Revelation 12 - Israel and America
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Jerusalem can be spelled JerUSAlem. Evidence of a link between Israel and America.
- The church follows the pattern of the Old Testament Jews
- The Jews and the church both have 12 stars
- Pagan Roman Empire resurrects as Roman Catholic church
- Rome conquers its conquerors
- Satan drags the Jews down from their Heavenly calling at Calvary
- Jesus is caught up to Heaven
- Jews have 3.5 years left to them of great Tribulation
- The church had 1260 Bible years of Roman Catholic persecution
- The Bride goes up when Satan comes down to kill the church
- Satan relies on big numbers of people and a flood of fake news
- The remnant are the left-behind foolish virgins as the Bride leaves
The church follows the pattern of the Old Testament Jews
The church is spiritual Israel and as such fulfills some of the same symbols that refer to natural Israel.
When God left the Jews 2000 years ago, He turned to the Gentile church.
As God starts to leave the apostate Gentile church of the Laodiceans today, He is turning back to the Jews.
Both groups, the church, and the Jews, had certain common ground as many of the Old Testament events and rituals had a deeper fulfillment in the New Testament church.
For instance, the first of the long succession of Jewish high priests was the high priest Aaron who was washed and anointed by the prophet Moses.
EXODUS 40:12 And thou shalt bring Aaron and his sons unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and wash them with water.
:13 And thou shalt put upon Aaron the holy garments, and anoint him, and sanctify him; that he may minister unto me in the priest's office.
The church only has one High Priest, Jesus Christ. But He had to follow the same Old Testament pattern.
John the Baptist felt too inadequate to baptize Him until he realized that the Law had to be fulfilled.
MATTHEW 3:15 And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him.
The High Priest of the greater Covenant had to be washed by a prophet. So, John washed Jesus in baptism by immersion in water.
John had only been told by God to baptize.
He had no oil for the anointing so he kept his eyes on Jesus until he saw the Holy Ghost come down like a Dove to rest upon Jesus, in a supernatural anointing.
This was God’s confirmation that Messiah, the great High Priest, had been washed and anointed.
JOHN 1:32 And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
:33 And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
The anointing meant that the Spirit rested on Jesus, the Spirit did not go into Him.
The Spirit going into Him was unnecessary as the fulness of the Godhead always dwelled in Him bodily COLOSSIANS 2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
And Jesus never changed.
HEBREWS 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
The Spirit within Him simply projected out to form a Dove as a visible public anointing.
Later on, Jesus, up in Heaven, projected His Spirit down towards Saul of Tarsus in the form of a blinding Light.
ACTS 9:3 And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:
The Jews and the church both have 12 stars
REVELATION 12:1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
“A great wonder in Heaven” means the vision has spiritual implications.
The Jews were also the mother nation that brought forth the Promised Son, Messiah.
A woman symbolizes a church of believers. The true church is the Bride of Christ.
II CORINTHIANS 11:2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused [engaged] you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
This vision is firstly a representation of the Jewish believers from the Old Testament.
The 12 stars are the patriarchs who gave the 12 tribes of Israel their names.
Clothed in the sun means they were clothed in God’s grace as He led them out of Egypt, opened up the Red Sea and enabled them to conquer the Promised Land in about 7 years.
Taken captive by Babylon for their sins, God’s grace then used the Persian Cyrus to restore them from captivity.
The moon under her feet. The Jews stood upon the Law.
A crown of 12 stars represented the 12 Patriarchs who gave the 12 tribes of Israel their names.
Secondly, from the point of view of the church, our 12 stars represent the twelve apostles with Paul taking the place of Judas. They established the foundation of truth in the first church age and we must return to those early beliefs. Paul and the apostles received a crown of reward.
The Sun represents grace. We are saved by grace through faith.
EPHESIANS 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
The Moon is our foundation. The Moon reflects the Sun.
The foundation of the church is when we reflect the light of God’s Word in our words and in our actions.
REVELATION 12:2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
The last Jewish Old Testament prophet was Malachi, about 397 BC according to Dr. Scofield. After that, the Jews were on their own and getting into many difficulties.
They were conquered by the Greeks who undermined Jewish thoughts with their clever philosophy. They were abused by Antiochus the Great who desecrated the Temple until the Maccabees fought back. They threw out the Greeks but then later they conquered the state of Idumea, south of Israel, which was not in the Promised Land. They forced the Idumeans to accept the Jewish faith. That was a bad mistake.
Israel was then conquered by the Romans who relentlessly dominated the Mediterranean Sea. Rome then established the Idumean Herod as king of the Jews. He was the Jew’s cruelest king, killing thousands of Jews when it suited him. Herod, not being a proper Jew, was insecure and always fearful that the Jewish Messiah would dethrone him. Hence, he was always keen to kill Jesus.
Into this cruel and toxic political turbulence, Messiah was to be born to the Jewish race.
REVELATION 12:3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
The ten horns symbolize 10 barbarian tribes that helped to destroy the pagan Roman Empire but then intentionally, or inadvertently, helped the Pope to rise to power on the ruins of the pagan Roman Empire.
