in Revelation chapter 12.

[15:46] Now what Joseph was talking about, and Joseph of course is universally recognized as a type of Christ. And what Joseph is talking about was prophecy that was going to be fulfilled in their time.

[15:59] And when would it be fulfilled? It is after he is sold into Egyptian slavery. He is there in Egypt. He rises to this position of prominence. And eventually his brothers come down to Egypt because the father, Jacob, sent them in search of grain.

[16:16] There was a great famine going on in Israel. And they come down to Egypt where Joseph is literally established as the second highest command in the entire nation.

[16:31] Second only to Pharaoh himself. He has all kinds of power, prestige, and authority. But his brothers have no idea that this ruler in Egypt is their long-lost brother whom they sold into Egyptian slavery.

[16:49] And when they come, they are going to be subservient to Joseph. They're going to be dependent upon Joseph, not even knowing that it is Joseph.

[17:03] And they will be bowing down to him, trying to extract from him grain that they can take back home. And they succeed. And eventually, Jacob and his wife come down to Egypt also.

[17:18] And they are subservient to Joseph. Here is local boy makes good, but in Egypt. And he rises to a position of prominence that exceeds anything his family had ever imagined.

[17:31] And his full family, mother, father, and all of his brothers are tremendously dependent upon him. All in fulfillment of this dream that he had.

[17:43] And I suspect that Joseph himself didn't realize the significance of that dream or how it was going to play out. Now, let us come back, if we may, to Revelation chapter 12.

[17:56] And I want to give you some historical background because what is taking place here in connection with the angelic conflict is that good and evil are at loggerheads and have been from the time that Lucifer fell and rebelled against authority.

[18:14] And God has created human beings who are going to be utilized in the resolving of the angelic conflict, along with other key angels such as Gabriel and Michael and so on.

[18:26] And this great conflict is shaping up. It has been brewing and going on for thousands of years in ways that we do not understand and do not see. And I think I will be able to at least show you some of those as we move through the history of the nation of Israel.

[18:44] Because it must be apparent that Satan knows and full well understands the strategic nature of the people of Israel.

[18:57] And this is why he is so hell-bent on crippling, preferably destroying these people.

[19:08] Because they know, he knows that they are the catalyst for bringing together the plan and program of God. And the central figure of that is Jesus Christ.

[19:21] He will be the product of the Jewish nation. That's what will make them so strategic and so valuable.

[19:34] And the ironic thing about this is, even until today, the Jewish people as a whole have little or no idea how they really fit into this whole scheme.

[19:50] or if they even do. Most of this is lost on them. They are completely unaware of what we are going to be talking about. And yet, they are the very ones whom God is going to use.

[20:03] There is a reason why they are called the chosen people. And why they are the only ones who are called the chosen people. Now, we're talking about the ultimate mother.

[20:14] This is our Mother's Day message. This woman depicted here in chapter 12 is what we could call a picture of the ultimate mother.

[20:25] But she's actually going to involve multiple mothers. And we will see that as we move on. It is she clothed with the sun, feet resting on the moon, twelve stars on her head.

[20:40] She represents the entire redemptive community of womanhood. That community begins with the woman who in Genesis 3 and verse 20 is given her name Eve by her husband Adam.

[20:56] And he calls her Eve because she was the mother of all living. Eve was the one who opened the door to the adversary Satan who was then able to negatively compromise humanity from its very beginning.

[21:16] It was Satan himself who caused a foreign element to be introduced into the earliest expression of humanity that would continue to plague mankind with a weakness, disease, and death that was not originally created by God in the first humans.

[21:35] Our first parents soon became the new norm. rather than maintain the original norm with which God created them.

[21:47] Thankfully, the femininity Satan used to corrupt the entire human race, God will use that same femininity to redeem it.

[22:03] Ruin will come through the woman, but so will redemption from that ruin. It will begin with Eve and the promise God gave her in Genesis 3.15 about her seed or offspring.

[22:18] For years, the corruption that Satan succeeded in introducing through Eve will continue to permeate the entire human race. This corruption is called sin.

[22:31] It became so thoroughly corrupt and violent that God determined to end it, except for a small contingent of eight people whom he would use to provide a new beginning for humanity.

[22:48] Hence, the redemption to be realized by womanhood has passed from Mother Eve to another woman unnamed whom we will call Mrs. Noah.

[23:02] and from Mrs. Noah the line of redemptive seed will pass to her daughter-in-law Mrs. Shem who married one of the three sons of Mr. and Mrs. Noah.

