Revelation 12:4: “And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.”

“and did cast them to the earth:”

They’re going to be cast down from the second heaven where the stars are right down to the earth.

and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered,”

This dragon was about to swallow up Israel.

for to devour her child as soon as it was born.”

As soon as the child is born from this woman, Satan wants to devour it.

This woman with child is not referring to a sign up in heaven that a lot of people made a big deal about dating the rapture. This is not referring to some cosmos meeting with another planet and that this is the heavenly sign for the rapture.  The verse says that Satan, the dragon is devouring this child. This is a literal application where Satan tries to devour, eat up, this child.

So how is he devouring this child?

Who is this child?

Here are some interesting points about who this child may be.

The standard traditional teaching is that this could be referring to Jesus. Why? Because if you keep reading at verse 5, it says that “And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron:

Notice that this woman who brought forth this child was to rule the whole world with a rod of iron. Who’s the one who will rule with the rod of iron at Psalms 2 and Revelation? That’s Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the being who will take over this earth, so the elites can grab more of this earth if they want to.

You might say ‘Why are you doing that, pastor? We got to fight.’ You’re not going to fight it, the Antichrist has to rule. That has to happen and you’re not going to stop it. Do you know who’s going to stop it? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ gets the full glory, conquers all of this earth, takes away the Satanic system from the elites, and claims it for Himself. He’s going to do that, there’s nothing you can do about it.

What you need to do is what Jesus instructed you, you need to be crafty to survive on this earth, to keep getting souls saved, and keep building up ministry so that people can hear about Bible-believing truth. They’re not going to hear it if you shut down your ministry, so that’s what we got to be doing in the meantime.

So this is referring to possibility number 1: Jesus. That’s the traditional teaching and yes, Satan tried to devour Jesus Christ when He was a child. What happened when He was a child? Herod tried to kill, try to make sure that Jesus Christ was non-existent so he did one of the most brutal things you’ll ever hear throughout history. He killed all the newborns up to two years old. That was brutal.

Possibility number two is that this is a manchild to rule all nations with the rod of iron. Notice here that this child is from the woman, and the woman is Israel. So it’s like a subset category from Israel, that’s the idea. Jesus was not born from this woman at the book of Revelation, this happened all the way at the past. We’re open to this interpretation because Revelation 12, the verse is in past tense: she already gave birth to this man child in the past and it is true that He did ascend up into glory after He died, buried and resurrected. So that’s why this seems pretty obvious to a lot of first time Bible readers that the first person candidate they’ll be thinking about is Jesus and that’s why that’s the standard traditional teaching. But because this is in the book of Revelation, we also have to think about the context in the timeline that it could be future, not past. If you think about a subset category that’s from Israel that you can find in the book of Revelation, there’s only one subset category or group that you can think that comes out of Israel, and that’s the 144,000.

Revelation 2:26-27: And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.

Remember that doctrinally, the time period that we see is the tribulation timeline. This is a tribulation reference about overcoming and keeping their works. So when Jesus Christ rules over all this world, it’s not just Him but also to any person during the tribulation timeline.

Now let me give you a deeper one than that: remember Satan was ready to devour the child when it was to be born? We were thinking at the previous interpretation that it was referring to Herod annihilating all those little babies, up to two years old, here.

Let’s assume Revelation 12:4-5 was referring to this 144,000 and then devouring the child is referring to Herod killing all those newborns and two years olds, then it’s possible (pastor thinks that this might need more validation but we look at all sides first unless it has been disproved by the scripture) that the 144,000 who come out at the tribulation are referring to these two years old and under from Herod’s time who were annihilated from Herod. Because the context here is that this dragon was ready to devour the child, so the 144,000 fits.

That’s a teaching that’s been going around online that’s been pretty interesting and new to a lot of people. In Revelation, we want to find the right interpretation., that’s why we have to cover all sides here and because this is a deep doctrinal book, you can’t say that this is right and this is wrong with deep doctrine. You got to be open to all sides and then see which one makes the most sense. Even when you find one that makes the most sense, you probably won’t be able to disprove the other theories and possibilities, so that’s why it’s always best to just leave it open.

There’s this other possibility when we’re trying to follow this context of when the baby is ready to be delivered, Satan is to devour her child. So if it’s not Herod’s time period, then it could be referring to a future time period. This could be referring when the Antichrist slays a lot of the Jews, he could be also trying to kill and devour these 144,000. The verse says ‘devour’, it means like eating right. How does the Antichrist execute people during the tribulation? It’s by beheading, but beheading is part of human eating sacrifices so it could be referring to that time period too.

Here’s another possibility: David. The wording right here has to do with ruling the nations, and there’s referring to Jesus Christ or it could be referring to the tribulation saints. We’ve seen why that’s possible. If that language is referring to Jesus Christ ruling all the nations etc, think about one of the people who’s a great type of Jesus Christ, it’s David. Here’s another interesting thing concerning king David. King David who’s also a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. He will, like Jesus Christ, literally rule as king of Israel again. That’s why when Jesus the Messiah came, a lot of people said this about the Messiah ‘Has he restored the kingdom as our father David?’

God’s ideal kingdom at the Millennium is patterned after David’s kingdom. It should have been Solomon, Solomon was the wealthiest, most powerful out of all kingdoms in Israel but no, because Solomon messed up, God saw David as the pattern. Why do they use that word ‘David’ for a future time period of a kingdom? Because David will literally rule.

