GOSPEL PARABLES 9 A WOMAN GIVEN EAGLES WINGS

GOSPEL PARABLES 9 A WOMAN GIVEN EAGLES WINGS 
Continuing in the Parables of the three loaves of bread, we saw that there were three stories that contain the phrase ‘Three loaves of bread’, and last week we did the story of Abraham and the judgement upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Today I’m looking more fully at the original three loaves parable of Jesus in Matthew 13:33 ‘The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.’ There is more to this short parable than I first thought or even imagined.

The word for ‘hid’ in that verse is egkrypto – encrypted and not the usual word– krypto. What is primarily hidden in the three loaves is the message of the three Persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the lives of God’s people. Jesus uses this word egkrypto which is the only time this word is ever used in the Bible and that compels us to diligently look at each word and ask God what Jesus encrypted for us to decrypt and understand. The only code that serves the truth of Scripture when following a particular word or concept through the Bible is that of letting Scripture interpret Scripture by looking at the first mention of that word or concept in the Bible and tracking it from Genesis to Revelation. 

We will start by asking who this Woman is that hides the leaven until the final stage of Kingdom growth is reached, and the first prophetic word about a Woman throughout the Bible is found in Genesis 3:15, where God judges Satan for tempting Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve’s judgement is that Adam faces hardship in tilling the ground, while Eve endures pain in childbirth. However, when God judges the serpent he introduces the Woman as a type of the Church because God says to Satan ‘And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.’  This prophecy is the archetype of spiritual warfare between the Church and Satan throughout the Scriptures.
The offspring of the Woman refers to Jesus, whose heels suffered piercing and bruising on the cross. The Church is also the Woman’s offspring through Jesus and embodies his life and continues his mission, and the Church ultimately crushes the serpent's head in the final victory of light over darkness. The Father’s prophecy in Genesis signifies that the Church triumphs in spiritual warfare through being united with Jesus in his victory. 

Paul affirms this spiritual victory in Romans 16:20, emphasizing that ‘the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly’ (tachos). Tachos means "a short space of time," and it indicates a future event that will occur for a short space of time, rather than occurring in a short space of time soon after Paul wrote it, because  it is yet to occur. A word search reveals that tachos aligns with the British meaning of the word "momentarily," which means ‘for a short space of time’, while in American English, it means "soon or in a short space of time." The key point is the brief duration of Satan's defeat rather than its immediacy and it reflects a future distinct measure of time. (We will be at LA airport momentarily – why stay at LA airport for a short space of time?)

We will continue to follow this intriguing hiddenness theme that runs throughout the story of the Church. The Church of Jesus is hidden in Jesus, and just as the Woman hid the leaven in the three loaves, the Church that is hidden in Jesus remains concealed to the world. It is not observed under the banner of any denomination or doctrine but exists within and beyond what may or may not even resemble traditional or institutional church. Church has always been truly realised in gatherings of God’s people who express the unity of the Spirit in bonds of peace (Ephesians 4:1-3), and as a people not walking in the power or appearance of worldly influence but living by faith and love in the power of Christ and in intimate relationship with him and overcoming all darkness in the earth through him. Paul speaks of the Church as the bride of Christ and he says that this conceals a great mystery. Yet it reveals the truth of a loving unity of Spirit in people whose outward lives express the hidden life of Christ within. (Ephesians 5:25-27, 32)

The Church has been given a New Testament strategy for spiritual warfare, which means that we overcome darkness from our position of authority seated with Christ in the highest place - above the Heavens. This is unlike the Old Testament spiritual warfare that Daniel was engaged in when he prayed for understanding of what would happen in the End Times (Daniel 10). 
Daniel prayed from the earth into the heavens while angels fought above him and he had to wait three weeks for the angel Gabriel to answer his prayer because Gabriel was battling the prince powers of darkness over Persia. Though we experience the buffeting of spiritual struggles on earth, the enemy is under our feet and our True spiritual warfare is in trusting God to fight our battles and our resting in His authority.

Gabriel told Daniel that he needed help from the Archangel Michael to overcome the prince powers of darkness in the Heavens. Daniel's prayer experience is directly reflected in a vision of the last days that we see in Revelation Ch.12 where a similar battle occurs between Michael and Satan who is called the dragon in Revelation. The dragon realizes ‘he has but a short time’ (Revelation 12:12), confirming Paul’s end time prophecy when he said that God would crush Satan under our feet in a short space of time (tachos). 
Paul also said in Romans 9 that The Lord will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness and make a short work upon the earth (syntemno – to execute or finish it in a short space of time). 
There is an interesting short space of time mentioned twice in Revelation 12 as "a time, times, and half a time" and "one thousand two hundred and sixty days," and as forty-two months in Chapters 11 and 13. It refers to a period of three and a half years. At the beginning of this space of time Satan, depicted as the dragon, pursues the Woman (The Church - Revelation 12:13), and in the next verse the Woman is given "wings of a great eagle" to escape into a solitary place (eremos), receiving protection and refuge by God for this period of time. 
This is an amazing reiteration of how Pharaoh pursued Israel at the Red Sea when God says to Israel ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself (Exodus 19:4). Pharoah is a type of Satan in Genesis and a type of the dragon in Revelation 12 - where it says that the dragon even sends a flood to drown the woman but the earth helps the Woman, just as the earth helped Israel in dividing the Red Sea for them to escape. Only Scripture can interpret and validate Scripture throughout the Bible.

Whatever that final battle between the Woman and Satan that began in Genesis and ends in Revelation will look like, and however the protection of God for the Woman the Church in that short space of time plays out, remains in the realm of speculation as far as I’m concerned. But it denotes a type of supernatural protection and provision. We just read that the Woman is given two wings of a great eagle, which speaks about being in some way spiritually lifted above the peril of those days, which could mean in a spiritual sense of simply being uplifted in faith, or it could mean miraculously shielded from peril in the earth. 

I think Psalm 91 is the archetype of this supernatural protection that God has always given his people in times of battle against his enemies, as David says. ‘He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.” You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; But it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look and see the judgement of the wicked because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge, even the Most High your dwelling place, No evil shall befall you. (Psalm 91:1-10)
The battle in the Heavens between Michael and the dragon in Revelation Ch. 12 takes place only at the very end when the dragon is cast down to the earth. However, I believe that we are living in times when Satan is currently losing altitude and making himself felt and even perhaps being perceived in more bold and strange supernatural manifestations in the earth. The Bible says that ‘Satan can appear as an angel of light’ (2Corinthian 11) and it also says that in the last days ‘The coming of the lawless one (the dragon) is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception. (2Thessalonians 3:8-10)
So let us remember that no matter how darkness and deception want to show off and confuse and destabilise peoples’ souls, we are seated in the highest place with Christ far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. (Ephesians 1:21)

What we do know is that the enmity between the Woman and the Prince of Darkness was prophesied in Genesis and reinforced in Romans and other epistles and finally in Revelation. And we know that the message is about the supernatural victories of the Kingdom of God over the kingdom of darkness, and we know that the Woman plays a great part in that victory in the end times. In the meantime, we can continue to live above and not under the powers of darkness without fear in our daily lives. This is how we are to see ourselves today as the Church. Paul teaches us concerning Jesus that God ‘has put all things under His feet and given Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:22).
Thank you Lord that though we may live in the most enormous times of uncertainty that the world has know we can at the same time experience the greatest times of certainty that we have known because you dwell in the highest place with all things under your feet, and you are by our side because you have placed us by your side in that heavenly place. Amen

Paul O’Sullivan 22 Sept 2024 – Northern Beaches Christian Centre NSW Australia.