[23:19] And between Eve and Mrs. Noah many generations unnamed are passed over for hundreds of years. And in Genesis 11 the genealogy extending from Mr. and Mrs. Shem is carefully listed and also spans hundreds of years with the bloodline of Mr. and Mrs. Shem remaining intact and present in all their descendants eventually arriving at the man called Abraham.

[23:47] And here a crisis occurs in the perpetuation of the bloodline that threatened its continuation because if the line stopped with Abraham the redeemer seed promised to Mother Eve would not come into being but stopped it did.

[24:09] The messianic line that is promised to eventually resolve the angelic conflict is put on hold. It stops with the infertile womb of this woman named Sarah.

[24:27] Abraham's wife Sarah was infertile. Now never forget that Satan who began his efforts to thwart the plan and will of God in any way he could remains on the earth alive and well.

[24:43] Though it had been at least 2,000 years since he succeeded in deceiving our first mother Satan continues his activities of opposition to the creator God. We do not know that Satan had the ability to make Sarah infertile.

[24:59] And nowhere does the Bible say he did. Yet we can only imagine that he rejoiced in their inability to produce a child. But did Satan even know that Abraham and Sarah held the key that threatened his success in opposing God?

[25:18] We are not told that Satan knew of the strategic nature of Abraham and Sarah in the plan of God, but it is likely that he did know. And what would I base that on? Well, could it be that in the same way Satan deceived Eve into questioning God's authority, he has always deceived whomever and he deceived Sarah into believing God could not be counted on to give them a child.

[25:50] After all, causing people to not believe God is Satan's greatest achievement and he uses multiple avenues to achieve it.

[26:01] This is because more than anything God wants man to believe him and this makes Satan's job one to cause people not to believe God.

[26:13] Belief and unbelief are the greatest weapons of both God and Satan because the issue is authority. Always has been, always will be.

[26:26] Satan was fully aware of Job because God made him aware and Satan set about to cause Job to disbelieve God. If Job was a contemporary of Abraham as most chronological scholars believe, then Satan could very well have known all about Abraham and his being God's selected vessel for continuity of the redemptive line and would it not have been satanically delicious to deceive Sarah into thinking that she was not the key to furthering the line.

[27:04] Only Abraham was. Hence, it was Sarah who suggested Abraham have relations with Hagar, the Egyptian, an Egyptian slave girl, and her child would still be the legal son of Abraham, even though not the son of Sarah.

[27:27] Was that a neat little bit of deception by the old master himself? Or was it all just coincidental? And can we not only imagine how Satan must have been gleeful over all of the turmoil caused by Ishmael, born of Hagar, with an entirely different genetic disposition?

[27:50] Still, even though fourteen years after Ishmael is born, with Abraham being a hundred, and Sarah ninety, God graciously fulfills his promise to them, but only after waiting so long it looked like he wouldn't.

[28:11] God then effectively overrode their unbelief by eventually convincing them he could be trusted, no matter how the circumstances seemed to dictate otherwise.

[28:22] Thus, Isaac, the son of promise, is born. And the epitome of Abrahamic's trust is magnificent in his then determination to sacrifice Isaac in an act of unwavering confidence that God would make good on his word.

[28:39] It represented a major defeat for the adversary, but he is not about to give up. The redemptive line continues with Isaac and Rebekah. They will be visited with conflict and turmoil in their relationship to their two sons, Esau and Jacob.

[28:55] Even though they were twins, Esau was the older of the two, and when Rebekah had an extraordinary pregnancy, described as the children struggling within her, she asked of the Lord, what was going on?

[29:10] and God told Rebekah that in her womb were not only two sons, but two nations.

[29:27] And their conflict began before they were even born. That was the struggle in the womb of this woman, Rebekah.

[29:38] unborn children were vying for ascendancy in the womb. Now, we may tend to think that that is absurd, but some of the modern scholarship along the obstetrics line might disagree with that.

[29:54] There's things we don't understand about that, but at any rate, what happened was, when God told her there were two nations, the conflict began before they were born, and she was also told that it would not be the older son, Esau, who would be preeminent, as was usually the case, but it would be the younger who would be the child of promise, that would be Jacob, not Esau.

[30:24] And God also told her that the older would ultimately serve the younger, which was the opposite of the custom. So, while Isaac favored Esau, it was Rebekah who favored Jacob.

[30:40] And you know families can get into a whole lot of trouble when parents start choosing favorites, because it can create an animosity and a resentment that will never go away.

