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The Meaning Of The Moon

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Hi L____,

Thank you for your words of encouragement, for sharing with me your insights, and thank you for your question. If you have been given to see that every word of scripture, like the cloud at the Red Sea, has both a bright and a dark side to it, then you have been given an insight into Christ and His Words which is given to very few.

Your understanding that the moon, of itself has no light at all is very true. You say:

Everything you say here is true, but in the case of Revelation 12, you need to remember what you admit to seeing in the way you pose your question.

You ask:

You are exactly right. Satan is directly linked with darkness throughout the Word of God.

Act 26:18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

Darkness here is equated with “the power of Satan”. All the verses you list make this point very well. The moon is said to “rule over the night” and darkness. Here is the progression of the creation as it pertains to light and darkness.

Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

If, as Act 26:18 indicates, darkness is equated with “the power of Satan”, and if “the lesser light rules the night”, then it is clear that Satan is the ruler of darkness and of the night.

But notice that the moon is not called darkness. Rather it is called “the lesser light to rule the night”. The sun is the greater light that rules the day, and together they are “two great lights… the stars also”. Above all we need to remember who it is that creates both the light and the darkness.

Isa 45:6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that [there is] none beside me. I [am] the LORD, and [there is] none else.
Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

It is God who has set both the greater light and the lesser light “in the firmament of the heavens. In other words, the moon rules over all who are under it, just as the law is the schoolmaster over all who are under the law.

Gal 3:19 Wherefore then [serveth] the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; [and it was] ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.
Gal 3:20 Now a mediator is not [ a mediator] of one, but God is one.
Gal 3:21 Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.
Gal 3:22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
Gal 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
Gal 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
Gal 3:25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

“Is the law against the promises of God?” We could just as easily ask if the first Adam and sin are against the promises of God, and the answer would be the same, because Christ came into this world to save sinners, not the righteous.

Mat 9:13 But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

How many people do you know who think in terms of God’s use of sin as the first step towards life and knowing Him and His Son? How many people are grateful for coming to see themselves as a sinner? Yet that is exactly what God Himself tells us right from the beginning.

Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

“The man is become as one of us…” How was that accomplished? How did “man become as one of us, to know good and evil”? He ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Only then could man distinguish good from evil. What does all of this symbolize? It symbolizes the law of Moses, and all other “carnal laws… for the lawless”.

Heb 7:16 Who [Christ] is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.
Heb 7:17 For he testifieth, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.
Heb 7:18 For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.

1Ti 1:9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,

How do we know that tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes the law of Moses? Here is how we know that:

Rom 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

But the spirit of the law [the lesser light] is not the spirit of Christ, and when Christ saw that spirit of the law of Moses in His disciples, this is what He said to them.

Luk 9:51 And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,
Luk 9:52 And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.
Luk 9:53 And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.
Luk 9:54 And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?
Luk 9:55 But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
Luk 9:56 For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.

The law had in it no mercy. It simply was not allowed.

Heb 10:28 He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:

But the “greater light” shows mercy over judgment.

Jas 2:13 For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy [ the law of Moses, the “lesser light”]; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment [“the law of Christ… the greater light”].

To this very day, it is few who are given to understand that “darkness” and “night” are the realm of a “lesser light” and so they cannot discern when Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light, or when the ministers of Satan are transformed into ministers of righteousness. Darkness is not utter depravity. Darkness includes self righteousness and is called “the lesser light” over which the moon rules.

2Co 11:13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
2Co 11:14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
2Co 11:15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

So you are right. The moon can be, and is, a symbol for Satan, but in the scriptures the moon also represents our ‘mother’, the harlot church out of which we all come. This is the ‘mother’ who will one day bow at our feet, if and when we are in Christ.

Gen 37:9 And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.
Gen 37:10 And he told [it] to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What [is] this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?

This is Jacob asking this question of his son, Joseph. What had Jacob’s mother taught him to do? She taught him to deceive his father and to steal his brother’s blessing.