The seven crowns started with Julius Caesar who was Pontiff of the Babylonian mysteries and destroyed the Roman Republic and set himself up as dictator for life. Five members of his family followed him as Emperors to establish the pagan Roman Empire as well as being Pontiff, thus uniting politics and religion in one man. They were Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero who was infamous for killing Christians.
These heads, horns, and crowns were all features of the dragon who is Satan. Thus they were the demonically inspired thinking of the Devil as he strove to set up the pagan Roman Empire which would evolve into the Roman Catholic church. Satan is a spirit who strives to control our thinking with unscriptural ideas.
Another heavenly vision. A deep spiritual insight into Satan’s kingdom of darkness.
Satan used to be Lucifer, the top angel.
Only Heaven can reveal Satan’s cunning deceptions.
Satan easily fools us, humans, when we rely on our own intelligence.
Jesus warned us:
Matthew 24:4 “Take heed that no man deceive you”.
Pagan Roman Empire resurrects as Roman Catholic church
We, humans, need a heavenly revelation to open our eyes to the subtle tricks of the Devil.
Red dragon. A symbol on Roman army banners. The Dragon is a symbol of the Devil.
But Satan needs a human system to operate through.
The most powerful empire of the Old Testament was pagan Rome.
So naturally, the Devil chose this as his headquarters.
Romulus founded Rome on a hill near a crossing of the Tiber river where there was an island in the middle of the river. Basically he indulged in highway robbery. He demanded payment from people who wanted to cross the river. It was a lucrative business. Soon there were seven hills with buildings on them. When they built a protective wall around the seven hills, then Rome was called a city. The City of Seven Hills.
The seven hills symbolize the seven heads on the dragon.
The red line shows the wall around the seven hills.
The Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline hill was the headquarters of the pagan Roman empire.
The Lateran Palace on the Caelian hill was given to the bishop of Rome, by the emperor Constantine, around AD 313 and became the headquarters of the Roman Catholic church.
The Lateran Palace is still the Seat of the religious and political power of the Pope. The Pope now has authority over 1.4 billion Catholics.
In 1929 Mussolini signed the Lateran Concordat with the Pope to establish Vatican City as an independent country. This is the smallest country on earth. Daniel's "little horn".
John saw a beast or power coming up out of the sea of restless peoples who occupied Europe.
REVELATION 13:1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
REVELATION 17:9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
The seven heads represent the seven hills of the original City of Rome.
REVELATION 13:3
» 3 † And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
REVELATION 13:2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion:
and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
"the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority".
The Pope was given the Lateran Palace. Satan then used the political power of the Roman Empire to build up the authority of the Pope.
Emperor Constantine gave the Pope the Lateran palace and much money. A huge church or basilica was built alongside the Lateran Palace which is called the "seat of Peter" and is still the official headquarters of the Roman Catholic church. This gives the Pope power over 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide. This is the biggest single group of people on earth. That represents great authority. The Roman emperors were always keen to persecute Christians who disagreed with the Roman Catholic church. This military intervention gave added authority to what the Pope commanded.
REVELATION 17:18
» 18 † And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
Rome conquers its conquerors
This is the nature of Rome.
Barbarian tribes conquered the Roman Empire. But these tribes were the conquered by the Roman Catholic church converting them to Catholicism.
Then the Protestants conquered the Roman Catholic church in the Reformation. But many doctrines of the Roman Catholics conquered the Protestant churches until the Protestant churches are a image of the Roman Catholic church. Trinity. God the Son. One God in three Persons. Jesus in the Godhead. Christmas. 25 December. Good Friday. Easter Monday. Easter eggs. Easter bunnies. One man is the head of a church. Archbishop. Etc. All these terms are unscriptural. Catholics invented them and now even the Protestants believe them.
Of the many barbarian tribes who broke up the Roman empire, ten of them would play a role in elevating the authority of the Pope of Rome until he had authority over the barbarian tribes.
DANIEL 7:7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
This beast was the pagan Roman Empire. The 10 horns are barbarian tribes that helped to conquer the Western pagan Roman Empire but then helped the Pope to rise to power, deliberately or inadvertently.
DANIEL 7:8 I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
The little horn (a small power) started as the Pope in the Lateran Palace and grew to become the Vatican City, the world's wealthiest organization. The Catholic church accepted the Trinity doctrine. Three anti-Trinity tribes, the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Ostragoths were destroyed between AD 493 and AD 568, when the last Ostrogoth survivors were absorbed into the Lombard tribe. This destruction was done to establish the Pope as the strong man in Rome after the Western Roman Empire collapsed. Thus all opposition to the Catholic Trinity was destroyed until the around 1910 when the United Pentecostals in America began to restore the belief that Jesus is Almighty God.
The Roman Catholic church is busy conquering the Protestants who once broke away from Rome and called the Pope the Antichrist. The Protestants have since returned to Catholic beliefs like having no name for their Trinity God because they cannot find one name for three Persons. They cannot explain why "God the Father" is never mentioned in the Old Testament, only in the New Testament. "God the Son" and "God the Holy Ghost" are never mentioned in the Bible. So Protestants are building a worldwide man-made religious organization as an image of the beast. The beast can refer to the worldwide man-made religious organization and denomination that is the Roman Catholic church.