[30:56] So, when blind and feeble, Isaac was determined to follow the custom by bestowing the blessing upon his favorite son Esau, it was Rebekah, another heroine, the redemptive plan that was actually obedient to what God had told her about her two sons.

[31:17] And that is, the blessing must go to Jacob, not to Esau, as the child of promise. Now, generally, and in most commentaries, and in most Christian circles, it is this woman, Rebekah, who is looked upon as the deceiver and the heavy.

[31:42] And she is the one who took advantage of this poor old blind man, Isaac, and slipped over on him the other son. You remember the story about covering his arms with the sheep's wool to make it feel hairy, and to make the old man think that it was Esau when it was actually Jacob.

[32:03] And Rebekah gets all kinds of condemnation for that. I'll tell you who deserved the condemnation. It was Isaac. Rebekah was the one who was in tune with the Lord here.

[32:15] God had revealed to her that the blessing, something that is completely foreign in our culture, because we don't attach anything to this blessing, but it was very significant in Jewish ancient culture that the father passed his blessing, which was essentially the father was passing the reins of headship to his usually number one son, the oldest son.

[32:41] But the father also had the authority to override that, and on occasion he did. Remember when Jacob, in chapter 49 of Genesis, when Jacob gathered his twelve sons around him as he was about to die, and he pronounced a blessing on each of them in the prophecy, and he started with his oldest son, and all the boys were around dad on his death bed, in accordance with their birth orders.

[33:07] They were all numbered there, and they were all present, and he began with his firstborn. And he said, Reuben, Reuben, you are my firstborn.

[33:22] Reuben. And then he said, unstable as water. Good grief, I don't know what I could do with Reuben.

[33:34] So impetuous. You know, have you ever tried to carry a glass, a full glass of water from one room to the next? It's pretty difficult because water is really unstable.

[33:47] That was Reuben. And he passed over Reuben. And he passed over Levi. And he passed over Simeon. They were second and third born. And he calls them instruments of cruelty.

[34:00] They were the ones who carried out the massacre of the Shechemites. And he comes to the fourth born. And none of these boys had what you would call sterling character.

[34:14] I mean, Judah had been involved in some shenanigans also. But he settles on Judah. And he said, the scepter. The scepter was the instrument of royalty that the king or the queen held in their hand.

[34:31] And if you've ever seen a picture of modern day royalty, they sit there on their throne with all of the regalia and the crown and the scepter in the hand. It's usually 18 to 24 inches long.

[34:44] Gold encrusted with precious stones and so on. That's the symbol of regality and of rule. And he said, the scepter shall not depart from Judah.

[34:57] Wow! What's that mean? It means that 1500 years later, a man by the name of David will be from the tribe of Judah.

[35:13] And he will hold the scepter and rule and reign in Israel. And all of those kings who come to the throne of Israel, particularly Judah, will hold that scepter.

[35:28] This blessing is strictly the prerogative of the father. And here he is going to exercise it on Esau. And Rebecca is saying, no, no, no, the blessing must go to Jacob.

[35:42] God said so. But Esau was Isaac's favorite. And he was going to give him the blessing. It was Mama who stepped in and stopped the old fool from doing what he was going to do.

[35:58] Good that one of them had their wits about them. And in this case, it was the mother. Yes, it's true. She favored Jacob. No doubt about that. But nonetheless, so did God.

[36:13] And what's going to come of this? Eventually, Esau would become the patriarch of the Edomites.

[36:25] Well, big deal. Who were they? The Edomites are the present-day Jordanians.

[36:36] They live in southern Jordan. The Edomites are going to be descendants not only of Esau, but they are also going to be related to Lot and his two daughters.

[36:48] And they are going to bear children, and they will live in this area. And it will also be called not only Edom, but the northern part will be called Moab. And today it is occupied by Jordan and Transjordan, the ruler of which is King Abdullah.

[37:04] And he is a descendant of Esau, as are all of these people there in that Jordanian area. And by the way, in the 1967 war, when Israel was attacked by a half a dozen different nations, and they proved victorious, and we see this dramatic video of Moshe Dian.

[37:31] He was the Jewish general that had the black patch on one eye, had only one eye, and it shows him with his generals walking in to the city of Jerusalem, going to the western wall to pray.

[37:46] That was the only part that still remains of the first century temple. people. And in that war, do you know who it was that the Israelites, under the leadership of General Dian, do you know who they defeated?

[38:02] Jordan. Jordan. It was Jordan's army. They had occupied that land up until that time, and they wrested it from them. And King Abdullah of Jordan is the present monarch on that throne.

