[1] And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: [2] And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. [3] And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. Revelation 12:1-3.

We fully exposited on verses one and two in Birth Pang Update Number 36 last week, and proved that the “woman” represents Israel, and that an Israelite woman, the virgin Mary, was chosen by God to bear the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

In verse three we find the great adversary of the woman and her man child.  Their adversary is the great red dragon, the fallen archangel Lucifer, whom the world knows today as Satan.  He is portrayed as being made red with the blood of the prophets and other saints he has caused to be slain.  His seven heads represent the kings of the six great world governments that have persecuted Israel in the past, and one that will persecute her in the future.  The persecution began with the Egyptian Pharaoh of the Exodus, and will end with her persecution in the Negev Wilderness by the antichrist.  The six kings that persecuted her in the past represented the following nations in chronological order: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Italy.  The last world government will be the seventh, and its king will be the antichrist of Satan.  The seven crowns represent the authority given to the kings of these nations by Satan.

[10] And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. Revelation 17:10.

The seven kings are the seven governmental heads on the red dragon.  All seven wear crowns given to them by Satan because he personally brought them to power during their lifetimes.  The first six kings came from the six great world empires of the past beginning with the Pharaohs of the Egyptian bondage, and ending with the empire that was still in existence in John’s day, the great Roman Empire.  In John’s day all the learning and expertise of the previous five great empires had been passed on to the sixth empire of iron – the Roman Empire.  The last of these empires, the Antichrist’s, will have incorporated all the accumulated knowledge of the ages from Satan’s previous secular empires.  In the Bible, governments are frequently referred to as “mountains.”  This final government of the antichrist will be the seventh “mountain,” and it will have the political support of the great apostate system of religion known as the “whore of Babylon.”  She will verbally support the 10 Arab nations in their Jihad against Israel, but she will ride to her destruction on their back.  And, after she rides high because of the antichrist’s early successes, the 10 Arab nations, who have always hated her, will turn on her and burn the thousands of her churches scattered across their domains.