I covered that passage in detail in Future History, chapter 18: "No More Mr. Nice Guy."
http://www.futuretruth.n...ore_Mr_Nice_Guy.Prophecy . The last section in the chapter.

You'd have to work really hard to apply the symbols to anything in Roman Catholicism. They just don't fit. The woman is Israel; the sun is Yahshua and the garment of light His sacrifice provides---imputed righteousness. The twelve stars are Israel's twelve tribes. The Child to whom the woman gave birth (and who was destined to rule the nations with a rod of iron) is Yahshua. (Yes, Mary gave birth to His physical body, but as Yada points out somewhere in YY, the Messiah's first-century advent was actually the sixth of His seven scheduled human appearances---Mary was in no sense "the mother of God.")

The fiery red dragon, of course, is Satan (see v9), and the stars he drew with his tail are apparently the angelic hosts of heaven, now demons, who bought into his lie. The woman cannot be Mary, for Satan never persecuted her (or the RCC) or drove her into the wilderness. That has happened several times to Israel however, though the definitive occurrence will take place during the second half of the Tribulation (the time of Jacob's trouble), after the Abomination of Desolation. Yahshua told Israel precisely what to do when they see the A of D---see Matthew 24:15-16.

Oh, and if "the woman" was Mary, how is it that v17 flatly states that the dragon went to make war with the "rest of her offspring"? Catholics insist that Mary remained a virgin after "Jesus" was born. The RCC can't have it both ways. No, these offspring are the neo-ekklesia, those gentiles who have come to faith in the "Jewish Messiah" after the rapture---the Church of Repentant Laodicea, if you will.

kp

Right now, Israel is a bit of a surprise to me. I mean, her leadership is sooooooo bad, how can she expect to remain a sovereign state until 2026? Without being a prophet myself, it seems practically inevitable to me that the "covenant with many" of Daniel 9 whose "confirmation" begins the Tribulation will actually be UN Resolution 242---it's a perfect fit. (see FH, ch12: Peace and Safety.) Meanwhile, Israel's leaders have already kissed bye-bye to the Gaza Strip, and are trying to figure out how to give away the Golan and the West Bank as well. One thing is clear: her present course will weaken Israel to the point that her very survival (short of God's intervention, of course) will require a U.N. military presence---which is kind of like inviting a retarded wolverine to guard the henhouse.

On the other hand, I suppose that if Israel had good leadership these days, she would never allow herself to be backed into the corner that would (I mean, that will) force her to sign the "covenant with many," placing her fate (she thinks) in the hands of the Antichrist's New World Order---and in the process dangling her helpless carcass like a tasty bit of bait that's guaranteed to incite the ravenous Muslim wolf to attack her. The prophecies are clear: Israel must and will become helpless---"the power of the holy people must be completely shattered" (Dan 12:7)---before Yahweh will come to her aid. Israel must have no illusions about Who has saved her this time: not her own prowess, not the UN, not the Antichrist, and certainly not America. They will at last know that Yahweh alone has delivered them, for there will be no other possible explanation.

Things therefore must get much worse for Israel before they get better.

kp

Great descriptive phrase: Mullacracy. I'll have to remember that. Yahweh has His hand on the throttle, from our point of view. But perhaps not too much tweaking and "restraining" (II Thes 2:6) will be needed to see things happen on His revealed schedule. Remember, to Yahweh, these things are present reality, not future conjecture. He sees them happening---now. He doesn't really have to tweak anything.

That being said, let's look at the Iranian nuclear scenario. Let's say Amawhatsisname is able to cobble together a nuclear program and start manufacturing weapons that go boom. What's he going to do with them? It's a numbers game, and he knows it. The U.S. has maybe 12,000 nukes stockpiled, Russia perhaps twice that number. He'll be able to build what, maybe half a dozen per year? He can't conduct a full scale nuclear war, 'cause he couldn't cover the territory, and he doesn't have a reliable delivery system. And even somebody as morally ambivalent as the U.S. would respond to nukes in kind: so good night Iran. He would like to nuke Israel, but he won't. Forget the hypothetical reasoning: God's word tells us that something entirely different is going to happen there---Israel will never get nuked. (America, however, has no such assurances. At some point, we're in for it.)

So what can Iran do with nukes? Blackmail us, that's what. We're so stupid, we'll never call their bluff, and our moral weakness will inevitably prove to be the Road Map to World War III. We will continue to pressure Israel to give away God's Land to the devil, and every time they bow to our misguided will, Yahweh will spank us again with another 9/11 or Katrina. (Do you realize that Katrina hit America within 48 hours of Israel's surrender of the Gaza Strip to God's enemies, something our own government insisted upon? This is a pattern that has recurred a hundred times over the past fifteen or twenty years.) So will America invade Iran? Probably not, but it doesn't matter. Whether we do or don't, our unwillingness to unflinchingly support Israel will spell disaster for the United States. If we go in, we'll have another Vietnam with sand. If we don't, our continued national refusal to honor Yahweh will be our undoing. Either way, nineteen years from now the world will succumb to the Antichrist's false peace---the last step toward total war.

kp

All valid observations, rs. From the eschatological point of view, we need to remember that a baseline requirement for Israel's divine wake up call is that they eventually be left absolutely helpless in the world, friendless and defenseless (excuse Yahweh). Daniel describes their status: "When the power of the holy people shall be completely shattered..." That is in the process of happening right before our very eyes, folks. It sickens me to realize what a poor "ally" America is to Israel. I used to be a citizen here. Now I'm just a pilgrim.

kp