As we begin Chapter 12 into our study of Revelation, we can clearly see a new stage is being set. A war is being waged in heaven and that will manifest itself on earth. There is an epic battle between Satan and God's plan. It deals with the nation of Israel, the birth of the Messiah, His resurrection and ascension into heaven, it deals with Satan and his antics that he is going to perpetrate upon the world. Chapter 12 opens as if two book ends spanning several millennia, and where this study shifts in the scene is this is God's view of what is going on behind the scenes as it were spiritually as we have been previously studying the ministry, judgment and wrath of God during the Tribulation period up to this point. God is pulling back at this point to show us the spiritual battle that is taking place in the spiritual realm that manifests itself in the physical realm. This is God's view and His perspective on the events that have been unfolding and are unfolding.
There is a war ongoing against the Word of God, against His Son Jesus Christ, the ministry of Jesus and it is just getting more hostile to those willing to take a stand for Jesus in the world today. There are two very different wars, the one on earth and the one in heaven throughout Revelation 12. We can never know the literal interpretation of Revelation without first understanding the Old Testament. We can't begin to understand the signs, symbols, types, visions, and wonders because they are first represented in the Old Testament. What is in the Old concealed, is in the New revealed!
Revelation 12:1-6 ~ " A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days."
We have an enemy that wages war and is always planning surprise attacks against us even at this very hour. There are satanic powers that exist and are at work according to the Bible, and he is the personification and manifestation of evil, and according to the Bible, he was the first one to sin and fall from heaven and has his own collation of demonic allies comprised of demons and fallen angels. They are plotting against our demise as Christians and as a church. Even though the offices of Homeland Security, CIA and FBI have announced that the enemy is among us, they believe that there are strong cells of terrorists operating even within our own borders and states. They have for years been making their way up from Central America and Mexico with gang member ties specifically to the drug cartels of Al Qaeda and other terrorists groups.
However when you consider the church, the enemy has been among us for quite some times when you consider things on the spiritual level. The enemy has been in our midst even on September 10, 2001 obviously but in the spiritual sense the enemy has always been with us. The enemy has always been attacking us. Revelation 12, tells us about the specific attacks of Satan against God, against God's interests, the things that surround God's mission and His will, against God's nation Israel, His chosen people, the church and all of us that stand together believing and doing the work of God and to bring about God's will upon the earth. As Christians, we need to understand that we are always under attack.
Satan's first plan of attack is to get people to not believe in him. This is exactly what he did to Eve in the Garden of Eden. He begins to sow seeds of doubt in her mind. He begins to interpret God's Word into his own persuasions, didn't he say, "Well don't you know why God doesn't want you to touch the fruit of the tree of good and evil? It's because he knows that the day that you touch it and eat of it, you will be just like Him. You will become a God." This doctrine of heresy has never left the planet since that fateful day in the garden. There are doctrines throughout the world that you can become a god or gods. Satan's job is to infiltrate and he does it by surprise attack.
If you look at three specific cases on US soil including the 1990 bombing of the World Trade Center, were these not surprise attacks? Was not September 11th a surprise attack? Was not December 7, 1941, a surprise attack? Apparently God is trying to teach America in the physical sense. This just shows us how vulnerable we are to surprise attacks because often times America is asleep at the wheel. We will not have massive church attendance or massive prayer meetings, or turn stadiums into prayer vigils until some surprise attack happens again. The government has even been warning us that more surprise attacks are coming, which should not make them surprise attacks if you are ready. Satan is launching surprise attacks against you and I all the time and he is doing it even now. It can't be a surprise attack however if we are on guard, watching and waiting. If we know the strategy that Satan has against us, we should not be caught off guard.
As Christians, we know that things are coming to the world, to nations, that frankly the CIA and the FBI ought to be interviewing us. They should talk to us about what is coming. The minute you mention what the Bible has to say about future events, they don't want to hear anything about it. An act of war has been declared against us. If we are walking in the Spirit, they won't come as a surprise. If we understand that Satan is against us, without us praying for our families, marriages and children, they are vulnerable. Satan has engineered things in this world to pull Christian families apart. He hates you and your entire family and has set out to destroy you more than anybody else on the block. Because your a Christian, he stays awake all night and day trying to figure out your demise. We don't need to panic, because if we are in the Spirit, warring in the Spirit, praying for our families, without our prayer coverage and interceding for them daily, naming by name and encouraging them with our own words, they are under attack daily.
We will see truths in the opening verses of this chapter that are eternal. We will see historical facts in these opening verses that have actually happened. As a foot soldier during WWI, J.R.R. Tolkien believed that behind each of the nations, there were powers both heavenly and demonically at work in the war. In the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien wrote his interpretations of the demonic powers and the powers of light behind the empires of the world. He saw these epic battles being spawned by spiritual activity. Satan is locked in an epic battle. He cannot get out of this battle. In Revelation 12, we see a war on earth with a war in heaven at the conclusion of this chapter. What we see happening in the spiritual realms in heaven, manifests itself in the physical realm on the earth. This is true in every aspect of life and what we are going through. They all have spiritual meanings behind them. The kingdoms of light and darkness are at war.
Satan is locked into an epic battle with a very specific enemy with us being some of those enemies. The battle he is in is with a chosen people. What John is seeing in verse 1 is a manifestation of truth given by symbols or signs. The Old King James says "wonders." You can make a note in your Bible that what you are reading here is conveyed in symbols and signs. John is saying, "I saw this sign..." What is it?
Revelation 12:1 ~ "A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head."
When it speaks of a woman, it doesn't speak of a physical woman, because the Greek interpretation calls for it to be a representation of something, not an actual woman. That is important!!!
Tolkien saw that the atrocities of war, that they were demonically inspired. The movies are pretty graphic to what we are dealing with in the spiritual realm. The powers that are invisible in the world around me. Tolkien was brilliant. Revelation 12 let's us into the spiritual realm and the movies gives you insight into what is really going on in the spiritual realm. You might just want to rewatch it while studying this section and see it with spiritual eyes.
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