The Church has and has always had enemies. Ultimately, they are the same now, in principle, as they were originally; and the same being or beings have always been behind them. It is a good idea, then, to take a look at them before the ride.
This expression is clear: GIVING THE BIRTH TO A CHILD/CHILDREN IN ORDER TO BE SNATCHED TO HEAVEN.
Historically, Jesus was born an Israelite. Millions of boys have been born in Israel, but none besides Him (and Elijah) were snatched to Heaven. Mathematically, whoever says that this woman is Israel lies at least a million times.
Mary was from Adam's seed and, therefore, she could not cause Him to be snatched to God. The Gospel teaches us that His birth for Heaven was caused by the Spirit of God (Luke 1:35). From this, we can conclude that The Woman giving birth represents the Spirit of God. Now a question could arise: which Person from the Trinity is this Spirit? I believe it is the Spirit of God the Son. The Apostle John shows that God the Son is Seven Spirits + Christ Jesus (Revelation 5:6).
The Church began when men received the same spirituality that Jesus had from conception. In this sense they were newborn, as Jesus said to Nicodemus (John 3:5-7). This is the practical result of the Gospel.
As the rider on the White Horse is identified later in Revelation (as the Gospel first, and then as He -- see Revelation 19:11-16), so the Apostle John identifies this woman in the last verses of this chapter. The Woman's offspring is equal to those who RECEIVED THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS. Do the Israelis or others receive the testimony of Jesus? So it is safe to conclude that the offspring of The Woman in Revelation 12 is Christianity, Christians, and thus the Church.
Therefore, if someone wants to express the break in the Church during the Dark Ages by using this symbol, he should say that The Woman was not present in the Dark Ages -- that groups of newborn Christians did not exist during the Dark Ages.
The Dragon
"Then another sign appeared in Heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the Earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born." The enemy of Christ Jesus and the Church is Satan. If The Woman caused their birth, then Satan is the enemy of The Woman. Now, his power is in men having the authority to kill, and thus in those holding a sword.
Historically, King Herod was the first of these men of authority. He killed every newborn child in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16). Later, men also upholding the Law, and thus the Bible, joined with men holding the sword of authority. Romans and Jewish priests murdered Jesus Christ. They killed flesh inherited from Mary, but Jesus Christ possessed spirit from Heaven. Therefore, He arose and ascended to Heaven. Then those evil men persecuted The Woman's children. Still, she went on to other places, among the Gentiles in the Roman Empire, where the priests could not reach her.
A world power began to persecute the Church at approximately the time that the Emperor Nero ascended to the throne. Executions increased in A.D. 64, when fire destroyed Rome. Nero lavishly rebuilt the city, but rumor held that he had started the fire himself to make room for his new palace, and that he had recited poetry while watching the blaze. To avert this suspicion, Nero blamed the Christians for the fire, thus initiating the first major Roman persecution of Christians. The Dragon, as embodied in some Roman emperors, killed about 1.9 millions believers who belonged to Heaven.
Children cried when they saw a sword coming. So, we may see The Woman as being held in slavery, under strange lords. She is from God, and could not suffer in the Roman Empire any longer than God's Law affords. The longest period allowed is a period of the jubilee (Leviticus 25:10-15). This period is forty-nine years. In the tradition of Daniel's seventy, these should be year weeks, so 49 x 7 = 343 years. Marking from A.D. 64-65, this puts us in the year A.D. 407-408.
Some may claim that we should mark the year when the Emperor Constantine became tolerant, even in favor of Christianity. Still, he was the Emperor of the Roman Empire, although good to the Church. Constantine awarded religious freedom to all citizens in the year A.D. 311. He wrote in his edict that every god was entitled to be worshiped by his own people.
Later emperors sought allies among Christians instead of trying to kill them. They tried to use Christian theologies as tools for building and holding power in their empire, but their ruling staff started to crack. They tried to put their men into leading positions in the Early Church, and called the Church synods and led them. Some priests now began to persecute The Woman. For instance, they encouraged the Emperor Maximus to murder some Christians because of their different habits in the year A.D. 385. Their guilt was not that they were or were not Christians, but that they were different from other Christians. Augustine of Hippo, who retains a leading position in Christian theology, also lent authority to punishments for heretics, but deprecated the use of the death penalty.
The emperors had broken their staff. This whole process ended with the fall of the constitution of the Roman Empire (by the killing of Stilicho) in the year A.D. 408. We read earlier that in one month God "got rid of the three shepherds" (Zechariah 11:8), and for that time were many emperors:
A Day and a Year, According to Science.
