(Revelation 12:17) “And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Messiah.”(NKJV).
Since the fall of the Assad regime On 8 December 2024 by the Islamist rebel forces of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, (HTS) which is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and U.K., with its takeover of Aleppo, many Christians have fled, leaving behind a small but resolute group trying to maintain their faith and traditions. Christians, with roots stretching back nearly two thousand years, now face a perilous and uncertain future.
While the ‘new’ regime in Syria the Islamist faction, an offshoot of al-Qaeda, has pledged to protect civilians, including Christians. HIT leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani visited Aleppo’s citadel and stated, “Aleppo has always been a meeting point for civilizations and cultures, and it will remain so, with a long history of cultural and religious diversity.” Despite assurances, fears persist among Aleppo’s estimated 30,000 Christians, down from hundreds of thousands before the Syrian conflict began in 2011. Before the fall of the Assad regime, which actually protected Christians to practice their faith, HTS had often targeted Christians throughout Syria in violent attacks and kidnappings, repeatedly killing Christian civilians and confiscating their property.
When one understands the Islamic Jihadist mindset it has no room for “the people of the book” being Jews and Christians. In lands ruled by Islam, non-Muslims would be made dhimmis, being a protected people who are kept in legal subjugation and pay an additional tax called the jizya.” However, this ‘reprieve,’ if you can call it that, is only for a limited time with the expectancy that those who are not Islamic paying the tax will convert to Islam. Eventually if they do not comply then they are eliminated.
The Christian community in Aleppo has historically aligned with the Syrian government, which President Bashar al-Assad, a member of the Alawite minority, has positioned as a protector of minorities. The rebel takeover represents a dramatic shift, stirring memories of prior persecution during the Islamic State’s reign over parts of Syria. The Islamic State terrorist Islamic jihadists systematically targeted Christians, destroying churches and engaging in mass kidnappings before being defeated in 2019. Today all over the Islamic world Jews and Christians are being targeted for persecution and martyrdom. According to the World watch List in January last year it was reported that over 360 million Christians are suffering persecution most of which is being perpetrated in Islamic countries. This year the persecution is been increasing globally and it is coming to the western democracies historically associated with Judeo-Christianity.
In the Book of Revelation chapter 12 we have a record of Satan’s wicked design to eliminate Israel being the woman mentioned in the text. Satan knows that the Second Coming of Messiah our Lord Jesus depends on the survival of Israel in that if there is no Israel then the King of Israel, our Lord Jesus would have no kingdom to come back to. Of course this is the reasoning of Satan’s deranged, warped and wicked deluded mindset. Of course Israel will never cease to exist! Down through the centuries Satan has tried to destroy Israel because he knows that the Messiah would come from the Jews, and Satan also knows that his doom at the hands of the Messiah was prophesied directly to Him by God in the Garden of Eden immediately after he had engineered and manipulated by deception Adam and Eve to sin against God (Genesis 3:15).
Now Satan knows the stark reality of his defeat at the cross (Colossians 2:13-15). Satan is a fallen angel, a spiritual entity that has a personality and great spiritual power which resides in him, however, this power is no match for the power of God which always prevails over anything Satan engineers. In the Bible when we see Satan described as a serpent it speaks of him as a spiritual deceiver and the source of all spiritual seduction. When he is described as a red dragon he is the persecutor. Today Satan has two people groups he hates and wants to eliminate from the earth being Jews and born again Bible believing Christians who understand God’s prophetic Biblical plan for Israel. In our text we can see that New Covenant believers or the corporate Body of Messiah is spiritually grafted into Israel.
God never intended that there be a separate Gentile Church from the nation of Israel. Israel as a nation by and large, are aliens and strangers to their own covenants of promise and alienated from the Messiah our Lord Jesus, however, this will change after the LORD has dealt with them to bring them back to Himself and to the Passover Lamb the Messiah our Lord Jesus (Jeremiah 30:1-1-10) (Zechariah 12:10-13:1; 13:8-9; 14:1-5) (Romans 11:25-29).
His eternal plan was that the Gentiles who believe in Messiah would be spiritually grafted into the Olive Tree, being the Commonwealth of Israel, and be partakers of the blessings of the New and everlasting blood covenant made with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah through the Messiah’s blood, and God’s intention recognised and affirmed by the apostles from scripture (Jeremiah 31:31-32) (Romans 11:17-18) (Ephesians 2:11-22) (Amos 9:11-12) (Acts 15:12-18).
The context of the whole of chapter 12 is set in the last three and a half years of this present age (Vs. 6b, 14), also called the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, when Israel will be centre stage in world affairs which we see today. Sadly within wider global western Christendom there are many today that believe God has finished with Israel and that the Church has replaced Israel. This is another deception of Satan. If Satan, acting like a serpent, cannot spiritually seduce God’s people then he reverts to the red dragon of persecution. Tragically today Satan’s strategy of spiritual seduction for the most part is at work within wider Christendom.
In our text we read that Satan’s war with Israel will not ultimately succeed so he makes war with those spiritually grafted into Israel, those we are told “who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Messiah.” This is referring to New Covenant Bible believers in Messiah. Israel and the Body of Messiah are like two sides of the same coin. They can be distinguished outwardly but are one spiritually in God’s time frame and eternal purposes (John 10:16) (Matthew 8:11).
All over the world and especially in Europe, the United Kingdom, in Canada, in Australia and in America we see Anti-Semitism increasing at a rapid pace. Just consider all of the recent Pro-‘Palestinian’ rallies and protests in many capital cities and College Campuses and Universities in Europe, in England, in America and in Australia by those who are just plain ignorant concerning Israel historically and Biblically. Jews are scared today in the western democracies as they were in Europe in the early 30’s with the rise of the Nazis under Adolph Hitler. Not so long ago the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin pointing at the press camera said concerning the western democracies something like this; “Israel is the first line of defence for the western nations against Islamic terrorism and make no mistake, what is happening here (in Israel) is coming to you!”