The beast can also refer to the Pope who is the head or figurehead of the Roman Catholic church.
The ten horns thus look back to the 10 barbarian tribes who exalted the Pope over the barbarians in Europe as the Pope rose to power in Europe.
The ten horns also look forward to the 10 military dictators who will elevate the final Pope, who is the man of sin, to world dominion in the future 3.5 years of great Tribulation.
This is a typical compound fulfillment of a Scripture.
(For example, the seed of Abraham refers to Isaac or to the Jews. It also refers to Jesus. The church is also the spiritual seed of Abraham.)
The seven crowns refer to the first seven dictators who destroyed the Roman Republic and ended up establishing the Roman Empire.
The first six were from one family, either by birth or adoption. The seventh was a military usurper.
Julius Caesar ended the Roman Republic and declared himself dictator for life.
His sister’s grandson Augustus called himself Emperor and ruled as a dictator.
Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero followed.
John was exiled to Patmos when Nero persecuted the Christians to blame them for the fire that destroyed Rome in AD 64.
REVELATION 17:10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
"Five are fallen". Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius had all died.
"One is". Nero was ruling until he died in AD 68.
The seventh one was the military general Galba who usurped the position of emperor for seven months before being killed.
Seven completes a system. There are 7 days in a week. Eight starts a new system.
REVELATION 17:11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
The first seven men started a system. The leader rules as a dictator. Persecution of Christians began. It ends with a short-lived military usurper taking over.
The eighth is a new system. A church that rose up with the same spirit as the first seven Romans.
"Is of the seven" means the Catholic church is of the same nature as the first seven Roman rulers.
The Pope rules the Roman Catholic church as a dictator. The Catholic church has killed tens of millions of Christians during its history. The final antichrist Pope will get the military strength of 10 dictators for his brief rule of three and a half years in the time of great Tribulation.
Nero began the cruel persecution of Christians. These five vicious and depraved emperors established the one-man dictatorship that ruled the pagan Roman empire. Then Galba, a military general, usurped the position of the Emperor for a brief seven months. These were the seven crowns that set a pattern.
When pagan Rome collapsed to the barbarians, this spirit of dictatorship was picked up by the Pope who rules today as the only dictator in Europe.
At the First Coming of Jesus, Satan entered Judas who was an apostle, a leader of the church.
So, when Jesus comes to perform the catching up of the church, then Satan gets kicked out of Heaven where he is the accuser of the brethren.
Satan then enters a man who will usurp, as Galba did, the top church position which today is the Pope. This will give him the vast wealth of the Vatican which is the single wealthiest organization on earth. Wealth acts as a magnet to the Devil. That is why Jesus said, “Woe to you rich”.
Galba was a military general. Thus, the man of sin who will be Satan's superman, will usurp the position of Pope and will also talk ten dictators into giving him their military power.
The Jews were dragged down from their Heavenly calling
Satan drags the Jews down from their Heavenly calling at Calvary
We now go back to the time of Jesus.
REVELATION 12:4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
People say this was Lucifer who fooled one-third of the angels at the beginning. This is very illogical. Lucifer was weaker than God and one-third of the angels would not beat two-thirds of the angels who remained true to God. A weaker Lucifer with a minority of angels would never have been stupid enough to rebel.
Satan always works in the majority. There are more unbelievers than believers. China is a threat to world peace because of their vast numbers.
This vision is dealing with the time when Jesus was to be on earth.
Think spiritually. One third is not quantity. It is quality or pedigree.
GENESIS 15:5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
Abraham’s seed, the Jews, would be as stars.
So God divides humanity into three camps. Jew, Gentile (non-Jew), and Samaritan (part Jew and part Gentile).
Satan was now working in the hearts of the Jewish people a fiendishly clever plan that would help them to reject their Messiah.
Satan always uses the distractions of current political events to distract people from the spiritual plan of God.
Obsessed with what we see as wrong in the world around us, we lose sight of God’s deeper Plan. Upset emotions make people incapable of forming wise judgments.
After a brief time of independence under the Maccabees, Israel had been conquered and occupied and brutally suppressed by the Roman soldiers from 63 BC onwards. Thus, the Jews developed a pathological hatred of these vicious Romans.
The “tail” in the vision referred to the “tale” or the story that Satan spun in the minds of the Jews.
“Look how bad these Romans are”.
“If Messiah came now he would be a great conqueror to destroy Rome”.
The Jews, forsaking any spiritual insights, now focused fervently on their political freedom. Not on what they really needed which was their need for freedom from sin.
Every Roman atrocity, real or imagined, fueled their hatred of the Roman invaders.
They created a Messiah in their own image Who would serve their own ambitions.
Their most intense longing was for a military leader Who would be able to defeat the Romans.