A day is the time it takes for the Earth to rotate on its axis. A year is the time it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun (it is a "universe day" of the Earth). We may derive from this that where there is a citizenship on the Earth (Israelites), the time should be counted by Earthly days. However, the citizenship of Christians is also in Heaven (Philippians 3:20). So, they reside on the Earth in flesh, but in Heaven in spirit. Therefore, in heaven time should be counted by Earth's movement in the universe (by universe days of the Earth) -- by what in Earthly terminology is a year. If this is so, then 1,260 days for the world of Christianity means 1,260 Earth years.
The View from Israel
Israel left Egypt and also dwelt in the desert. They, as a nation, were lost there for forty years. This happened as a result of their failing to believe God at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. They did not want to fight for their new land. So the LORD told Moses: "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they" (Numbers 14:10-11).
If we stay with the first pronounced Words, then they were fulfilled after 1,260 years. Namely, Christ Jesus came into this world as the new Leader of God's nation, as the 'new Moses' of the new generation after such a period. He leads people into 'the Promised Land' -- that is, the New Earth and the New Heaven. And now the second generation of the Church, arisen after 1,260 years, will be snatched to God -- raptured.
The Day of Atonement
Every child born from The Woman receives also the atonement (Lord's blessing) for life. When God applies this atonement to her offspring, his or her relatives (society) also receive atonement (1 Corinthians 7:14). Yet for them, we would apply the timely covering as it existed in the Old Testament.
When The Woman left the world, her children werre not born in that society. If
no one applies the atonement for life, then a timely atonement for society does not exists.
And so, we would exist as we would in the times before she started to bear her children,
in the Old Testament, when no one made the atonement for life.
If no atonement occurred during those 1,260 days, then 1,260 of the Old
Testament's atonement are missing.
The Old Testament atonement was performed once in a year, on the tenth day of the seventh month (Leviticus 23:27). The atonement done on that day held for a year, then expired. Therefore, if the Day of Atonement atoned for a year, then 1,260 of those Days would atone people for 1260 years. If the world was without atonement for 1,260 years, then The Woman was outside the Christian world from the years 408-1668. If the atonement wants angels as well, then angels could not have been present on the Earth during those 1,260 years.
The Woman was cared for in a place prepared for her by God. This means she that was away from the Earth, out of the world. Some may believe that she went into Heaven, but I do not think so. Namely, God began the process of resurrecting a dead spirit on the Earth. The Woman caused this spirit to live. So, where this spirit dies, life arises again.
This spirit died in Adam's body on the Earth even in Eden (Genesis 2:17). Adam's flesh did not die on the day that ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The spirit that came from God (the Creator breathed life in his nostrils, and gave him eternal life) died. Yet I think that what comes from eternity, from Heaven, can neither disappear nor decay. If God said, "It will die," this means that it would no longer work actively among humans. So, saying that "this spirit sleeps" (as, say, conscience) could also fit the circumstances.
Adam's life in flesh continued for 930 years. If Adam did not accept other spirits from the Earth, and did not live in their desires, he was clean. Then, only this spirit in the sleeping form abode in him. So he had to sleep in the second world. Therefore, many people in the Old Testament slept (1 Samuel 28:15) because animals offered to God had made them clean. They had also the right of eternal life, which is first in the awakening of this spirit. So they needed our Woman.
God had to have a place prepared for these sleeping spirits (Genesis 4:11). Logically, this place should be somewhere on Earth, but hidden in the spiritual world. Therefore The Woman had to enter there also. As Jesus went among dead people to preach to them (1 Peter 3:19), so does she during this time. But she could not dwell among spirits where persecution might exist. I believe that those sleeping in God had a special place to stay.
The statement "There they may nourish her" means that she does not merely sleep herself, but actually lives there. If she lives, then the process of waking human spirits for Resurrection to eternal life continues there. Remember Nicodemus' question: "How can a man be born when he is old?" (John 3:4). The answer is that The Woman does not need our material substance or flesh for her job -- only our spiritual substance.
Logically, if the Creator's Law does not allow her to work under tribulation any longer, then God should take her from slavery and place her in a territory where she may continue her life in freedom. If this free society does not exist in the material world, then God should place her in the spiritual world of the Earth. Jesus Christ opened the door of Eden (Luke: 23:43), and so she brought them to life there. Because she was there for a long time, this may mean that many souls requiring her attention awaited her there.