Gen 27:11 And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother [is] a hairy man, and I [am] a smooth man:
Gen 27:12 My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing.
Gen 27:13 And his mother said unto him, Upon me be thy curse, my son: only obey my voice, and go fetch me [them].
Gen 27:14  And he went, and fetched, and brought [them] to his mother: and his mother made savoury meat, such as his father loved.

Yes, of course it is all of God, but Jacob, like all of us, reaped what he had sown when later his father-in-law deceived him and extorted seven extra years of service from Jacob with the sale of his two daughters to become Jacob’s wives.

Rebekah, Jacob’s mother, truly acted as “the moon” in telling her son to lie to and deceive his father.

As for the woman of Rev 12 having “the moon under her feet”, that was true of Israel when she came up out of Egypt, and God had the earth to open its mouth and swallow the flood the dragon had cast out of his mouth to “carry her away”.

Rev 12:15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.
Rev 12:16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.

This “flood” comes “out of the mouth of the serpent” for a very good reason. Lies and deceit come out of the mouth of the serpent.

Joh 8:44 Ye are of [ your] father the devil [“that old serpent the devil, and Satan”], and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Each lie is another false spirit that must be tried to see whether it is of God.

1Jn 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

“False prophets” bring false doctrines, lying “spirits” which are not of God, except in the sense that “all things are of God… even the wicked for the day of evil” (Pro 16:4 and 1Co 8:6).

One such lie is that this woman in Rev 12 is any different than the woman who says “I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing” in Rev 3:14.

Rev 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
Rev 3:15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
Rev 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Rev 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Rev 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and [ that] the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

After all, she was clothed by God Himself with His gold and His silver and His precious stones. Here is what Christ has to say to the church in Rev 2-3, Rev 12 and Rev 17-18.

Eze 16:10 I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk.
Eze 16:11 I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck.
Eze 16:12 And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head.
Eze 16:13 Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment [was of] fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom.
Eze 16:14 And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord GOD.
Eze 16:15 But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.
Eze 16:16 And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be [so].
Eze 16:17 Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them,
Eze 16:18 And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them.
Eze 16:19 My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, [wherewith] I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and [ thus] it was, saith the Lord GOD.

“And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord GOD” (verse 14). Yes, she really was “clothed with the sun, and the moon really was under her feet, and she really did have a crown of twelve stars, but she could not ascend to heaven and to the throne of God, and the ‘sun and moon’ and stars’ will all bow down to the Joseph of the New Testament who will, in the end, save both Israel and Egypt.

The failure to see all of this comes from not understanding that “there is one event to all… the good and the evil… [that] man[ kind] must live by every word of God… [that] all things present and things to come are ours… and that it is we who will, at our own appointed time “keep the things that are written in this book” (Ecc 9:2, Mat 4:4, 1Co 3:21-22, Rev 1:3).

Here is what this woman who is taken to the wilderness says of herself.

Rev 18:7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

This is that woman in chapter twelve who “brought forth a man child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. Again, from where did this “man child” come? From where do all of God’s people come? Here is where they are all conceived:

Psa 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Who is first “my mother” and your mother? Out of whom does this man child, who ascends to God and His throne while his mother flees to the wilderness, come?

Rev 18:1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
Rev 18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
Rev 18:3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

So there it is. I hope you can see that the glowing words about this woman in chapter twelve, do not qualify her to be “caught up to God and to his throne, and instead they do qualify her to be afraid of the dragon and his army and side with the dragon against “the remnant of her [own] seed which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” In other words, the “man child.” The dragon may be “wroth with the woman”, but his main concern is the man- child. Pharaoh would no doubt have liked to get Israel back to himself, but what he really wanted was to destroy Moses, and “the woman” was on the same page as the dragon and his son the Pharaoh.

Exo 14:10 And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD.
Exo 14:11 And they said unto Moses, Because [there were] no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?
Exo 14:12 Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.

These are the verses that give the symbols of Revelation their power and their force.

Your brother in Christ,

Mike

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