Thus, the Jews became obsessed with the man-made idea that their longed-for Messiah would be a victorious general who would drive out the Romans. Their personal fantasies were stoked by the fires of Roman brutality. Especially as the very vicious Herod was imposed on them as their king, by the hated Romans. All the Jews could think of was getting revenge on the Romans.
As such, they became so clouded in their thinking that they lost contact with God.
Consequently, they were so preoccupied with their own illusions that they failed to recognize the reality of fulfilled Scripture. Thus they rejected their true Messiah because He did not fulfill their expectations and anticipations.
By killing Messiah, they caused God to wipe the Jews of that day out of His Book of Life.
Thus, Satan dragged one-third of humanity, not in terms of number but because they were Jews, out of their hopes of making heaven.
The dragon stood before the woman.
In 63 BC the Roman general Pompey conquered Israel.
In 37 BC the Romans made Herod their client king of Judea.
Herod was artificially made the king of the Jews by Rome. This caused Herod to develop a paranoid hatred of the Messiah who was the true King of Israel.
Thus the scene was set for the dragon of Rome to destroy Jesus.
Jesus is caught up to Heaven
REVELATION 12:5 And 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.
God spoke to Abraham 25 years before Isaac was born at about 2300 BC.
Thus, Israel as a nation (the woman) could claim to be over 2000 years old when Jesus died at the age of 33 years. He was thus a Child in comparison to the length of Jewish history.
But in the coming Millennium, the 1000 years of peace, He will chain up the Devil in a bottomless pit by means of a chain of circumstances that will drive the Devil to despair. Free from Satanic influence, Jesus will rule the earth from Jerusalem with a rod of iron. Zero tolerance for sin.
“Caught up unto God”. Jesus ascended up to Heaven on the day of Ascension which was 40 days after His resurrection.
These events applied to both the Jews and the church.
Messiah came to Israel to die for the sins of mankind.
This key event gave birth to the church.
Spiritually, there was a cross-over from the Jews to the Gentiles.
The feet of the Gentile image in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream represent the seven church ages.
In the Old Testament salvation was of the Jews.
The four Gentile kingdoms that ruled the world in those days had political power that was corrupted by the Babylonian mysteries that infiltrated their kingdoms.
Finally, in the kingdom of Rome, those pagan Babylonian mysteries would infiltrate the Roman Catholic church. That is where their real harm would be done, as they would pervert the Scriptures.
When Jesus died, the Jews rejected His Gospel. So the apostle Paul turned to the Gentiles.
At this stage, the Jews dropped out of the events of the vision of the Gentile image.
They had rejected and killed the Messiah.
In AD 70 the Roman general Titus killed 1100000 Jews and destroyed the Temple and their sacrifices. In AD 135 the Roman emperor Hadrian killed 580000 Jews and scattered them.
So, the Jews faded out with massive slaughters.
And the Gentile church began to spread through the empire and beyond.
History repeats.
Then as the end-time approaches, the Gentile church began to fade into the apostasy of the church of the Laodiceans where the Laodiceans made up their own church worship based on drum-beat music. The Bible never mentions drums. The churches make up their own doctrines that cannot be proven just from Scripture. We were never asked to celebrate the birth of Christ. But the Protestant churches have turned the Catholic Christ’s mass into the biggest financial celebration of the year.
25 December was declared to be the sun god’s birthday by the pagan Roman emperor Aurelian in AD 274 after he beheaded Felix who was the bishop of Rome on 22 December, AD 274. Then Aurelian was killed by his own men the next year.
Julius 1 who was bishop of Rome, just before he died in AD 352, copied the pagan sun god’s birthday and called 25 December Christ’s mass, as if it was the birthday of the Son of God. Thus, the church became paganized in order to attract pagans.
The pagan trinity was copied and turned into the church Trinity at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. But the Trinity God lost His name because three Persons cannot have one name. Especially as the Holy Spirit has no name in Scripture. The church began saying, "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” but could not tell us what that name is.
The Trinity put Jesus into the Godhead as the second Person. But Paul put the fullness of the Godhead bodily into Jesus (Colossians 2:9).
So, the pagan trinity has wrecked modern church-goers' ability to understand the mystery of God. They talk about an unscriptural Trinity which they themselves admit that they do not understand.
Thus the churches reject brother Branham's end-time revelation of the Bible mysteries.
At such a time God has started to re-gather the Jews back to Palestine. When President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the prophecy was fulfilled.
The seventh church age of the Laodiceans is fading out as Israel comes back into God’s plan.
Around 1900 the Jews began to gather back in the Promised Land. A massive slaughter of 6 million Jews in World War 2 under Hitler shocked the nations into giving the Jews a small homeland in Israel. Arab greed also wanted this small homeland for themselves and they attacked in four wars and lost most of the territory of ancient Israel that they had previously held. These defeated Jordanian Arabs suddenly called themselves Palestinians. Yasser Arafat, an Egyptian, went to Russia where the KGB printed a Palestinian passport for him, making him the Palestinian leader. This was done as a last ditch effort to stop the Jews from returning to their Promised Land.
So, the Jews are back after an exile of almost 2000 years. No other nation has ever done this.
