The Sickle of Leo--Part 2

The Sickle of Leo forms the front portion of the constellation Leo, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. But each of the 12 main constellations also are associated with 3 lesser constellations called "decans." The decans enlarge upon the meaning of the main constellation. Leo's decans are

Hydra, the Serpent (Rev. 12:9)
Crater, the Cup of Wrath (Rev. 16:19)
Corvus, the Raven (Rev. 19:17, 18)

The Lion comes forth to conquer and judge the Serpent. His judgment is pictured as the Cup of Wrath. And the birds clean up after him. In an Old Testament manner of fulfillment, this would indicate a battlefield with dead bodies everywhere. But in a New Testament fulfillment (which is the present time frame), the idea is to destroy the basis of men's carnal thinking, remove them from the dominion of the Serpent, judge their man-made kingdom, and then devour it to the point where no trace is left.

Regulus is the star at the end of the handle of the Sickle of Leo, as if to say that the "Little King" (Regulus) is the one doing the reaping. In drawing lines between the stars to form the Sickle, it also looks as if Regulus is coming out of the mouth of the Lion and now positioned between his feet. In other words, the judgment is by His Word--that is, the "roar" of the Lion.'

And so the Arabic name for Leo is Al Asad, "a lion coming vehemently, leaping forth as a flame." Just as flames leap into the air, so also does the lion leap upon its prey, and the Sickle "leaps" upon its harvest. These are symbolic things, of course. From the perspective of those Babylonian rulers (and unbelieving citizens of Babylon) being overthrown, it will shake them to their foundations as never before. They do not know yet the purpose of this divine judgment, as expressed in Isaiah 26:9,

". . . For when the earth experiences Thy judgments, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness."

The reason they must learn righteousness through judgment is given in the next verses:

¹⁰ Though the wicked is shown favor, He does not learn righteousness. He deals unjustly in the land of uprightness, and does not perceive the majesty of the Lord. ¹¹ O Lord, Thy hand is lifted up, yet they do not see it. They see Thy zeal for the people and are put to shame; indeed fire will devour Thine enemies.

It is important, then, that those who will not learn righteousness through God's Grace must be brought to the divine court and placed under the authority of those who will teach them by example.

In Revelation 14 there is an angel that instructs the "one like a son of man" sitting on the white cloud to reap the earth with his sickle. Verse 16 then tells us that this was done. But it appears that the next two angels are an enlargement upon this. They are split into two angels to show us the positive and the negative side of this reaping.

A few years ago when I did the FFI series on the book of Revelation (#170-200), I asked the Father about the names of the two angels who each wield sickles in Rev. 14:17-19. The answer was: (1) Angel of Effective Abundant Harvest (vs. 17); and (2) Angel of Divine Judgment (vs. 18, 19).

The assignment of the first angel is more positive than that of the second. The Angel of Effective Abundant Harvest is there to reap the believers and bring them into His "barn." The second is the Angel of Divine Judgment, which reaps the unbelievers (grapes) and casts them into the winepress, i.e., the "cup of wrath."

Within every broad time frame is also a "moment of truth," when the fulfillment has greater focus on a short moment of time, such as a day or a year. So when the Sickle of Leo came into prominence on September 20, 2009 with its conjunction with Venus, and with our gathering unto Him on the same day, it suggests that we have now entered into a more specific time of divine judgment upon the nations. Of course, we are only at the beginning of the new year (2010), so we will see how things progress.

Last June 17, as we were on our trip, driving from Seattle to Sacramento, we were led to stop at Crater Lake in Oregon. It occurred to me then that this represented the Crater constellation, one of the decans in Leo, and I took note that it suggested divine judgment upon "the two bears" that we were dealing with on that trip. In fact, I was led to purchase a little wooden medallion that pictured two bears.

I did not know then that the constellation of Leo would become significant in September. But looking back on it, I can see hints of revelation already being laid for us today.

Likewise, after leaving Crater Lake, we drove to Mount Shasta, where we visited the Shasta Caverns. If you read my reports from last June, you may recall how Darla twisted her foot in the caverns, and how this really began our warfare against the second "bear" also known as Pan, which represents the Babylonian financial system. When Darla finally showed me the large bruise on her foot and heel a few days later, it was obvious that the woman's heel had been bruised, but the serpent's head had been crushed by "the wrath of mom."

This is now seen as part of the revelation of Leo and his Sickle, because one of the decans of Leo is Hydra, the serpent, whose head is being crushed by the lion. Likewise, the cup of wrath is sitting directly upon the serpent, and the two stars forming the bottom of the cup are also part of the body of the serpent itself. It pictures the inevitability of judgment upon the serpent, because one cannot separate Crater from Hydra.

And so, for us to go from Crater Lake to the "Grotto of Pan" to confront Hydra was an inadvertent prophetic act, which we only understood later. After this, we visited the Sundial Bridge in Redding, CA just south of Mount Shasta.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=sundial bridge&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=Oj-6SsP0BN6H8Qb8m9mMCg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4

At the time, my Inner Tourist missed the significance of this as part of the overall revelation. This bridge obviously suggests TIMING. It relates also to the Sundial of Ahaz (2 Kings 20:11) and the so-called Hezekiah Factor, which I explained in August's weblogs. Perhaps this suggests that we should look at 2009 as being connected to 1999, when we celebrated Jesus' 2000th birthday.

I don't want to get bogged down in details here. Too much data can be confusing. But the overall picture shows that two of the decans of Leo (Crater and Hydra) were prominent back in June when we visited Crater Lake and Shasta Caverns. The only one left in the background was Corvus, the Raven, because the birds come afterward to clean up the mess. His job is to sit back and wait for the folks at the mess hall to ring the dinner bell.

Meanwhile, it is important for us to understand that the Lion is judging the serpent, not us. In fact, we are active participants in the divine judgment, for we bear witness to His works on earth and are in agreement with Him in all His ways. Perhaps that is why it is "one like a son of man" who holds the sickle in Rev. 14:14). This is the "one new man" of Eph. 2:15, having Jesus Christ as the Head, and us as His Body. What the Head does, the body does also, because we have been joined to Him. He has chosen to do His works with us and even through us, not apart from us.

Hence, there is no reason to fear what is coming. The harvest time has come, and it is all good.