WAR IN HEAVEN
"And there was war in Heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon, and the Dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in Heaven." When God called the archangel Michael into Heaven, The Woman lost his support. Michael is the Archangel for the Earth. When the Archangel with his place at the Throne in Heaven wanted to come to Daniel, he needed Michael's support (10: 5-13). When Michael left Earth, The Woman should have left also. When God took Michael from the Earth, He also had to take The Woman, and put her in some safe place. She went to "a place prepared for her by God."
If Michael is our prince (Daniel 10:21), then he is the lord of all God's angels who were sent to the Earth. If he and his army left the Earth, then God's presence on the Earth does not exist. God is Light, and therefore light was absent during that time. Historians call those years the Dark Ages.
Michael left Earth for the war in Heaven. The result was victory for God's side. If Michael is our prince, then we are part of this victory, or this victory is for our sake. What is our sake, our fate in relation to Heaven? Consider again that Jesus Christ, as the Resurrected Man, went there early; the answer, then, is in His words. "In my Father's house are many rooms. I am going there to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2-3). So now they complete this promise, these Words. (The Bible shows always the realization of promises.) Our Lord did not go to Heaven to build new houses but to expel Satan's angels from Heaven. To take a land, where myriads dwell, is possible through conquest -- through war. Therefore, a war occurred in Heaven during the Dark Ages.
This war was not an easy one, and therefore did not run just for a few years. It ran for centuries. God's "angels fought against the Dragon, and the Dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their places in Heaven." If this war ran for 1,260 years, then the victorious legions of God prepared abundant places there for His people to occupy.
The battlefield was in Heaven, and therefore strong Earthly powers -- as for instance, the Romans were -- did not exist in those years. No strong kings called people to wars -- popes did. In fact, it was the popes who decided who would be a strong king (the Holy Roman Emperors).
"Then I heard a loud voice in Heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down." Hallelujah! The authority of Jesus Christ has come, He has conquered, and now Christianity may be victorious. There will not be another 1.9 million Christians murdered. The suffering Church -- that is, the Early Church -- is no more.
The following words show the reward all believers received for their suffering: "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." As the Dragon killed Christ Jesus, and He went into Heaven to take the place which first belonged to Satan. Now, there are many dwelling places available in Heaven for believers. Therefore the words "our citizenship is in Heaven," reflect reality (Philippians 3:20).
"Therefore rejoice, you Heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the Earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short." Meanwhile, the world is going through a difficult period. The hardest period would have begun the moment Michael won a major battle. This main battle should have been against the leader's garrison of the Satanic army. They lost, which means our forces pushed them out from Heaven. Although they lost there, their evil powers were allowed full rein on Earth, since their restrainer, Michael, was not here. I expect that battles continued in Heaven until Heaven was cleansed of every Satanic power, from Satan to the lowest angel serving him.
Notice that some might argue that Satan was hurled down from Heaven at Christ's Resurrection. I think so also. At the very least, he was pushed of from the room where God's Throne sits, and thus away from the place where only Archangels may sit before their God. In any case, any servant of Satan is equivalent to Satan for us, and Heaven is huge.
It appears that the peak of Satanic power during Michael's absence occurred during the 14th century. The epidemic known as the Black Death killed about half the population of Europe in the early 1300s -- some seventy-five million people. As the wars in Heaven came to the end, more angels from Michael's Army were able to return to Earth. They restrained Satanic activities there, and a distinct historical period heralding the modern age, the Renaissance, came to fruition.
According to the words "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ," The Woman should have continued in her victorious life in the world, without persecution. However, could they not still persecute her, when angelic powers remained the same as they were during the Early Church? Nevertheless, the risk of her persecution remains. Would it not be better to make a new world, where her enemies would not reach her?
At the time, the Earthly power was in the hands of popes. The Roman authorities helped them acquire this power, but they were thieves; Roman emperors called themselves gods, and thus were thieves of God's authority. The popes swore falsely by saying their voice was the voice of Jesus, and therefore God's curse was able to enter their house, as it had entered the Roman Empire (Zechariah 5:2-4).
The Papal Teachings Needed To Be Shaken Up
Historically, the opportunity for anyone to come to know God's Word shone a light of beauty upon our world. Erasmus published the first New Testament in Greek in the year 1516. One year later, the first enlightened men emerged, and the Protestant Reformation began. Martin Luther began the reformation in Germany. He introduced his ideas in 1517; and the Church leaders did not kill him, as for instance they had Jan Hus earlier, because the noblemen and people would not allow it. In France, John Calvin began to preach according to the Bible at the same time as Luther.
The Roman Church accepted the religious situation in Europe, and thus we have different religious states emerging by about the year 1563. The new situation led the Catholic Church toward new directions in their politics. Some movements also existed inside the Catholic Church. Their first "reforming" pope was Paul III (1534-1549), who summoned the Vatican Council.