It is time for God to leave the Gentiles and turn back to the Jews in Israel. This is referred to as great Tribulation.
Jews have 3.5 years left to them of great Tribulation
REVELATION 12:6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
For the Jews, this prophecy is fulfilled if we take a day to be 24 hours.
A score is twenty. 1260 days is three and a half years if you use a Bible month of 30 days.
If 42 months is 1260 days, then a Bible month is 30 days. (1260/42 = 30)
Thus God has prepared a plan for the Jews which will come to pass during the 3.5 years of great Tribulation.
REVELATION 11:2 But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
:3 And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
The Tribulation is three and a half years long.
Two prophets Moses and Elijah will feed the Jews with the truth of the New Testament Gospel.
The Jews were cut out of God’s plan in AD 33 at Calvary and will come back into God’s plan in the 3.5 years of great Tribulation. A great slaughter occurred in AD 70 as the Jews faded out and another slaughter during the Nazi rule of the Second World War as the Jews began to return.
In that gap, God turned to the Gentiles during the seven church ages.
The Christian church would endure a great slaughter of tens of millions during the Dark Ages and the Counter-Reformation. From the 300s to the 1600s, life was very dangerous for non-Catholics.
REVELATION 12:14 And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle,
These two Jewish prophets are the two wings of the great eagle.
“Great eagle” means they will have great supernatural power to interrupt nature. This is evident from the horror of the seven Trumpets and the seven Vials in Revelation.
The wilderness symbolizes the isolation of the Jews from the nations of the world who hate them. When President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel then the United Nations voted against this by 128 to 9. Such is the hatred of the nations against Israel. Anti-Semitism (hatred of Jews) is rising around the world.
But in the years of great Tribulation, with America destroyed, all the nations will turn against Israel.
That isolation will be their spiritual wilderness.
But the two prophets, with their amazing supernatural power, will protect the Jews from all onslaughts, feed them with the New Testament truth, and thus guide them to meet Messiah when He returns to Jerusalem to meet the 144000 Jews.
The church had 1260 Bible years of Roman Catholic persecution
These two verses have a compound fulfillment as they also apply to the church during the Dark Ages.
The following two verses, in addition, describe the turmoil and terror endured by the non-Catholic Christians who were heavily persecuted by the Catholic church in the Dark Ages.
REVELATION 12:6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
REVELATION 12:14 And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle,
54-0513 THE MARK OF THE BEAST
This woman here, back in Revelations 12, when her Man Child was caught up to set on God's throne, and when it did, the woman fled into the wilderness where she was taken care of for a thousand two hundred and threescore days to exactly the date of Plymouth Rock, exactly, where the church come over here for freedom of religion, and she established here.
Our Gentile year is 365.24 days. A Bible year is 360 days.
So 69 Gentile years are 69 x 5.24 = 361 days longer than 69 Bible years.
But 361 days is almost precisely one Bible year of 360 days.
So, 69 Gentile years = 69 + 1 = 70 Bible years.
In other words, for every 70 Bible years, we only have 69 of our longer Gentile years.
Thus 1260 /70 = 18
So, 1260 Bible years = 1260 – 18 = 1242 Gentile years.
The Gentile church would suffer severe persecution from the Catholic church for 1242 years.
These endless persecutions wore out the true believers who toiled on for God in the long nightmare of the Dark Ages and were endlessly butchered.
DANIEL 7:25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws:
The pagan Roman dictator Julius Caesar changed the calendar times in 45 BC.
Then the Roman Pope Gregory 13 gave a final fine-tuning change to the calendar in 1582.
Thus God left it to His great enemy, the Roman Empire that would receive a deadly wound from the barbarians and then recover as the Roman Catholic church, to change the times on the calendar to match the seasons.
Roman Catholics changed Bible laws to merge with paganism.
This was completely contrary to God's laws.
DEUTERONOMY 12:30 Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.
Good Friday became the date of Christ's death when He actually died on a Thursday.
The birth of Jesus was declared to be on 25 December. Pagan trees were cut down and decorated with gold and silver in Jeremiah Chapter 10. These became Christmas trees. But Jeremiah told us not to copy them.
Buying unscriptural "Christmas" presents became compulsory.
Babies were christened instead of adults being baptized.
Water baptism was changed from the name of Jesus Christ to the meaningless statement, "In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost". Because no Trinitarian knows what the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is.
Elders no longer ruled local congregations. A priest was in charge of a church. A bishop ruled a group of priests. Unscriptural archbishops, Cardinals, and Popes built up an unscriptural hierarchy of elevated men.
Salvation depended on church sacraments.
The unscriptural "Pope" claimed to be the successor of Peter. The Pope 1n 1302 claimed that you could only be saved if you were in subjection to the Pope.
The woman in the vision can also represent the Gentile church which gave birth to the Word of God during the beginning of the first church age by writing the New Testament.
Jesus is the Word of God.
Eight men wrote the New Testament and roundabout AD 100, just before he died, the apostle John was divinely inspired to approve the 27 Books that would officially form the New Testament.
