The teaching returns to the sounding of the seventh trumpet in Revelation 11:15–19. The kingdoms of the world become the kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign into the ages of the ages. This places the scene at the close of the Millennial Kingdom, immediately before the Great White Throne judgment, rather than at the beginning of the Tribulation. The twenty-four elders worship, declaring that the nations were angry and the wrath has come (both past tense). The dead (spiritually dead unbelievers) will be judged according to their works. Prophets and saints of the Millennial Kingdom are rewarded, and those who destroy the earth are destroyed.
During the Millennium itself, judgment is immediate: the sheep-and-goat separation occurs at its start (Matthew 25:32), and those judged in the Kingdom are cast at once into Gehenna (the lake of fire). Unbelievers from before the Millennium appear at the Great White Throne. Christians are judged at the Bema Seat when the Church is caught up, prior to the Tribulation; their works are tested by fire, not judged for condemnation. The outpouring described in Joel 2 is not fulfilled at Pentecost; the signs in the heavens and the pouring out of the Spirit belong to the Millennial Kingdom after Israel is at rest.
Revelation 11:19 (the temple of God opened in heaven and the Ark of the Covenant seen, accompanied by lightnings, voices, thunders, earthquake, and great hail) belongs with the opening of chapter 12. Chapters and verses are not inspired; the break is artificial. The opened temple and Ark signal that God again begins to deal directly with Israel at the start of the Tribulation under the judgment portion of the Mosaic Law. No sacrifices are accepted; violation brings death. The first half of the Tribulation focuses predominantly on Israel (Jacob’s trouble); the second half focuses on the Gentiles while Israel is protected and purged in the wilderness.
Revelation 12 opens with a great sign in the heavens: a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and a garland of twelve stars on her head. She is in labor, crying out to give birth. The woman represents Israel (the twelve tribes), consistent with Joseph’s dream. A second sign of the same kind appears: a great fiery red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven diadems. The dragon is Satan. The seven heads and ten horns picture the progression of Gentile world powers, culminating in the resuscitated man of lawlessness (the eighth), who begins with ten kings and uproots three.
The dragon’s tail draws a third of the stars of heaven and throws them to the earth. These stars are spirit beings (angels); a third of them followed Lucifer and became demons. Lucifer, a created cherub (higher rank than angels), was perfect in beauty and wisdom, the anointed covering cherub in Eden (a precious-stone garden), and in the holy mountain of God’s government. Perversity was found in him; by opportunistic violence and merchandising he filled himself with violence and was cast out of the government. He has not yet been cast to the ground; that occurs at mid-Tribulation.
The dragon stands before the woman ready to give birth in order to devour her child as soon as it is born. Israel gives birth to a male Child who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron (Psalm 2:7–9). This Child is the Messiah, Jesus, a Jew—the Son of Man who came according to the flesh from Israel (Romans 9:4–5; John 4:9). He is God in the flesh. Satan first attempted to destroy Him through Herod’s slaughter of the male children two years old and under in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16), and later entered Judas to deliver Him to Gentile authority for crucifixion.
The Child is caught up to God and to His throne. This is the resurrection and exaltation of Christ to the right hand of the Father (Matthew 22:44; Acts 2:33; 5:31). He is the first human to enter the third heaven. Between verse 5 (the Child caught up) and verse 6 (the woman flees into the wilderness) lies more than two thousand years. The flight of the woman (Israel) into the wilderness occurs at mid-Tribulation, where she is nourished for 1,260 days.
Christ’s death is a sacrifice that sends sins away (forgiveness) and pays the ransom, releasing from the sin nature; it is not an atonement (covering) such as the blood of animals provided under the Law. He is now seated at the right hand, having received the promise of the Holy Spirit. The signs point to Israel bringing forth the Messiah and to Satan’s failed attempts to destroy Him through Gentile powers over which he currently rules. The narrative returns the reader to the beginning of the Tribulation while filling in the larger picture of Satan’s opposition to the promised Child.