The historical council that shaped the destiny of modern Catholicism took place in 1545. Some new ideas were accepted into the Church as a result, and the process continued until 1563. The next Vatican Council took place in 1870, three hundred years later. Zechariah tells us in his holy Book that God disposed of three shepherds (Zechariah 11:7-9). It is interesting to note that the first council took place during the lives of three separate popes, on three occasions (1545-47, 1551-52 and 1562-63).
Many countries became Protestant during this period, and the numbers of individual Protestants increased inside the Catholic states. By about 1600, there were more Protestants than Catholics. In addition to internal state squabbles, the conflict between Catholics and Protestants was also international. A war between the allies of Germany and the Hapsburg clan, which ruled many of the royal houses of Europe, broke out. (The Hapsburg family also controlled the throne of the Holy Roman Emperor at that time). The war lasted for thirty years (1618-1648). When the unending battles had finally exhausted both sides, they signed a peace treaty that had begun with peace talks in Westphalia in 1644. This represented the largest, and first nonreligious, European Congress up to that point. This affair, as well as the war and the powers claimed by the states involved, is a measure of the secularization of Europe. We have something new indeed when the pope is sitting down with Protestants.
The religious English Civil War also occurred during this period, from 1642-1646. Later came "the Glorious Revolution," when in 1688 James II was excluded from the throne. The accession to the throne of his daughter Mary II and her Dutch Protestant husband, William III, defeated Catholicism there for good.
When the British made William and Mary joint sovereigns (1689), they acquiesced in a Declaration and BILL OF RIGHTS, which opened the road to a constitutional monarchy. This statement declared that the election of members of Parliament ought to be free; that freedom of speech and debate in Parliament ought not to be questioned in any court or other place; and that Parliament ought to be held frequently. It declared further "that the pretended power of suspending of laws or the execution of laws by regal authority without consent of the Parliament is illegal." I witness the shining light of God's Word in the Protestant Reformation, and in the proto-democracy of the English Bill of Rights, as a preparation period for The Woman to work again in the world that she had fled.
During this time, some people went further than the classical Reformation. They did not want to live just under the good teaching from the Bible, but wanted to be the "new creation" on the Earth. They looked for experiences with the Jesus Christ; they wanted His power to work in their life and communities as it had in the Early Church. Symbolically, they wanted The Woman to return. Groups bearing the marks of The Woman were founded in connection to Zwingli in a few places. Usually, the groups living under God's Word, and also knowing the revealed God in Jesus Christ, were formed in the Alps (north Italy, Switzerland, south Germany and Austria), or on islands like Great Britain. We can see in this as the place from where she is returning from God: from above, and from the world of souls (the sea). Only the frontier territories of society in Europe (islands and countries near the sea, and the Alps, as the highest mountains in central Europe) registered her presence at first.
The local governments forced these people to leave their homelands and travel from one country to another. They found places to live in countries where the Thirty Years' War had reduced the populations, and noblemen needed serfs to work the land. Therefore, the nobles protected them, and resisted driving them out from their territories for a long time. After traveling to Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia, these believers went further, to Poland and Russia, until they had the opportunity to go to America, where they are known mostly under the name "Mennonites." The roots of the Mennonites lie in the struggle of The Woman to return to our world.
This time The Woman is flying into the wilderness. The first time she left, The Woman went to the place prepared for her by God; but now she flies to a place on the Earth, where they will nourish her. Thus, she flies into a New World. The Apostle John does not say anything now about her being nourished by God. Thus, her own job -- to resurrect the spirits of believers -- gives her the sense to live herself. The New World allowed her to do her job.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered a New World, America, for Europeans to colonize. They based the first permanent English colony at Jamestown, Virginia in 1606. This gave The Woman a place to work. Roger Williams proclaimed complete religious freedom for his colony when he established Providence, Rhode Island in 1636. The conditions for giving birth to true freedom, religious and otherwise, existed from then on.
I understand that God had chosen this new land as the bastion for settling such power there. As dwellers in that land, the colonists would set up the Kingdom of God on the Earth. There is something similar to this in the Old Testament. God's people suffered very much in Egypt. God did not destroy the Egyptians to free His nation, but withdrew His children from slavery in that land. God took them into the desert, where they could worship Him and live a religious life according to God's Law without any intervention of other nations. Similarly, in the New World God also allowed His children to live in territories that were, at first, wilderness. Today in America, the United States stands as the world's leading country for religious freedom.