The truth of this New Testament would be caught up to Heaven and kept there unaltered.
God would ensure that true copies of these 27 Books would be miraculously preserved despite all of Satan’s attempts to destroy or falsely translate them.
The church fled into the wilderness to survive Roman persecution when tens of millions of non-Catholics were murdered in the Dark Ages.
The Albigenses in Southern France were exterminated in a vicious twenty-year Crusade launched by Pope Innocent III in 1209. The Waldenses who lived nearby fled to the wilderness areas of the rugged Alps mountains in order to survive.
The two wings of the great eagle that helped those who survived were their dedication to their copies of the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The Pope ordered a Latin Vulgate Bible to be written which corrupted many texts and helped to hide the truth from millions during the Dark Ages.
57-0705 THE EAGLE IN HER NEST
Then we find out again, that the eagle had two great wings. And those wings were for deliverance. And they meant also, the New and Old Testament.
The Pilgrim Fathers from England eventually decided to escape the endless persecution in Europe by sailing over to North America. They landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620.
In America, they were safe from Catholic persecution.
Their persecution thus ended as they started a country without a king and a church without a Pope.
They could also start to build their faith in the Old and New Testaments, not on some church tradition nor on a corrupted Latin text.
Today there are over 100 different English translations of the Bible. So truth is getting lost.
But the original truth, that was written by the apostles was caught up to Heaven at the start of the church ages, for safe-keeping.
All Satan's attempts to destroy Bibles and wrongly translate them could not affect the truth in Heaven.
This original truth was eventually able to divinely inspire scholars between 1604 and 1769 to give us the perfect King James Version of the Bible.
When did this time of persecution start, that they were fleeing from?
The persecution lasted 1242 years and ended in 1620.
1620 – 1242 = 378
What significant events happened in AD 378?
A crucial battle was fought between the barbarian Goths and the Eastern Roman emperor Valens at Adrianople near the city of Constantinople. Valens was killed. The Romans were massacred.
Some historians claim that this battle began the final decline of the Western Roman empire.
This is the first mention of the Huns who fought with the Goths. The Huns, under their brutal leader Atilla, devastated the Roman empire which encouraged the other barbarians to invade and thus end the Roman empire.
The death of Valens in AD 378 saw Theodosius become the Roman emperor.
Influenced by the Roman Catholic church, Theodosius made Roman Catholicism the official religion of the Roman Empire and began persecuting pagans.
This soon extended to persecuting non-Catholic Christians.
The persecution of Christian dissenters by the official Roman Catholic church had begun.
An uncle of Theodosius called Damasus used his family connections to get promoted up through the church ranks. He was elected bishop of Rome in AD 366 after his thugs killed 137 followers of his rival Ursinus. A second massacre soon afterward saw 160 men and women followers of Ursinus killed in the basilica (big church) of Liberius in Rome.
In AD 380 the Roman emperor Theodosius called Pope Damasus “Pontiff”.
Theodosius wrote:
... the profession of that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria ... We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians.
The bishop of Rome, Damasus, elected thanks to two horrific massacres, was now called Pontiff.
Pontiff means High Priest of the Babylonian mysteries.
The brutal and mysterious mysteries of Babylon from the days of Nimrod the arch-rebel against God, were now established within the Catholic church, making her “Mystery Babylon the Great”.
Consider the following two quotes from a historian.
“The reign of Pope Damasus is notable as a reign of supreme terror as the Roman Christian Church rose to an all-encompassing power again against anything and anyone that stood in its way under the Theodosian Dynasty”.
“Damasus faced accusations of both murder and adultery during his years as Pope. There is also the small matter of an Imperial Trial before Emperor Gratian in 383 where virtually all his bishops signed a warrant against accusing him of the very worst of satanic crimes. He escaped the charges and had all his bishops murdered. But a year later himself was dead”.
The brutal Pontifex or Pontiff Damasus was elevated to be in charge of the Western churches by the murderous emperor Theodosius.
The Catholic religion of FEAR, TERROR, and MURDER had been born.
(Since 2012 the Pope has used @pontifex as his Twitter handle. That spirit has not died out).
By fleeing to America in 1620, the Protestant church could escape these brutal religious killings and flourish as America grew into the mightiest nation on earth.
The Bride goes up when Satan comes down to kill the church
Spiritually, America led the world after 1906. The two main movements were the Pentecostal revival that started in 1906 at 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles and the incredible ministry of William Branham between 1947-65 which saw him reveal the hidden mysteries of Scripture that the Protestant Reformers had missed.
These revelations were to prepare the Bride for the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus.
REVELATION 12:7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
The destiny of the church and the Jews approach each other at the Second Coming of the Lord.
In order to catch His Bride up to Heaven, Jesus must first kick Satan out of Heaven. Satan and his demons are allowed access into Heaven in order to accuse Christians of their sins. As the public Prosecutor, Satan is allowed his official place in Heaven.
:8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
:10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
Satan was kicked out of heaven at the beginning. Heaven had been his dwelling place when he first sinned.
2000 years ago, Jesus said that He saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven.
