Replies

“Why would Jesus tell all these parables about paying attention to the signs of the times if it weren’t important?”

Jesus gave us 6 specific signs of His coming in the Olivet Discourse. These correspond to the first 6 seals of Revelation:

1. time of false peace and deception
2. war
3. famine
4. disease, natural disasters, and mass casualties
5. the Great Tribulation: time of trouble for the whole world and global persecution of the elect by the antichrist who is revealed at the abomination of desolation
6. signs in the heavens including a simultaneous solar/lunar eclipse

See Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, and Revelation 6.

Don’t just read the first 2 verses of Revelation 12, read the whole chapter (I don’t want to post the whole chapter here):

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2012&version=NKJV

The sign you mentioned is merely the visible alignment of the heavenly hosts, but where is the dragon?

In the Balfour Declaration land was designated for Jews to return to (1917), then later Israel became a nation again (1948), and Israel gained control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem (1967). These are all prophetically significant, but they don’t mean we should quit our jobs and camp out watching the night sky for Jesus. Neither should the sign of the woman, child, sun, moon, and stars cause us to panic, start setting dates, or quit our jobs.

Several things will take place in the middle of Daniel’s 70th week:

1. The two witnesses will be killed (and raised 3.5 days later).
2. Antichrist will set up his throne in the temple and proclaim himself “God” in the abomination of desolation.
3. The Great Tribulation will begin as the Antichrist forces the world to worship him and take his mark. He will persecute Christians and the remnant of Israel which will flee into the desert.
4. A war in Heaven will culminate in the eviction of Satan and his angels by Michael and his angels. Satan, the “Dragon,” is cast to the earth.

Without this 4th item, your sign of the woman with child is incomplete. But the visible manifestation of the Devil will be in the person of the man of sin, the Antichrist. This is why Paul focuses the attention of the Thessalonians on two things in relation to their persecution:

1. the apostasy
2. the abomination of desolation

These are the most definitive and visible evidences that the Great Tribulation has begun and Christ’s return is very close. More importantly, they MUST occur BEFORE the Day of the Lord/coming of Christ. See 2 Thessalonians 2.