In connection to the water, John writes "Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent." First, we have to realize that the image of waters spewing from a mouth represents that he spoke wrongly against her. The Bible declares God's Words as the spring of life-giving waters (John 4 and 7). If God's Words are life-giving waters, then logically death-giving waters must also exist. If God's Words might give life, then some words, following Satan's mind, could also lead to death. Satan spewed false testimonies against saintly people everywhere, trying to harden people's hearts.
"But the Earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the Dragon had spewed out of his mouth." This means that the Earth caused the power of pope to be restricted. It swallowed their blasphemy against Jesus Christ's followers. It is true that Americans generally could not hear the blasphemies coming from Europe in the 16th-19th centuries, thanks to the wide ocean. The connection between the Old World and the New was a very weak, and a journey by ship took weeks. People received little news of events in Europe on the American continent. In any case, many people came to America to make their fortunes, and did not care for the politics and Churches in Europe. From this I conclude that the states persecuting The Woman did not have much of a chance to be victorious in the colonial wars and marine battles.
The Dragon was enraged, and went "to make war against the rest of her offspring -- those who obey God's commandment and hold to the testimony of Jesus." The rest of her offspring were those newborn in spirit who had stayed in Europe. For instance, the Moravians were formed in Bohemia. However, they could not exist under Hapsburg rule, and today the large communities of Moravian church are in South America rather than Moravia.
Those who obeyed God's commandments were the churches of the Protestant Reformation. When the Catholics launched the Counter-Reformation, the Jesuit order was its driving force. Jesuits put many lives into danger, and caused them great misfortune. During this time, other lords murdered many people because they owned and read the Bible.
One symbol for the first Christians was a fish. Jesus prepared His disciples to go into the world to catch 'fishes;' that is, to be "fishers of men." He performed only one huge miracle for the people's material needs after His Resurrection. The Bible says that Peter and the other disciples caught 153 large fish on His command (John 21:11): "Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn." The Apostles caught 153 big fish on His word. The Early Church "fished" with words that Jesus said in flesh, in His ministry before His death. However, the Resurrected Man was already in Heaven (John 20:17), so it is the Heavenly Man who speaks now (John 21:6).
They caught fish on the Lord's word, and so we should catch "fish," to acquire new people for Heaven on the Lord's Word. If this is His word, then is written down somewhere. The Words for the Early Church were the Gospels. They bring the message about Jesus' life according to God's Law and His word, as spoken by his Earthly lips. God wrote words to use to catch fish for the "later rain" in the Heavenly Book. These are the other Words of God that the Lord Jesus Christ has the power to fulfill. Therefore, we should connect the understanding of this miracle to the Heavenly Book. The Lord Jesus Christ breaks the Seals and opens the Scrolls, and so delivers God's words for those who serve Him.
The number (153) does not tell us how many people will be saved, because they are many and should not be enumerated (see the wrath of the Lord against Israel because David took the number of Israel and Judah -- 2 Samuel 24). If the fish do not directly represent fish, then perhaps they represent periods among caught fish. It took some time to finish counting, and the whole time of counting took 153 periods. The shortest period for people should be a year (the Day of Atonement for a year -- Hebrews 10:1).
In our case, the whole period of "fishing," when everything runs according to God's Word taken from the Heavenly Book, will last 153 years. Also, if you were to count all verses relating to the chronology of the Heavenly Book, you would find there are 153 verses (the last verse of Chapter 1, and chapters 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11). Chapter 4 shows the situation in Heaven before the Heavenly Book; Chapter 10 shows the finished Seventy, and together they number 22 verses.
This average number for the End Times is available also, if seven divides 153. (There were seven Apostles - John 21:2, and seven churches are mentioned in the Heavenly Book.) We may consider this also to be about 154 years, or simply more than 153 years, because the Lord had a fish on the fire (John 21:9). This last is just the Lord's, and so represents the Second Coming.
This agrees also with my revelation. As I observed the gathering in Heaven before the Throne, there I received the revelation that they were gathering in time twenty-two and something. My understanding is that the average period between breaking Seals is twenty-two years, but it differs; it is not always the same period. We already know their periods from the Chronology.
The Apostle John introduces The Woman "clothed with the sun." We may observe sunspots on the Sun. Because the polarity of sunspot groups reverses itself every eleven years, astronomers refer to a 22-year "solar cycle." This agrees with the common understanding of our times that changes in our world come in cycles of 22 years. Except that many Churches do not want to see this, although the number 22 is found everywhere in the Bible:
But we still need to resolve the term "a time, times, and half a time." On the Menorah, a scroll flower represents seven years (the last one = the last seven from Daniel). Therefore each Scroll (besides the central one) has three scroll flowers, representing 21 years. Because the central branch has four scroll flowers, that one represents a period of 28 years.