LUKE 10:18 And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
But for justice to be fair, Satan is allowed to accuse all the Christians who sin. This is the only part of heaven that he has access to. When Satan accuses us, then the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin. Then, if we repent, the blood of Jesus wipes away that sin.
REVELATION 1:5 Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
REVELATION 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
Down through the seven church ages Christians washed their sins clean in the shed blood of Jesus. This is especially true of the Dark Ages when Damasus the murderous Pope and the vicious Roman Catholic emperor Theodosius used military might to launch a trail of death and destruction on anyone who opposed the Catholic church. True Christians died in the tens of millions during the Dark Ages.
REVELATION 12:12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Two distinct events take place as Satan is cast out of Heaven as the accuser.
First, the Bride gets caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Jesus then takes the Bride to the Wedding Supper in Heaven for the next 3½ years.
The Bride rejoices in Heaven at the Feast where they eat.
The rest of the world mourn as they face the antichrist beast, and get eaten.
Secondly, the world gets plunged into the awful 3½ years of great Tribulation. This is the last short time period that Satan has to kill and destroy. He is going to make the most of it.
DANIEL 12:1 And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time:
55-0109 BEGINNING AND ENDING OF THE GENTILE DISPENSATION
Michael was Christ, of course,
Michael is Christ when He appears in the form of the Archangel to perform the resurrection of the New Testament saints.
Then Christ has to intervene as the archangel in the 3.5 years of great Tribulation to save the 144000 from the scary antichrist Pope.
REVELATION 12:13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.
When Satan, the dragon, comes down from Heaven then he has one main target, the Jewish believers.
The Jews rejected Jesus 2000 years ago and faded out with the destruction of their city Jerusalem and Temple in AD 70. More than a million Jews were killed.
When the awful Holocaust launched by the Nazis against the Jews in the Second World War killed 6 million Jews, this was a sign that God was turning back to the Jews.
The Holocaust was a preview of the main great Tribulation that is to come.
God saw the Holocaust as an “amateur Tribulation”.
63-0323 THE SIXTH SEAL
Now, listen to this. Now, it's what Jesus said in Matthew 29--24:29 and 30.
Immediately after the tribulation of those days. When this tribulation, this amateur tribulation they've went through here.
We can only guess how awful the real Tribulation will be.
REVELATION 12:14 And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
An eagle, with its amazing eyesight, symbolizes the spiritual insight of a prophet who reveals the mysteries of Scripture. The two wings represent the two prophets Moses and Elijah who prepare the 144000 Jews to receive Jesus as Messiah.
When America is destroyed then the Jews will be isolated from all the nations. In that spiritual wilderness, they will be hated by all nations. With the full military might of the final Pope who is the man of sin coming against them, the Jews will be helpless. But then the two prophets with their supernatural power to interrupt nature will step onto the scene and preserve Israel.
"The face of the serpent".
The long succession of Popes, which the Catholic church claims started with Peter, looks like a long serpent or snake.
All it lacks is its final head, the antichrist Pope.
The beast that was (there always was a Pope since they claim Peter as the first Pope) and is not (the Pope dies) and yet is (a new Pope is elected). They form the longest line of rulers in the world.
REVELATION 17:8 ...when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
Moses will have to confront the scary face of the serpent-of-Papal-Succession-from-Saint Peter, as the Catholics falsely claim. This will be the final antichrist Pope.
DANIEL 8:23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.
This man will terrify most people into obeying him.
For the first Exodus of the Jews from Egypt, Moses had to be trained to deal with a very scary snake.
EXODUS 4:2 And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod.
:3 And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it.
:4 And the LORD said unto Moses, Put forth thine hand, and take it by the tail. And he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand:
The final antichrist Pope was still about 3500 years in the future, so God told Moses not to deal with the face of that serpent.
The serpent was terrifying and Moses ran away but summoned up the courage to take it by the tail.
In the future great Tribulation, he will go face-to-face with the antichrist Pope.
The "tail" in this incident represents the "tale" or "story" that the Devil tells. It will not be something that is written in the King James Version of the Bible (KJV).
Anything that is not written in the KJV Bible is false and designed to deceive.
We can only follow the example of Moses and Jesus.
Take the statement (the tail or tale) and see if it agrees with, "It is written...."
If it is not written in the KJV Bible, then leave it alone. Run away from it like Moses did.
Satan relies on big numbers of people and a flood of fake news
The 2021 resistance to anti-COVID-19 vaccines is typical of the subversive mass media flood of error. Their weird tale of rather risking that you die now of the virus without being injected because that is better than maybe, perhaps, possibly suffering some future unknown problems from the vaccine.
The Pfizer vaccine uses a messenger (a fragment of the virus safely inside a tiny greasy ball called a lipid) that tells a cell to make a coronavirus spike protein. The messenger gets dismantled and destroyed within hours as this is always the fate of messengers. The bad spike protein that the cell was told to make immediately gets attacked by your antibodies which destroy the spike protein. The harmful messenger and spike protein are thus destroyed which leave you safe.
