Let’s back up for just a moment and look at Revelation 11:15 where it says, “Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying.” We are looking at the seventh Trumpet Judgment. We have seen the seven Seal Judgments and the seven Trumpet Judgments. Between the sixth and seventh trumpet there has been a parenthesis in the action. Now it is picked up here at the end of the sounding of the seventh trumpet before the next judgments are sounded. These will be the Bowl Judgments that are coming up.
Before that happens, several things take place in the book of Revelation starting with Revelation 12. In Revelation 12 we have wars going on. It seems like the history of humanity is about war. If you have taken history classes, it seems like it goes from one war to the next war to the next war. Without war, sometimes I’m not sure how we would mark our times, and we find that in the book or Revelation as well. In this chapter there are three wars going on. As a matter of fact, the entire book of Revelation is dealing with wars of one kind or the other, but right here at this point we have three.
The first war is on the earth, and it says in Revelation 12:1, “A great sign appeared in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.” We are going to start out here by looking at the participants in this war. We start off with a great sign in heaven and then a woman who is described here. By process of elimination, we can figure out who she is. There are three other principal women in the book of Revelation. In Revelation 2:20, there is Jezebel, probably not her real name, but it speaks of her false teaching or a false movement in the first century churches. Then there is the great harlot that we are going to run into in Revelation 17, and that is going to be a very interesting study in this spiritual harlotry taking place during the Tribulation Period. Then finally in Revelation 19 we have the bride of Christ that is coming with Him at the Second Coming. So, three other women are identified in the book. This is none of those women. This is a different individual, and again by process of elimination, we see that this woman is none other than Israel . . .