As has been discussed, the central one belongs to the Branch, and thus to the Lord. Also, He is the author of Revelation, and so has the right to use personal words, as every writer does. These are in the beginning and at the end of His Book. They total to 28 (19+9). Therefore, a time = 28 years.
"Time, times and half-time" is the literal translation of this passage from the
Greek New Testament.
There, it is written as
In English, 'Kai' means 'and.' The second word, 'kairoi,' is simply a plural of this word (times). Our plural is for all Scrolls, and so for the Heavenly Book. From the word 'hemisu', the prefix hemi- is taken (e.g., hemisphere). They spell this prefix in Latin as semi, with the same meaning as semi- in the English language. Therefore, we may say that we do not have to take this word to mean strictly 50%. We may also use it as a prefix to words such as semicircle or semicolon, when it means "not fully," or semi-private, when it means "incompletely" or "partly." So the proper translation should be:
time and times and 'semi'time. Therefore, we see that these are three different values, where none is strictly connected to the others. If this is so, then semitime represents the years for any scroll on the sides of the central branch. They exist due of Earthly influence (see Habakkuk's woes). Therefore, semitime = 21.
When we put these numbers together in our formula, we get: 28 + 153 + 21 = 202 years. Therefore, The Woman was in the New World for 202 years, so 202 more years must run until the opening of the Heavenly Book. We went through its chronology, and now are ready for its Climax. John describes the Climax in 202 verses. (Chapters 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 12 verses of the last chapter.)
The answer is "that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished." Therefore, after the war in Heaven, Michael's victory should last for a set number of years (28 + 153 + 21), then a period of holy crusade should run until the end of the Church and the occurrence of the Resurrection.
Activities of The Woman in the New World
God's purpose in this stage is to prepare people to evangelize to our world in the End Times. Groups of Baptists who do not receive baptism until they see the effects The Woman on themselves formed at the time of the Thirty Years War. Joseph Smith and Thomas Helwys (both Englishmen) formed the first Baptism congregation in 1609. In 1639, Roger Williams formed the first American Baptist congregation in Providence, Rhode Island. The Baptists grew rapidly in the United States. By the year 1666, four Baptist Churches existed in America.
Around 1652, George Fox called individuals to an inward experience with God. In colonial America, enclaves of Quakers existed in Rhode Island, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and western New Jersey.
The Moravians emerged one century before Luther, after the murder of Jan Hus. They called themselves the Brethren, but in performing their mission they were known, among the general populace, by the name of the place where their church was born. However, they could not remain there, and their last bishop, John Amos Comenius, died in 1670 in exile. The Moravians immigrated to South America in 1741.
The Methodists emerged later. John Wesley preached the Word in the second half of the eighteenth century in the territory of Great Britain, and Methodists came to the U.S. during Wesley's life.
Her Influence in the World
Since The Woman returned to the world, Light has come into our society. Universities, colleges and other schools have been founded, and have flourished. Manufacturing began to grow, new professions were created, and great achievements stimulated great societal progress in. Not only did peoples' minds become opened, but also the boundaries of the old world disappeared. People could sail to new continents. They could export their lifestyles to the barbarians, and learn about new things from other countries such as China or India.
The system of the Holy Roman Empire in Europe was practically ruined. During this period, The Hapsburg family sat on what was left of its throne, but the landlocked location of their capital city did not allow them to become a major player in the colonial wars on other continents. After the Spanish Branch of the Hapsburg family lost power, Austria became the bastion of the last so-called Holy Roman Emperors. They became weaker and weaker, and as such were forced to make significant reforms. Marie Theresa (1740-1780) and her son Joseph II (1780 -1790) became representatives of the Enlightenment there. Joseph II granted complete liberty of the press, and issued a toleration decree for Protestants. Modern society rose with the French Revolution (1789). The revolutionary idea of new constitutions for self-governing states spread all over the Western world.
These new "horses" needed new energy, and so people learned to harness the energy of wind, water and steam. Our society was on the verge of the Industrial Revolution by the end of this period. The societies of individual states also changed; new ideologies emerged, and people came together to form parties based on them. The global revolution in Europe had begun by the year 1848. Now weapons started to be used inside individual countries or states, or within unions of states. It appears that a huge spiritual power was moving both nations and groups in that year (1848). The process of creating the national constitutions was mostly completed in 1870, moving Europeans in the direction of "the Nation State." Citizens of these states decided who would rule them through elections; there would be no more dogma, no more monarchies. Where monarchies survived, they lost their absolute power, and were liberalized. The result of all these changes is that the "autumn" rain is about to flow; the evangelization of the world can begin.