All that is left is the MEMORY of the spike protein. So if you get infected by a real virus, then your immune system knows how to make the antibodies that will destroy the real virus.
The messenger can only get into the outside liquid of the cell (the cytoplasm). Your DNA is inside the cell nucleus where the messenger cannot touch it. Thus your genetic code cannot be affected by the messenger.
Somehow church-goers, in their usual state of Bible-ignorance, and desperate for something dramatic, believed that the vaccine was the mark of the beast.
The mark in the forehead and hand became an injection in the shoulder. That is muddled thinking.
The mark of the beast is a number of a man. What man? Over 20 different vaccines seem to have been launched. No number nor no name can be linked to them all.
You Tube and Facebook are becoming the gates of hell as they flood the market with endless opinions and conspiracy theories. Church-goers waste so much time investigating all these fake claims that they do not have time to learn how to use brother Branham's quotes to reveal the deep mysteries of Scripture which alone can prepare us for the Second Coming.
REVELATION 12:15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.
Water speaks of doctrines and multitudes of people.
Satan works best with overwhelming numbers.
EPHESIANS 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
REVELATION 17:15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
A flood of corrupted Bible doctrines will be poured out onto the Jews by the organized church systems. An enormous host of people from many nations will oppose and attack them.
Satan wins by using a vast majority to overwhelm the Jews. His triumph seems certain.
REVELATION 12:16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
But now the supernatural occurs.
Literal earthquakes get spoken into existence and swallow up tanks and armies. The Jews are impressed and begin to listen to the Gospel truths that these prophets preach. If the prophets can use nature as a weapon, then they are far more advanced than their enemies.
“Let there be flies” says Moses. Billions of flies fill the air and choke the engines of the latest enemy jet fighters which crash spectacularly.
MATTHEW 21:21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.
Imagine if a huge armada of ships sails into the Mediterranean Sea to attack Israel. Moses speaks to a mountain.
Try to imagine the shock when a mountain in Israel is suddenly launched into the air and lands with incredible tidal waves in the midst of the warships.
If there are any survivors, nobody would believe them.
The remnant are the left-behind foolish virgins as the Bride leaves
REVELATION 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
The seed of the woman, Israel, is Jesus.
He is the Head of the body, and His body is the church.
EPHESIANS 5:23 … even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
The Bride of Christ is thus the spiritual seed of natural Israel. The New Testament church fulfills and reveals much of the hidden truths that were concealed in the Old Testament.
God laid out the pattern of His New Testament church. The material that He worked with was the believers of the New Testament during the seven church ages. Those who accepted the Bible truths for their day formed a specific pattern. The rest of the saved Christians of each age who were too slack or uninterested in the revealed truth of their day, were then the remnant of the material that was cut off. When a Bride plans her dress, she only cuts out the pattern that she wants (called the wise virgins). The rest of the material is good but does not fit the pattern.
These cut off bits are the remnant of the material.
They are called the foolish or fooled virgins. They never bothered to fit the pattern of truth that was revealed for their day.
The foolish virgins, the saved Christians who did not seek out the revealed truths in the last church age, become the target for the Devil’s insane attack. They will be ruthlessly destroyed.
REVELATION 13:15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
The man-made and world-wide organized religion of the Roman Catholic church represents the beast. The confederation of Protestant churches forms a religious man-made copy of the Catholic organization. This is the image of the beast.
The lifeblood of any organization is money.
Only America has enough money to build up a world-wide Protestant religious confederation of churches.
People are brainwashed into believing what their church says rather than what the Bible says.
In the time of great Tribulation, the Protestant image will speak with authority.
The church system will have the backing of the ten military dictators. If people do not listen and obey the church leaders, the military dictators will kill them.
Dictators rule as kings. They have a king’s power but wear no crowns.
They give their military power and strength to the final antichrist Pope. Their aim is to oppose God’s plan for the Jews and to destroy the foolish virgins who were saved before the Tribulation started.
REVELATION 17:12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
:13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.
:14 These shall make war with the Lamb
As emperor Theodosius was happy to persecute those who disagreed with the Roman Pope, so the ten military powers will destroy the foolish virgins who finally wake up to oppose the church systems.
None of these previously saved foolish virgins will survive the 3.5 years of great Tribulation. They die bravely. Their only regret will be that they did not have the courage to wake up earlier and oppose the church leaders who kept the churches fast asleep with their “feel good” motivational preaching and entertaining beat-music church worship. Drums are never mentioned in Scripture. God has no use for them.
Jesus had saved the foolish virgins back in the days before the 3.5 years of great Tribulation started when His blood was still on the mercy seat.
Their salvation thus depended on the testimony of Jesus, not on their own testimony. Works cannot save us.
REVELATION 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
But in the years of great Tribulation, the saved foolish virgins realized that their dedication to their churches and church leaders was all wrong, as it had led to them being in the 3.5 years of great Tribulation. The shock and horror of great Tribulation totally disillusions them with their church leaders.
They turn back to obeying the Bible instead of being church-goers.
But rejecting the false church system is also their death sentence.
However, they will have been rudely woken up and are then prepared to die for their faith.