Ezekiel 34:23-25: “And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the LORD have spoken it. And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.”

Jesus is called the great shepherd. Now look at how much language referring to Jesus Christ can also refer to David.
And I will make with them a covenant of peace,” Who’s the guy who wants to take over the nation of Israel and claims that he’s all for peace and makes a covenant with them? The Antichrist. The Jews will say ‘This is the person of David that we’re looking for’ but no, that’s the Antichrist. The Antichrist is an imitator of Jesus Christ, he’s going to imitate the ideal king David that the Jews are looking for.

That’s why it’s very possible that it could be referring to David here because if the woman is Israel, it is true David is that man child that is born from this woman, Israel.

What does this mean then? The full interpretation could go this way: “and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.” As soon as David was born, Satan wanted to devour and destroy David. Throughout David’s whole lifetime, he was persecuted and devoured by Satan. But the only weakness is that the verse says “as soon as it was born”. Maybe it did happen at David’s past life but the Bible doesn’t record it, so we don’t know about that.

Revelation 12:5: “And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.”

Let’s say that’s David. So Israel brought forth David. Notice that David goes up to heaven. Why? Because if this is referring to a future time period. Remember in Revelation 10 about the mystery identity of this being, that this could be referring to the person at Revelation 12. So it could be referring to David, the same person who is this savior, this superhero that’s going to show up at the tribulation. So David can show up in the middle of the tribulation. Imagine all the action there, you got 144,000, the two witnesses Moses and Elijah, and then this savior that the Jews were waiting for and this guy could be David.

Imagine that you got the 13 bloodlines of the Illuminati which consists of the 10 families and the Satanic Trinity (false prophet, Antichrist and Satan), the great whore of Babylon at Revelation 17 and 18, the Roman Catholic system, and you got the ten world powers which include America, Russia and England. That’s going to be a lot of action. How was David’s kingdom built? He was known as a person who built up the kingdom and paved the way for Solomon, so you need a person like David to do something big.

Back to the main text, earlier we mentioned that the weakness is that there is no record that as soon as David was born, the dragon, Satan, immediately attacked him. But what this could be referring to is that, it was born not from a woman, but from Israel. As soon as David was anointed king, born to be Israel’s king, we do know that Satan tried to immediately attack him. So that’s another possibility.

The last possibility is that we do not know who this person is, all we know is that there is some kind of hero that they’re waiting for, so this is referring to some hero that they’re looking for. Whoever this hero is, God’s going to raise this hero up, who’s going to be similar like David, like Jesus Christ, and this hero is going to come out and defend for the nation of Israel.

Revelation 12:5: “And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.”

and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.”

So the explanation for all these potential people that we’ve discussed. We can understand what that means for Jesus, caught up to heaven and to His throne because that did happen to Jesus. But what about the remaining three? Why does it happen to these three? Because there is a rapture in the tribulation.

If these are the people who got raptured, there’s someone left behind. There’s still this woman left over, that’s persecuted by the dragon. You’ll notice at Revelation 12:5, as soon as the child (assuming that it’s any one of the earlier possibilities) got raptured to heaven, notice it says at verse 6:

Revelation 12:6: “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.”

And the woman fled into the wilderness,”

She’s being persecuted by Satan, the dragon. What this could mean is that as soon as these people are raptured to heaven, there are still the remnant Jews who are persecuted by the Antichrist.

Is that possible? Yeah, this explains a lot of wrong doctrine that you hear. You hear so many rapture doctrine: one’s before the tribulation, one’s in the middle of the tribulation, one’s after the tribulation, one’s partial rapture where if you’re worthy enough then you can be raptured to heaven and if you’re not worthy enough, you’d be left behind.

There’s another doctrine that says as long as you believe in Jesus Christ, you’ll be raptured no matter what. Which one is which? You’d be surprised that all of them are true but they’re just not rightly divided. What does dispensationalism mean? You rightly divide verses to the right group of people, right time period.

Why is the woman, Israel, left behind? Remember Matthew 25? In Matthew 25, there were ten virgins, five were wise, five were foolish. See, these were saints, these weren’t people who are in the bad guy’s side, these weren’t people at the Antichrist’s side. These were saints trying to get ready for the marriage supper of the Lamb, trying to meet Jesus Christ. But what happened? Five of them weren’t worthy enough, so they were left behind. That explains the leftover people.

Not only that, in Revelation 11 there was this rapture that happened to the two witnesses and the people, who were supposed to be on the Antichrist’s side. All of a sudden, we see a number of them following the prerequisites of the everlasting gospel at Revelation 14, they start to fear God and give Him glory. There was a switch of sides here.

You got to think about all these things, that way everything can start to click and make sense. That means that you don’t have to be terrified today whether you are worthy enough to be found at the rapture. That’s for the tribulation saints. That’s not us today.

1 Thessalonians 4 already gave you the answer, if you believe in Jesus Christ, whether you’re alive or dead, you go up, you get raptured. How are you going to invalidate Ephesians 1:13 and Ephesians 4:30 which point out that even if you sin and not worthy enough, you’re still sealed with the Holy Ghost all the way up to the rapture. That’s powerful.