[38:15] And he does have a relatively decent relationship with the nation of Israel, which is something that cannot be said about most of the Arab nations. So, let us continue, if we may.

[38:29] Isaac bestows the blessing upon Jacob, unbeknownst to him, and then we realize that it was too late, and so on.

[38:40] And, although in perfect compliance with what God stated, great conflict arose between Jacob and Esau, even with the threat of Esau to kill Jacob.

[38:51] Eventually, Esau, as I mentioned, would become the patriarch of the Edomites, populate what is now southern Jordan. And hundreds of years later, when the children of Israel are making their journey from Egypt to the promised land, it would be the embittered Edomites that would refuse passage to the Jews, made them go all the way around out of their way.

[39:13] And they were still harboring the grudge that Esau had against Jacob. Now it was hundreds of years old. And you know what? The grudge remains in place today.

[39:28] The descendants of Jacob and the descendants of Esau are still at it. They are still shedding blood almost on a weekly basis.

[39:47] These, of course, are Arabs. And this is one more major conflict that arose because this time not the woman Rebekah was deceived, but it was Isaac, the man, who was deceived in planning to give the blessing to Esau rather than to Jacob.

[40:03] Now can we venture a guess as to the source of the deception? Think about it. The Israelites were living freely in the land of Egypt because Pharaoh and the Egyptians were so grateful to Joseph.

[40:17] Now we're going to Egypt, okay? Follow me. Here we are in Egypt. And they were grateful to Joseph, whom God used to prevent the Egyptians from famine. And then a later Pharaoh sat on the throne of Egypt who had no memory or gratitude to Joseph at all.

[40:33] And he began to view the Israelites who had been now born in Egypt nearly 400 years as the time is going as a threat to his throne and nation. They were not a threat at all, but were perceived to be such by the Pharaoh who obviously was deceived.

[40:54] Wonder what the source of that deception might have been. He was deceived into seeing them as a threat simply because of their numbers. So Pharaoh decided to combat the threat by killing all the Jewish baby boys.

[41:09] Solve that problem. Eliminate them. And that would cease their propagation among the Jewish people. He would let the girl babies live because they could be useful as slaves and did not pose a threat of potential insurrection as did the males.

[41:26] And this too was failed when and where it counted by another female mother, a heroine by the name of Jochebed.

[41:43] Jochebed, who hid her son Moses, preventing his death. And when Moses matured to manhood, God eventually used him to deliver the nation of Israel from Egyptian bondage.

[41:54] Pharaoh relented and let them go from Egypt on what became the Passover night for the Jewish people that continues to be celebrated by Jews around the world to this day. And after permitting the Jews to leave, Pharaoh entertained second thoughts that he should not have done that.

[42:12] And he actually believed he could pursue them, subdue them with his army, and bring them back to Egypt to enslave them again. Have we any idea who may have deceived Pharaoh into thinking that?

[42:29] Never mind that the Egyptians didn't really figure in to the seed of the woman being preserved. Satan will kill anywhere at any time he can.

[42:41] He is a mutual murdering opportunity employer. Nothing pleases Satan more than a high body count, whether it's Egyptians or whoever.

[42:53] Satan is the apostle of death and deception, and he will inflict these realities upon any segment of humanity anywhere and any time he can.

[43:04] And the principal reason that God hates Satan is because Satan is determined to destroy those whom God loves.

[43:15] and when it comes right down to it, the Jewish people, particularly as the whole nation, focuses on the person of Christ, that's where the threat lies.

[43:35] And anything he can do to thwart that line from developing or materializing, he will. And even after Christ is here and on the scene, numerous attempts are made on his life wherein he is providentially protected because his time had not yet come.

[43:51] And we will see that as it develops. This is very, very strategic. Satan's attempt to use the Egyptians to eliminate the Jewish race backfired with the miraculous delivery of Israel from Egypt and the subsequent destruction of the army of Egypt at the Red Sea.

[44:11] Despite, God's miraculously delivering Israel, the people persisted in stubborn rebellion and unbelief.

[44:31] And repeatedly, God calls them a stiff-necked and rebellious people. One of the main purposes of the tribulation, the time of Jacob's trouble, will be to forever break that stubborn will of the Jewish people that has for millennia been their own worst enemy.

[44:52] Israel's unbelief will forever be cured, but it will take the tribulation period to do it, and God will accommodate them by bringing them to another national crisis where there is no deliverance available except from the God against whom they have been so obstinate and unbelieving.