In escaping the Dragon, The Woman fled overseas for the appointed time. They await her return from there. The last verse of the chapter confirms this, because it says: "I stood upon the sand of the sea." So, we wait for The Woman to arrive from overseas. Notice that some Bibles do not include this verse in Chapter 12, instead putting it with the first verse of the next chapter. Still, I believe these words should be in Chapter 12, because the issuing point to seven letters must be there.
We saw Herod as the first of the Dragon's men. He tried to use a sword to destroy the flesh of the Baby. Nero is, logically, the next of the Dragon's men. He was as insane as Herod and had great power over the world, and therefore was the Dragon's perfect tool against Christians.
A beast emerged from the sea.
A countless gathering of souls takes place in the
second world, which is what we call the place where the souls of dead people go.
Because they are without bodies and form, we see them as a mass of water. I believe that
the sea, as a symbol, fits them well. The gathering of spirits -- the spiritual substances of
believers before the Resurrection -- appears to John also as a sea, but as a clean and
transparent one belonging to God (Revelation 4:6).
Hence, the best tool of the Dragon is a man with power over the world, and open
for possession by the spirits of dead men. Historically, the beast was also Hitler, and
some men saw Nero in him. They derived this resemblance from Hitler's charisma in
speech. (Nero liked to orate; he considered himself to be the best artist of his time.)
Revelation also speaks to this: "one of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a
fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed."
A sea gathers waters from the Earth.
According to Revelation 17:15, the waters
are peoples, armies, nations and languages. Therefore, I suggest that saying the beast is a
man emerging from a mass of peoples is no significant violation of symbolic meaning.
He is just one man emerging from among many such peoples. He is a monarch, a
dictator; there is no democracy. My conclusion is that the Dragon requires regimes where
democracy does not exist. Therefore, totalitarian regimes are likely to become the tools
of the Dragon.
Historically, the Dragon used the Roman Empire against the Christians, and there were ten imperial Roman persecutions. These could be the ten horns of a Roman Empire (Revelation 13:1 and Zechariah 1:18-19). Then the popes established the Holy Roman Empire to serve as a tool for the interests of the Roman Church. This power's sword was used to destroy every group that wanted Jesus Christ as their lord. For instance, the Inquisition burned 400 people alive and killed 100,000 people in Lavour in one day, in A.D. 1211.
History shows us other powers unconnected to the Roman Church that wanted to be the superpowers of their eras. First came Napoleon Bonaparte, flying on the wings of the French Revolution. Then came Adolph Hitler, employing his concepts of fascism, and Stalin, using his concepts of Communism. Whom the End Times will use as the last tool of Dragon is not yet known. However, he should come to power after the Church ends, and thus after the Resurrection and the Rapture occur. Therefore I believe that Christians do not need to worry about him.
Once the Church has ended, the Dragon's activities will be directed only against the State of Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple. From the words, "The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months" could be derived an understanding that the world superpower will occupy Jerusalem for 3.5 years. This should occur, as we have already seen, during the second "woe" in the last Scroll (Revelation 11:2).
The first Bishop of Rome was Innocent I. He called himself "the ruler of the Church of God," announcing his election in his letter to Thessalonica (A.D. 402). Besides there being a ruler for world, there now existed a ruler for the Church also; and therefore The Woman had to leave that Church. For her, the Ruler is He who is in the invisible world; and thus the Church was not Christ's Church any longer, but only the popes' church.
Innocent worked with great energy against heretics and schisms, and pressed for the persecution of unyielding Christians. His "supreme official authority" dissolved many disputes, but led the way to establishing the Dark Ages. Many popes thought that they could control people's moral lives. They said: the Church has the power to get a man into Heaven and keep him out of Hell. They took this dogma from pagan religions, where some priests had unique power over evil spirits, and could give souls peace in the future world if people obeyed them.
It went so far that people from Catholic Church began selling papal indulgences: that is, salvation for money. The purpose of this practice was to gain as much money as possible from rich and sinful men. Anyone who was not blinded by the power of papal mysteries had to be able to see that there was a beast working from the pope's throne. The Lord Jesus Christ paid for our salvation with His own life -- and now the Church was asking people to pay money for salvation. This was so strange to Christianity that any who could read the Bible (a practice denied to all but a few) could see that the popes were acting as tools of the Devil -- as beasts. For instance, in Bohemia, Jan Hus and other priests preached against such evil deeds. The Catholic Church condemned Hus to death at the Council of Constance (1415), though the Holy Roman Emperor and Catholic authorities had promised him that he would be allowed to travel and appear safety, if he would just come and explain his teachings. The rulers of the Church claimed that they ruled by Christ's authority (like a lamb); but in reality, they used the powers and evil tactics of a Dragon.
