Bob's Notes 7/21/19: The Role of the Unholy Trinity During the Tribulation - Satan (Part 1)

Post date: Jul 23, 2019 6:09:46 PM

1. The Role of the Unholy Trinity During the Tribulation - Satan

Review

For several weeks have been putting a prophetic puzzle together. The border is the 70 weeks of Daniel. We placed three pieces inside the borders thus far. The first piece was that the Tribulation period begins at the signing of the covenant with Israel that the anti-christ brokered. The second piece was the Day of Lord in which God will directly pour His’ wrath and judgements on the world. The third piece of the prophetic puzzle demonstrates that the Day of the Lord will not be present until three events occur – the apostacy, the Restrainer will be held back from preventing lawlessness, and the anti-christ being revealed to the world.

Introduction

The next piece of the puzzle concerns the members of the unholy trinity. Just like there is a Holy Trinity that exists of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, there is also an unholy trinity. It also can be called the pseudo trinity or counterfeit trinity. It consists of Satan as its father or leader figure, the antichrist who is of course the counterfeit to the true Messiah, and the false prophet who is the counterfeit to the Holy Spirit. We will begin with Satan.

A. Satan’s Role During the Tribulation Period (Revelation 12)

Even though we will be focusing on Satan’s role during the Tribulation, in Revelation 12 we will find several other key figures that also have significant roles during this intense period. The first one is seen in verses 1 & 2. Please keep in mind that the first six verses of Revelation 12, dealing with the woman and the red dragon, set the stage for the whole background of the Tribulation period.

The Woman (1-2)

12:1- Notice that John saw not just a sign but a great sign. A sign is something symbolic that points to some deeper spiritual significance connected with an event or object. After all, when God created the heavens, He designated the sun, the moon, and the stars to be signs and to have other functions as we see in Genesis

1:14, ^“Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;”

Even though this sign is seen in heaven, the reality of it plays out on the earth. To identify what the sun, the moon, the stars, and the women represent, let us go to Genesis 37:9-11 to see if we can get some clarity in identifying each of them. From Joseph’s second dream, we can ascertain that the sun represents Jacob and the moon represents Leah, Joseph’s mother and father. Even though Rachel was Joseph’s birth mother, she died and was buried near Bethlehem and could not bow down to Joseph. Leah, his step mother, is probably the one represented by the moon. Therefore, in both the dream and the sign, the sun represents Jacob and the moon represents Leah. What do you think the twelve stars represent in both the dream and the sign? They represent the twelve sons of Jacob for which the twelve tribes are named. So, what do you think the woman in the sign represents? The woman represents Israel. The woman cannot represent the church because the church did not give birth to the child who is the Messiah. As a matter of fact, the Messiah gave birth to the church. Also, the Messiah was born under the authority of the Mosaic Law and was a child of the Jewish nation, Israel. Whereas the church is the bride of the Messiah. Some think the woman represents Mary since she literally gave birth to the Messiah. However, as we shall see in the upcoming verses, the woman was persecuted by Satan and fled into the wilderness to escape this persecution and to be protected and taken care of by God for 1260 days. We don’t find in Scripture where Mary was personally persecuted by Satan or that she fled into the wilderness to be protected and taken care of by God for 1260 days. Therefore, the woman is not Mary.

As we look back to the woman being arrayed by the sun, the moon under her feet, and the twelve stars on the crown of her head, we should think to the purposes of the sun, moon, and stars that we read about a few minutes ago in Genesis 1. We have already focused on the fact that they are used for signs, but most people think of them just as bodies giving light during the day and the night. The woman’s dazzling and brilliant appearance with light from the sun, moon, and stars relates to Israel’s future glory in the Messianic Kingdom as we see in Isaiah 60:1-3, 20.

Again, as we look forward Israel will be blessed by God in the Messianic Kingdom when all of the promises made to her in the Abrahamic Covenant will be fulfilled. Satan on the other hand will be cursed by spending eternity in the Lake of fire with the anti-christ, the false prophet, and all those who rejected God in the OT and all those who rejected Jesus after His’ sacrificial death of the cross.

It also interesting that the ancient Jews thought the twelve signs of the zodiac represented the twelve tribes of Israel. The Talmud bares this out, as well as a ancient sixth century synagogue in the Galilee area near Mount Gilboa where Saul and his sons died. The name of the synagogue is Bet Alpha. It is one of the sites that we visit on our tours while in Israel. In this ancient synagogue is a mosaic tile floor that was excavated. Some of the prominent designs of the tile floor are the sun, the crescent moon, and the twelve signs of the zodiac. The Talmud and the tile floor in Bet Alpha synagogue also seem to support the view that the woman in Revelation 12 arrayed by the sun, the moon, and the stars represents the nation. Israel.