[45:11] Now, fast forward, if you will, through the centuries, and we find Israel a continuously subjected people, often the recipient of horrendous persecution.

[45:23] The Babylonians, around 600 B.C., enslaved them. The Babylonians were defeated by the Medes and the Persians, as recorded in Daniel chapter 5. and under the rule of the Persians, which today is modern Iran.

[45:39] The Israelites were once again threatened with extinction, and the rescue came through another beautiful Jewish woman named Esther.

[45:53] She was used of God to single-handedly rescue the entire nation of Jews. And Queen Esther is celebrated worldwide by Jews today in the Feast of Purim that is held annually.

[46:06] Although Satan is never mentioned in the book of Esther, nor is God ever mentioned in the book of Esther, yet the fingerprints of both God and Satan are found throughout the pages of Esther for anyone looking for them.

[46:20] Alexander the Great and the Greeks will arise to ascendancy, and they will defeat the Medes and the Persians. This is one superpower coming to preeminence over another, and that will give way to the rise and the power of Rome.

[46:39] And Rome will be the Mediterranean superpower at the time of Christ. Roman persecution of the Jews and later of Christians will be legendary, but the Jews survived it all.

[46:53] They are destined for persecution due to their obstinance and the hatred by the adversary Satan who remains bent on destroying them so as to defeat the plan and program of God.

[47:08] Never to rest from persecution. No doubt instigated by Satan or intensified by him, persecution will come even from those who profess Christianity, particularly the Roman Catholic Church during what is called the Dark Ages, when history bears out the sordid details of forced conversions of Jews to the Roman Catholic Church under penalty of death or expulsion from the country, and then they had to submit to baptism to be baptized by a Catholic priest and to the Catholic Church.

[47:42] Otherwise, they would confiscate their wealth or drive them out of the country. 1492 is a year that we all remember when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, but it was also the same year that all of the Jewish people were forced to leave the country of Spain unless they were baptized into the Catholic Church and if they refused they were banished from the country and they could not leave with anything but the clothes on their back.

[48:15] That was 1492 in Spain and so it has ever been with the Jewish people yet they survived it all. Israel will fare no better from the 1500s to World War II when Hitler proposed the final solution to the Jewish problem and what was it kill them all of them kill them and in Hitler's gas ovens and his extermination camps they did away with 6 million Jews plus think of it 6 million people who had harmed no one were put to death can you not see even though there is no place that specifically says Hitler was influenced by

[49:15] Satan how can there be any doubt the man was evil to the core and I cannot credit him with all of that himself I am satisfied the adversary had to have been involved and no doubt was one way or another vital brutal physical persecution or undisguised discrimination was heaped upon the Jewish people they have had a corporate bullseye on their back and multiple sources have tried their hand at disposing of the Jew entirely having no idea that their efforts were also fueled by Satan himself as he operates behind the scenes the conflict rages on to our very day Israel remains a thorn in the side of the international community virtually all of the member nations of the UN vote to ally themselves with Israel's enemies their only friend being the USA and of late under former

[50:17] President Barack Obama that friendship was called into question so before we engage the ultimate mother in Revelation 12 we must keep in mind all of these things that provide a historic backdrop because what we are reading in Revelation 12 is prophecy what I have just shared with you is history it's all connected and in Revelation 12 we will read things like the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God we'll tie that in with Matthew 24 and see that this is the persecution that is going to be heaped upon the Jew during the time of the Antichrist which could be a whole lot closer than any of us know the war in heaven that resulted in the eviction of Satan and his angels cast down to earth is something we'll have to give considerable attention to because it plays in this in a very heavy way and what is taking place today all of this that is contained here in

[51:30] Revelation chapter 12 we will see from Old Testament passages how it is going to be very literally fulfilled in connection with Israel during the tribulation period and believe me it is absolutely stunning the heroes of the morning one woman after another well it's true she started the whole thing but God is going to use womanhood to resolve it and to finish it so hats off to the ladies they come through this thing and flying colors and we all have cause for rejoicing would you stand with me please father we recognize that we have covered an enormous amount of material this morning and we are looking for connection and understanding and cohesiveness and we do believe that this book is ripe for discovery always has been that it yields its treasures to those who are willing to mind them and we want to be those people thank you for the time that we have shared together this morning thank you especially for the strategic nature in which you have used femininity through the ages that we who are all born of a woman have cause for rejoicing for what mothers have done thank you for them everyone in

[53:01] Christ's name amen