When the Roman Empire fell, the papal seat looked for a strong king to serve as a champion for Catholicism. Pope John XII put a crown on the head of German king Otto in the year A.D. 962. He and subsequent popes blessed the swords (weapons) of their armies, especially those marching to kill any Light coming into the Church, and into that world.
The popes called for crusades to defeat the Light inside Christianity first. For instance, when Jan Hus was excommunicated and burned at the stake, the whole nation felt that they were deceived, and rebelled against the papal seat. Crusading armies invaded the Bohemian (Czech) kingdom three times, and never won. However, if groups looking the truth inside Catholicism did not exist at a particular time, the Catholics used their swords to try to spread papal power over the rest of the world. Crusades were initiated against those outside the Church.
Pope Innocent III could be seen to represent the beast from the Earth. This can be derived from such devilish acts as the Children's Crusade (1212), in which thousands of children perished from hunger and disease, while the rest ended up as slaves in Egypt. He also extended the crusade idea to the suppression of the Albigensians.
This Devil incarnate formulated his own theory of papal power, holding that secular rulers must be subject to the Pope, just as the body must be subject to the spirit. Innocent III was equally successful in developing claims of papal authority over other nations. In A.D. 1208, he placed England under an interdict until King John yielded to him. He also put France under interdict, because King Philip II divorced his wife. (Innocent liked to interfere in marriages, forcing people to marry or divorce as he chose.) In both countries, all church services were forbidden, including burials. Can any Homo sapiens consider this man to be a true Christian?
This beast enacted into the Roman Church's laws the doctrine of transubstantiation, during the four Lateran Councils in 1215. From that point on, Catholics celebrated this change. According them, the Eucharist represents the supernatural phenomenon of "Transubstantiation." The bread and wine are truly transformed into the body, blood, soul and divinity of the Lord, while retaining the appearance of bread and wine.
Some of today's seers (e.g., Julia Kim) also experience this change. So religious teachings about giving life to something already exist. They celebrate also the representation of the Eucharist as the presence of Jesus. Many testify that merely by looking at it, they have been healed or received some other blessing from Him. In approaching this image, some kneel; others fall on their faces.
The newest pope, Benedict XVI, has dedicated his pontificate to the Eucharist. He said in his first speech: "the Eucharist will be the center of World Youth Day ... also of the Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, whose theme will be: "The Eucharist, source and summit of the life and mission of the Church. I ask everyone in the coming months to intensify love and devotion for Jesus in the Eucharist." Is he not preparing a way for a new beast?
In John's description, a beast should appear at the end of time, when the restrainer will no longer be there to restrain his evil activities. John shows him performing "great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from Heaven to Earth in full view of menHe ordered inhabitants of the Earth to set up an image ...that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed." This historical beast, in relation to members of the Church, required mandatory annual confession to a priest. This was so the Church could learn of every spark of Light among the people, so that crusades would no longer be needed.
The Apostle John says: "He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name." Secret services do not need confession in order to collect information about their adversaries. Electronic communications allow them to eavesdrop. Some people have also suggested that we can now put a microchip under a person's skin in order to identify that person -- and maybe to eavesdrop too. "If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666."
If this is a man's number, then it could be his first and last name. "Nero Caesar" has the numerical value of 666 in Aramaic, John's native language. Yet if it is the number of an office that a man holds, then the pope's title -- Vicarius Filii Dei -- illustrates 666 with Roman numerals.
My Concluding Words to the Church
The Church entered the world, where Satan tried to destroy her using men with
sword, and through the Devil's practice of placing pagans and pagan rites within
Christianity. The Devil uses sinful popes to introduce faith in relics and prayers to dead
people (sainthood cults, where most saints have special feast days on which they are
commemorated). This climate of the Gospel continues until the opening of the Heavenly
Book. John describes the Devil's practices during the "autumn rain" in seven letters to the
churches.
The final appearance of the evil in both forms will result from the removal of
"restrainer" from the Earth until the Second Coming. Therefore, we will meet with them
again.
Historically, the papal seat did not have beasts, since Napoleon refused to carry a
sword for their sake. Therefore, the popes could not exercise the authority of the first
beast and make the Earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast.
Go to Climax of the Second Coming