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Murrieta Springs SDA Church

How to Encounter a Personal Relationship with God and Receive His Blessings

Eric Walsh

Stop Praying Blind

In Need of the Holy Spirit

Prophecy Update

Revival is Not for Sale

Hollywood’s War on Truth

Father God we thank you for this opportunity Lord to study your Word.

Lord once again I ask that you just make me a nail on the wall and upon that nail hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

As we discuss prophecy now Lord help us to understand its weight and importance and not generate fear but a hope and excitement that Our Savior is soon to return.

This is our prayer in Jesus's name, amen.

And so, we're gonna go to Revelation chapter 12, walk through Revelation chapter 12, and then really hit some current event issues related to prophecy.

Revelation chapter 12 gives a synopsis and an overview of the great controversy between Christ and Satan, and ultimately Christ, Satan, and Satan, and the church.

Revelation chapter 12 in verse 1 says, 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 12 stars.

And if you remember from Old Testament, there are many instances where God speaks of Israel as a woman.

We are said that the church is Christ's bride.

This would be before the birth of Christ.

Some would say it represents the 12 tribes.

Others would say it represents the 12 apostles.

What's important is that this is God's people.

And in verse 2 it says, and she being with child tried travailing in birth and pain to be delivered.

As God's people were moving through, especially the period in between the Old and New Testament, it became more and more difficult.

The failures of the northern kingdom of Israel blotted them out of existence.

The southern kingdom of Judah taken into captivity in Babylon when they finally came back under Ezra and Nehemiah's leadership to restore and rebuild they never quite got back to where they were and in fact they were under duress pretty much continually as ultimately the Hellenistic empire of the Greeks and then the Romans subjugated God's people.

In order for the Messiah to be born, all of these forces, these great political forces and empires would have to be dealt with by the people of God.

And in the passage of time, the people of God began to change and and 1 on the 1 hand There was paganism that swept in, but more what happened at the time when the Messiah was to be born is that legalism, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the way God's people saw God and his character changed so much that the world was on the brink of permanent darkness when Christ was born.

Verse 3, the Bible says, and there appeared another wonder in heaven and behold a great red dragon having 7 heads and 10 horns and 7 crowns upon his head and enter now the villain of the story the woman is there she's ready to have her child and the Bible now says that there was another wonder in heaven, a great red dragon having 7 heads and 10 horns and 7 crowns upon his head.

We may refer to this tomorrow in the afternoon session, But 1 of the things the devil has done is to try to get the idea and image of dragons to be something that everyone is friendly with.

In fact, they've made movies for children, How to Tame Your Dragon.

Let me tell you something, your dragon can't be tamed.

The dragon represents Satan himself, and in another sense, he doesn't just represent Satan.

Satan is ruling through, as we talked about the other night, on the first night, through Herod and his legacy and dynasty, through that individual.

Remember in Ezekiel, and in Isaiah, in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, when Satan is described, he's described in 1 place as the king of Tyre in another place as the king as the prince of Babylon it somehow He begins to take control of the leaders of these empires, and that's how Satan carries out his work, through men in power.

There appeared another wonder in heaven, a great red dragon.

Verse 4 says, "'And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and it cast them to the earth and the dragon stood before the woman which is ready to be delivered for to devour her child as soon as it was born." This verse carries over a lot of time.

The first part says that his tale drew a third part of the stars.

That represents that of all the angels in heaven, the stars now represent angels, we'll come back to that, 1 out of 1 out of every 3 of the angels sided with Satan in his rebellion in heaven.

That's why his tail, the dragon's tail, drags them.

And they were all cast down to the earth.

So the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

This prophecy is perfectly, or this statement I should say, is perfectly fulfilled when you look at the story of the birth of Christ in Bethlehem and how Herod wanted to wipe Jesus out so bad that he ends up wiping out all of those innocent children.

Verse 5, and she brought forth a man-child.

This is Jesus, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up unto God and to his throne.

So here the life of Christ is kind of encapsulated in this verse.

She gives birth to a man-child who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron, speaking to the fact that Christ would be Lord.

And it skips over to crucifixion, the resurrection, and just tells you that he ascended and went and sat on his throne.

He went to sit on the right hand of God, the scripture tells us.

And so the story really now is left, what happens to the woman?

This is how, see the Catholics will tell you that the woman in this verse, in this chapter is Mary.

But it can't really be Mary because this doesn't happen to Mary, verse 6 tells us, and the woman fled into the wilderness where she hath a place prepared of God that they should feed her there a thousand 203 score days.

The woman is taken, she flees into the wilderness and if you read books like the Great Controversy or Fox's Book of Martyrs And you read some of the history of the early church, groups like the Walden Seas and others that fled into remote places in order to survive.

The church changes after Constantine kind of pseudo-converts.

After he pseudo-converts and paganism and Christianity are mixed, those who decide to hold on to scripture must flee and they hide and they continue to carry on God's legacy.

And we're given a time period for this here of 1, 200 and 3 score days, 1, 260 day prophecy.

This is the dark ages, the time in which the Roman Catholic Church would have complete control.

Now, we're given that the church is in trouble, the church has to hide, that this other force would have control for 1260 years.

Verse 7 says this, and there was war in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not neither was their place found anymore in heaven.

The story kind of goes back a bit, but at the same time, it speaks to the time around the crucifixion.

To understand this, you have to understand that this is also speaking of the time around the crucifixion.

Michael, we believe is Adventist, is Christ.

And I think the Bible bears that out very clearly.

They fought against the dragon and the devil and his angels fought.

The Bible says in verse 9, and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceives the whole world.

He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

When this battle happened, the devil was cast out.

Now what you have to understand is that the devil is cast out in a sense twice.

Well the first time he's cast out of heaven, I'll show you that in a second, the second time he's cast down to the earth.

The first time he's cast out of heaven, before earth begins, Jesus says this of that time period, Luke 10 and verse 18, and he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.

These are the words of Jesus to his disciples.

His place was no more found and he was kicked out of heaven.

In fact, Peter says it like this, "'For if God speared not the angels that sinned, "'but cast them down to hell and delivered them "'into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment, "'they were cast out of heaven, they were thrown down.'" Let me tell you something, We're gonna talk about Hollywood tomorrow afternoon, but this is why when you watch, when the kids watch some of these Marvel movies and in the story of Thor, 1 of the God of thunder in the Marvel Universe and in ancient Norse mythology.

In the movie, it is Thor who is cast out of heaven and Loki, the god of mischief, is the 1 who stays in heaven.

If you are a child and you understand this and then you read the Bible, who's the 1 who stays in heaven?

But isn't it interesting in the Marvel universe, it's actually the God of mischief who stays in heaven with Odin?

And it's Thor, the good guy who's cast to earth?

This is the Luciferian doctrine that is being taught to children and many parents have no idea that this is what their children are being taught.

The devil takes the great controversy and he wants to flip it on its head and he uses the lies of Hollywood to do this.

But what the Bible says is that the devil was first cast out, then he was cast down to the earth.

He was cast down to the earth when Jesus died on the cross and came out of the grave.

You see, before Jesus died on the cross, the devil had access to heaven.

This is why in the book of Job, it says that when the sons of God came before God, it says Satan came, Lucifer came with them, the devil came with them, and the Bible actually tells us God has a conversation with him in the book of Job and he says where have you been and the devil says I have been walking to and fro in the earth.

He still had access to heaven, he was there accusing the brethren, he does it to Job.

But at the cross when the universe saw the end result of his rebellion is that he would take the perfect Lamb of God, that Satan who was in human form in the crowd, his demons in human form in the crowd also yelling crucify him, crucify him when the unfallen worlds and unfallen angels saw that Lucifer would so cruelly treat the innocent Lamb of God.

For the universe it was clear what the devil's character is and how pure and perfect the character of Christ is.

And at that moment he lost forever any access, permanent access, as he had in the book of Job to heaven.

Revelation 12 and verse 10 says this, and I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now has 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 until the cross and the resurrection when Jesus came out of the grave and he had the keys to death and hell Satan was in heaven accusing us day and night before God.

Church, let me let you in on a very important spiritual secret.

He can't get to heaven and accuse us the way he used to.

1 of the things the devil would do in these last days is he will come and as they, when I used to work in addiction medicine, the recovering drug addicts had a great line.

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How to Encounter a Personal Relationship with God and Receive His Blessings

Prophecy Update

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