In verse two we find that the woman was pregnant and as many women here have experienced, she is undergoing tremendous pain in the throes of childbirth. Concerning the woman being Israel, she is seen many times in Scripture as a travailing woman. (Isaiah 26:17-18; Hosea 13:12-13) As a woman travails in child birth, so did the nation of Israel in preparation for the first coming of the Messiah. The cause of these pains at least in part was the persecution of the nation of Israel inspired by Satan throughout her history in an attempt to destroy the nation, therefore, stop the birth of the Messiah. As we move forward in this study, we will see that Satan until the very end of his demise will continue to try to destroy the people of Israel. So, the sign of the woman looks back into the history of Israel and the birth of the Messiah, as well as looking forward to the end of the Tribulation period.

The Red Dragon, Satan (3-4)

12:3-4 John now saw a second sign in heaven. Remember a sign is something that points to some deeper spiritual significance connected with an event or object. He says to behold or pay close attention to it because it is important. Again, it is a sign in heaven but it plays out on the earth. He sees a great red dragon. Who do you think this great red dragon? Yes, it is Satan. (Revelation 12:9) We usually call him Satan or the Devil. The name Satan means adversary and the name Devil means slanderer. He has many other names and titles that describe his’ evil character. In the Ryrie Study Bible near Revelation 12, Dr. Ryrie gives eighteen different names of Satan in Scripture. Don Stewart in an article on blueletterbible.com entitled, ‘What Are Some of the Different Titles of Satan,” gives twenty-six different titles for Satan.

This dragon is a large serpent. His being a large serpent shows that he is a very powerful creature that must be taken seriously. The red color of the dragon probably indicates he is a murderer and is responsible for much the bloodshed during the Tribulation Period. Suffice it to say for now, the heads and the horns represent the anti-christ who will be the leader of the Revived Roman Empire. We will talk more about the heads and the beasts during a later lesson concerning the Tribulation period.

The Serpent sweeping away a third of the stars with his tail probably represents the angels that fell with Satan when He tried to usurp the throne of God in Isaiah 14:12-14. Even though these verses refer to the future fall of the King of Babylon, most conservative Bible scholars believe there is a duel refence here – a future King of Babylon and Satan. Satan is called here the star of the morning or literally the shinning one of the morning. This event occurred in eternity past. Before the fall, Satan was anointed cherub which is the highest class of angels. He was God’s appointed leader of the angels. Because of his arrogance and rebellion, he was thrown out of heaven to the earth with the angels that followed him. The angels who fell with Satan are called evil angels or demons. These verses also show his and the demon’s fate and final place of residence. There is another set of verses that also have a double reference – the King of Tyre and Satan. (Ezekiel 28:12-19)

The dragon is seen in the sign awaiting the birth of the child for the purpose of destroying him as soon as He is born. Notice the word devour is used to describe his intention. This term is also used in 1 Peter 5:8 in association with one of his names. Satan takes every opportunity to hunt down and destroy his prey by devouring them.

The allusion to the circumstances of the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem is evident with the effort of King Herod to kill him. We are not sure whether King Herod wanted to kill Jesus because He was a threat concerning His being competition as King or because King Herod was an Edomite. Edomites were descendants of Esau who of course were enemies of Jacob or Israel. Regardless of the reason, Herod ordered the children two and under to be murdered in Bethlehem trying to kill Jesus. This reminded Matthew of what Jeremiah wrote in 31:15. Rachel was buried near Ramah when she died giving birth to Joseph. The road from Jerusalem to Babylonia goes through Ramah. Rachel in a metaphorical sense saw the men pass by her and mourned for them when they went to battle against the Babylonians and when they were carried off to Babylonia to live. Rachel represented the mourning mothers in Israel who lost sons either in battle or those being carried off to Babylonia. Matthew in 2:16–18 applied the Jeremiah circumstances to the circumstances in Bethlehem where Rachel now represents the mourning mothers who lost their sons to the debauchery of the Romans. Both the Babylonians and the Romans were foreign invaders and occupiers in Israel at two different time periods when Israel was in apostasy.

Even though Jesus and his parents fled to Egypt as God directed them to escape the murder of Jesus, a Roman governor 33 years later would have Jesus executed on a cross for claiming to be King of the Jews which He was perceived a threat to the Roman government in Israel.