Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap.

John continues explaining his vision to us today and it's filled with lots of signs and

symbols.

That means many of these things aren't literal, they're symbolic.

And while there's some debate now about what these things mean if we try to figure out

how to apply them to future events, John's original audience probably wasn't confused

at all.

We saw this vision through the lens of Israel's history and as you know, Jewish literature

loves, signs and numbers and symbols so we'll impact some of that today.

First, we see a woman giving birth to a child that would rule the nations.

There's a beast that doesn't like this who tries to put a stop to it all.

She goes to live in the wilderness where God takes care of her.

Does any of that sound familiar?

Most people think this woman is Israel and that Satan is the dragon and that the stars that

got swooped down by the dragon's tail are the angels who joined him.

Or breaks out in heaven between the elect angels and Satan's angels and the elect angels

win so Satan and his angels are evicted.

Since they can't stay in heaven, they mount an attack on earth but God miraculously protects

Israel.

Warded again, Satan's angels go off to attack God's other kids and in John's time they

likely would have seen this as referring to the Gentiles or maybe the church at large

or maybe the remnant of Israel.

...