The Revelation 12:1 | Episode # 1078

November 26, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

The Revelation 12:1

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years.

I'm also a practicing attorney.

This podcast is designed to help you.

Study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today,

in Jesus name.

And for me,

it's an important chapter because it describes.

It describes the history of Satan and his.

His work as the adversary. Okay,

and, and, and when I say history,

remember I told you that when we go through sections of the Book of the Revelation,

the sections encompass a time period,

but you can take those time.

Just like if you had a, you know, a timeline, you could take those time periods and place them,

certain places, and obviously they would overlap. Okay, well,

this chapter.

This chapter starts before man was made.

Okay.

This chapter. Meaning. Meaning the things that are described in this chapter happened before man was created. Okay? And then they take us all the way to the end.

So, so,

so you're saying. What are you saying, Pastor? What I'm saying is, is that this chapter,

especially the first part of the chapter,

deals with not only Satan's work in the end times, but it gives us insight into aspects of who and what he's done since the very beginning. And so when we're reading it,

he's going to mention things and allude back to things that have happened in the past.

So as far as telling this story,

John is not telling it in a Western style, meaning he starts with this and goes all the way to the end.

He's telling it very Easternly,

which means he gives you snippets of how things are, and then as you read it, you can put it together in your mind. Okay? And that's an Eastern way of.

Of describing things. It's an Eastern way of writing. And if you'll notice now that we have the ability to translate languages,

translate things,

you don't really see a lot of books from the east meaning from Eastern authors. And the reason you don't is. Is because the way they're written doesn't naturally fit your Western mind.

Okay. It doesn't fit the way you think, because we like for our stories to be told from beginning to end. And you go, well, why does John do that? And can you prove that that's what John's doing?

Yeah, I can prove it. You know how I can prove it? The Book of John,

the actual Gospel of John.

If you'll notice, it's snippets.

The Gospel of John does not start with his birth and end with its death. The Gospel of John gives us stories in his life,

and the stories have a purpose and a meaning. They're.

Those stories are painting a picture of who Jesus is.

And John says, you know, I could tell,

you know, story after story after story.

And he supposes, you know, all that God does, that work would fill the whole earth. He's saying, jesus did so much.

It's no way for me to tell you everything that Jesus did.

I'm just gonna give you these stories and I'm going to tell you what, why Jesus came by using the story method. But I'm not going to put them in order.

I'm not telling you that this happened and this happened, this happened. And so as you're reading it, that's what you get. Now if you read Mark,

Mark's written by just a good old boy, right?

Fisherman. And Mark says, and this happened and this happened, and this happened and this happened. And it's very.

It's just very basic and to the point.

John's not. And then Luke writes a history in order. It's very Eastern,

but it's very beautiful in its language and it is less choppy,

okay? So when we read Revelation, chapter 12, and we're reading John, we understand that he thinks in an Eastern style, okay? And so when he's telling this story, we need to stop and just kind of think about what he's telling us.

Each and every time it comes up, it says, now a great sign appeared in heaven. Chapter 12, verse 1.

So this. He's saying what. What I'm. What I'm describing right now. He's saying what I'm describing right now is a great sign. It's a. It's a.

Of humanity.

Okay?

And. And so he's. He's giving you his. He's saying, I'm seeing a vision, but I want you to get the vision to mean it's not just a sign or a wonder or.

He's given me some insight into the future about what's going to happen.

He's saying this is a great sign, meaning it's a sign that's overarching in human history.

Okay? It's a sign that is important for all Times and for all seasons. He says,

I saw a great sign appear in heaven.

A woman clothed in the sun,

with the moon under her feet,

and on her head a Garland of 12 stars.

Now, a lot of your great Revelation authors will tell you that. That in order to understand scripture,

this and especially the book of Revelation, you got to get this person right.

Okay? All right? You got to understand who this person is.

Now, I would say that, too.

I would say. I would say if you don't understand the creation and the fall in Genesis and the progression through Genesis of what God's shown us all the way through, if you don't understand that,

then you really don't understand completely what Jesus is doing.

Does that make sense to you? So you need to. You need to get what Jesus is doing.

You need to get what Jesus is doing as you read it in light of Genesis 1:1,

all the way to the end.

All right?

Now,

understanding that teaches us that.

That we need to understand what caused the fall and what caused earth to become a place where God had to fix things.

Okay? Because if you read Genesis 1, Genesis 11 says in beginning. Notice I removed the. Because the article. These not there in beginning.

God created the heavens and the earth.

That's verse one.

Verse two says,

and the heavens and the earth became formless and void,

meaning it didn't have a form to it.

All right?

Psalms and Isaiah tell us that God did not create the heavens and the earth without form and void,

meaning he didn't make it that way.

It says it. And the heavens and the earth and the earth became.

Not the heavens, the earth became formless and void.

And then it says that the Spirit of God hovered over the deep, over the waters.

All right?

And then it says,

and God said,

Verse 3,

Let there be light.

Okay? And that's God stepping back into his creation and fixing whatever caused it to become formless and void,

okay?

Because God is light. And in his initial creation of the universe,

he made it with light,

but it came. The earth became formless and void or empty.

Do y' all understand that?

All right? Something caused that.

Something caused that to happen.

And we know that because it says it became.

It didn't start that way.

All right?

The woman here is clothed with the sun,

which means she's bright, radiant light,

okay?

And with the moon under her feet, which means that she was made.

She was made to have power over that which was created.

All right?

Now, in the Bible,

especially in the Old Testament, when you're reading.

When you're reading the. Reading the Old Testament, There are three women that are mentioned.

Okay? Three types of women. Three. Three types. These are pictures for you. Now, one of them has a sub. Subcategories, okay?