Satan knows that his time is short and is pulling out all the stops to destroy Israel and her offspring the faithful Body of Messiah. The last beast empire controlled by the red dragon Satan that is rising in the earth today is Islam. These are the legions of the red dragon. The Islamic Trojan Horse is well entrenched within the western nations and expanding rapidly with the spiritual and moral decline of western Christendom and corrupt anti-Semitic politicians and a Christendom that is by and large spiritually backslidden and spiritually bankrupt and infested with anti-Semitism!
It is interesting to note that in the period immediately preceding the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967, an ominous phrase was sometimes heard coming from the mouths of the Islamic Jihadists , “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.” This is the war cry of the global Islamic Jihadist mentality and mindset, fuelled by the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood which is the establishment of Islam globally. The time is coming to the western democracies when faithful New Covenant Bible believers in Messiah, who recognise God’s Biblical prophetic purposes for Israel, will no longer meet in church buildings by and large, but for the most part meet in homes, a situation we see throughout the New Testament.
In fact we see this trend today in many third world countries where Islamic mobs and terrorists are burning down churches and forcing faithful New Covenant believers to hold their assemblies whenever or wherever they can. Added to this, within the western democracies multitudes of house churches are springing up everywhere because of the spiritual and unbiblical doctrines, the manifestations of all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, the infestation of false prophets and teachers and because of unbiblical doctrines and man-made structures replacing the teaching of God’s Word (a subject in itself).
Traditional Christendom with its denominational structures and growing ecumenism will eventually cast out those who want to be faithful to the Bible and to Israel. Today Satan is at war with the Messiah our Lord Jesus, at war with Israel, and at war with the Body of Messiah spiritually grafted into Israel.While Satan is using the communism of China, North Korea and Russia to persecute the offspring of the woman Israel, he is raising up the beast empire of Islam to become a global power, a beast empire like nothing that has existed in past history, to which Satan will give a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months, being a time, times and half a time and 1,260 days in duration or 42 months.
We read about this beast empire that Satan will empower to be a global power. “The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander His name and his dwelling-place and those who live in heaven. It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast – all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world” (Revelation 13:5-8). Judgement is coming to the decedent, materialistic, pagan, spiritual and morally bankrupt western democracies and to backslidden western Christendom.
However, judgement can be delayed if there is a genuine repentance within wider western Christendom accompanied by a return to the Word of God. If the Churches will get rid of ecumenism, hyper faith prosperity, Kingdom Dominion doctrines, seeker-friendly, seeker sensitive doctrines, replacement theology, unbiblical practices, manifestations, counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and other unbiblical doctrines, compromising on moral issues such as same-sex unions and the ordination of sodomites, and those so called Christian television networks that play host to a long list of heretics, those false prophets and teachers infesting the airways of the internet, and return to the Biblical standards and the practices of the Christian assemblies as they were conducted in the first century and according to scripture, then God will delay His judgement!
Whether judgement is delayed or not, the most important things to know is that our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life and that we have been washed clean and loosed from our sins in the blood of the Passover Lamb our Lord Jesus (Revelation 1:5b). The faithful Body of Messiah, the offspring of the woman Israel, will go into the Time of Great Tribulation but be saved out of it just before the wrath of God falls upon a wicked, Messiah rejecting, Messiah hating world.
As we read in the Book of Revelation; “Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “My lord, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones who are coming out of the great tribulation (continuous present tense), and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them. They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:13-17). The rapture and resurrection of the saints it would seem occurs between the sixth and the seventh seals and immediately after the time of Great Tribulation (Revelation 7:14) (Matthew 24:29-31) (Daniel 12:1) (Matthew 24:21-22).
Terrible times are coming to Israel, to the faithful Body of Messiah spiritually grafted into Israel, and to a Messiah hating, Messiah rejecting world, but also the Messiah is coming back to destroy all of His enemies, rescue the remnant of Israel, and rapture and resurrect the saints, and to establish His Messianic Millennial Kingdom on earth. When this has occurred our war with Satan in this present age will be over!
If you have been justified by repentance towards God and by faith in the Lord Jesus to save you from hell, and by that faith protected under His blood from the coming wrath of God (Romans 5:9), and have received redemption through His atoning blood, and the forgiveness of all your sins according to the riches of God’s unmerited favour (Ephesians 1:7), and if you have been cleansed and loosed from all of your sins deep down on the inside of your being by His blood (Hebrews 9:14) (1 John 1:7-9) (Revelation 1:5b), then you are headed for the Messianic Kingdom for 1,000 years of peace.
You will have a glorified indestructible eternal body to enjoy the life of the Kingdom, and ultimately after the thousand years reign of the Messiah our Lord Jesus, to reside in the New Jerusalem for all of eternity where all sickness, pain, bad memories and death, will have been completely eliminated! (Revelation 21:1-5). As for Satan, the enraged red dragon, he will be in the lake of fire for ever and ever and all who have followed him (Revelation 14:9-11; 20:7-15).
If you are sheltering by faith under the Messiah’s blood, the Lord Jesus is saying to you; “Don’t look at what is happening in this world, don’t buckle over at the knees with fear, instead, stand up and look up with expectant faith, because your redemption is drawing near. The Messiah is saying to you and to me as His blood redeemed, blood justified, blood cleansed and blood protected brothers and sisters; “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom!” (Luke 21:26-28) (Luke 12:32).