All right. The first woman that's pictured in the Bible is an older woman.

And when I say older, meaning she's had a child,

okay? Now, she may be grandmotherly, she may be motherly, but she's got a child and she's virtuous. Okay?

That is always a picture of Israel.

Okay? It's always a picture of Israel. It's also a picture of the Old Testament.

Okay?

All right, so whenever you see a woman who has given birth to a child and she is motherly or grandmotherly,

that's a picture of.

That's a picture of. Of.

Of Israel.

Then you have the woman who is.

Who. Who is the. The harlot,

okay?

And that's always a picture of false religion in the world or paganism.

Okay? Now you need to get this. It's a picture of false religion,

meaning a religion that's other than God. And she is tempting humanity to worship other gods other than the one true God.

Okay?

All right.

Now,

interestingly enough,

the third woman is a woman that can be completely beautiful and virtuous,

or she can be not so virtuous,

and yet through her relationship with a husband,

can become virtuous.

And she's a picture of the bride or the church.

Okay?

All right. And so even in scripture, you might have,

say,

the woman that you're studying, the women's Bible study is studying right now.

Okay,

what does she start out as?

Who y' all studying?

Rahab? She starts out as a what?

As a harlot.

But she's transitioned into a bride,

and eventually she becomes one of the great, great great grandmothers of Christ.

Okay,

so this woman can be virtuous at the beginning or can be.

She can be even a harlot, meaning a picture of false religion. And. And she becomes virtuous through her relationship with the bridegroom. Okay, all right,

now that's a picture of the church.

Okay?

So Rahab is a picture of the church.

Ruth.

Picture of the church. Rahab.

She's a gentile,

Ruth.

Gentile.

Okay.

All right.

Those are pictures of the church.

Now, when we get to this woman,

there's some things that are about her that are important.

Well, first of all, we see that she is wrapped in the sun,

okay? Her clothing are bright like the sun, which is a picture of being holy. Okay? She's clothed,

which is a picture of covering of sin, and she is holy.

Okay?

In fact, she's holy in that she's wrapped in radiant light and her feet are on the moon, or her feet are on God's creation, meaning she has authority over it.

Okay? If you remember, what did God say to Joshua as he entered in the promised land?

I give you. Everywhere you place your.

Your feet, so if you step here, then I give you authority over it.

Well, he's saying that she has authority over the moon, which is a picture of her being on the Earth, and yet she has authority beyond the earth into all of God's creation.

Now, you got to get that, because that's real important.

You have authority over everything you take.

And we as the church that have authority over all of God's creation,

not just the earth, not just this solar system,

not just this galaxy,

okay? We have authority over everything.

All right? This woman,

she. She has the moon under her feet and on her head, a Garland of 12 stars.

Now, I'm just telling you as I read this, it's just not even. It's not even questionable to me. I don't have to. I mean, I don't. It's not even like I don't read it and go, oh, I wonder who it is.

12 always means what?

Israel. It always means Israel. It's 12 tribes of Israel, okay? It's always Israel. I mean, every time there's sometimes in the Bible,

like the number two, it can be either a faithful witness or division.

But. And somebody asked me to give them those numbers and everything like that and all those.

All those illustrations. Anyway, I've got a.

I did something like that a while back. I'll try to get it to you.

All right?

Now, understanding that.

Who is this woman?

She's Israel,

okay?

She's Israel.

She is.

She is the Old Testament body of believers who are the Jewish people.

Okay?

It's very important that we get this, by the way,

because of how the church started and because of what happened with the Jewish Christians being persecuted by the Jews in Jerusalem and those who did not turn to Christ all throughout where the gospel was spread, throughout Africa,

throughout the Middle east, throughout Mesopotamia, on into Europe,

on over into India,

because they were. Because they were persecuted by the Jews.

The Christian Jews were persecuted by the religious Jews because that happened. There's always been animosity between the church and the Jewish people.

Okay?

Now I want you to hear me that. That's not biblical,

okay?

That animosity is not. Paul said he would rather if all Israel would be saved, he would rather be damned than all Israel be saved.

Okay. And nobody persecuted the church more than Paul. And nobody got persecuted by the Jews more than Paul.

Okay.

So understanding that oftentimes you'll get little strains of things. And I'm trying to. Every time I. And remember, we're.

We're a non denominational church, I try to give you insight so that you don't get dragged off because there's these teachings out there that are crazy and are unbiblical. There's a teaching that we are the modern day Jews.

Okay? We're not that.

Okay. We're the church, they're the Jews.

Okay. Now can you be a Jewish person and become the church?

Yeah, absolutely you can. But the church and how God is dealt with the Jews in the past and has a plan for them in the future is separate from way he's going to deal with the church.

Okay,

so you're not.

You're engrafted in.

But.

And there's a Jewish aspect to who you are and your Lord is a Jew.

Okay, but we're not the Old Testament Jews.

Okay.

That's important.

You go. Well,

that makes sense. All right. There is a strain of Christianity that wants to teach that the Jews are to be killed because they have nothing to do with Christ and they're an enemy of Christ.

Are y' all following me?

That's heresy too.

Okay,

so there's some Christians that want to be the Jews and then there's other Christians that want to kill the Jews.

Both wrong.

Just trying to lay that out for you. If you believe either one of those,

that's unbiblical.

If you're listening to somebody teaching that,

that's heresy. Get away from it. Okay? It's like a pot boiling.

Okay?

Don't put your hand in the water.

Stay away from it.

It's heresy.

Are you listening to me? I try to tell you stuff that is heresy. That's heresy. That's clearly unscriptural and it's been denounced by the church for eons past.

Okay? All right. So this woman is,

is, is Israel.

As you go today, I pray that.

The Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus.