The Age Old Battle Continues - Revelation 12:7-17

The Age Old Battle Continues

Revelation 12:7-17 The Age Old Battle Continues

Last week, looking at the first 6 verses of chapter 12, I said that we were looking at the age old battle of evil against good. I mentioned the Star Wars franchise of movies and when they would come out with a new addition to the series they would advertise it as “The saga continues”. Well that is what we are going to see today with the completion of chapter 12 and really on through chapter 16 but not all of that today.

To catch us up with where we were in chapter 12 let me do a quick review. In verses 1-2 we meet a woman clothed in the sun standing on the moon with a crown of 12 stars on her head. John had stated very clearly that this was a sign in the heavens so this woman was not representing a literal woman. I’m not going to go back through the various possibilities of who the woman represents I will just go ahead and say that the woman represents the entire redeemed of God, the true Israel of God. She represents the redeemed of the Old Testament, the redeemed of the New Testament, the redeemed of today and the redeemed in the last days.

In verses 3-5 we meet the fiery red dragon and know that he represents Satan because we are told so in verse 9. We find out that the woman is with child and gives birth to a male child. The dragon is powerful and desires to destroy the child who is none other than Jesus Christ, our Hero in the saga. Satan wants to destroy Him because the child is the one who will rule the nations that Satan has been the prince over since the fall of man. He will rule the nations with a rod of iron that Satan has been ruling with slander, accusations and deceit. We know from our knowledge of Scripture that Satan tried to destroy the coming of this male Child in the Old Testament (Cain killed Abel), he tried to destroy Him after His birth (Herod), and all through His ministry by inciting people to stone Him, throw Him off a cliff, storms at sea, and of course his own temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. But the male Child, Jesus Christ, accomplished His task and ascended to heaven and is seated with God on His throne interceding for those He redeemed.

In verse 6 we find that the woman representing the redeemed of God flees the wrath of the dragon (representing Satan) into the wilderness where she is cared for throughout the duration of Satan’s reign on earth. We noted last week that his could be talking about a future event but it also has a strong bearing on us. We as believers, the redeemed of God, live in the wilderness. We do not belong here we are citizens of heaven. We may be in the kingdom of Satan but we are of the Kingdom of God and we know that you cannot serve two kings or masters. Even though we live in this wilderness of trials, tribulations and struggles we know that God will provide all of our needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus, our Hero.

That is where we ended last time. As we move on, beginning at verse 7 it appears that the woman and the Child have passed from the scene, at least for the time being. Let’s pray then we will read Revelation 12.

Revelation 12:1-17 1Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. 2 Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. 4 His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born. 5 She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.7 And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, 8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. 9 So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.10 Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. 11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. 12 Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”13 Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. 14 But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. 15 So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. 16 But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.[1]

We have already looked at verses 1-6 so coming now to verse 7 we see a war in heaven. There is some debate as to whether this literally means the abode of God heaven or if John is seeing this played out in the sky just as he saw the woman in travail with the dragon waiting to eat her son. The word ‘heaven’ can be used both ways. I tend to think that John is seeing this played out in the sky as symbols of what is going on or has gone on. No doubt the dragon, Satan is powerful. He was powerful enough to sweep a 1/3 of the angels out of heaven. But he is not powerful enough to contend with God’s appointed warrior, Michael. The Archangel Michael is only one of two named angels in all of Scripture. He is known as the guardian of Israel in Daniel and in Daniel 2:1 he is the defender of everyone who is found in the book. Clearly what we see is that Michael is the angelic defender of the redeemed of God. What we find in verses 7-9 is what is described in Ephesians 6:12 shown in symbols: 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.[2] The angelic defender of the redeemed of God is doing battle with the serpent of old from Genesis 3, the Devil (meaning slanderer of God’s redeemed), Satan (the adversary or accuser of the redeemed of God), the deceiver of the whole world. That is probably the best description of Satan in all of Scripture. He began to deceive the world in the garden of Eden and will continue until the end. He slanders God’s people as seen in Job and he delighted in accusing the people of God before the throne of God. But he lost the battle and was thrown out of the presence of God.

That brings up a very big question: When does this occur? Some believe this is a recollection of prehistory, looking back on an event that is alluded to in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. Jesus told His disciple in Luke 10:18 “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” But we know that Satan had access to the throne room of God during the time of Job so I’m not convinced that this is a recollection of an unrecorded event. Instead of telling you all the theories I’m just going to tell you what I think these verses reveal. When Jesus hung on the cross He said “It is finished”. Then He died. He was raised from the dead three days and nights later, then 40 days after that He was caught up to God and His throne as we read in verse 6. That is when Satan was cast out of heaven. The intercessor who is our redeemer is there for us, there is no room in heaven for one who would accuse or slander the redeemed of God. Paul tells us in Romans 8:1-2 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.[3] Those two verses make verses 10-11 of Revelation 12 make sense: 10 Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. The slanderer who has been accusing the redeemed of God and deceiving the whole world no longer has power over the redeemed of God: “It is finished”. Paul reiterates this in Romans 8:31-35 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.[4] Who could accuse us? God could but He is the One who declared us just. Who could condemn us? Jesus could but He is the One who died for us and is making intercession for us. The Slanderer is gone. Verse 11 says that the redeemed of God has overcome the dragon, not by their own power but by the blood of the Lamb who was slain yet lives, who empowers them to live their lives in such a what that it demonstrates His life and just like Him they did not love their lives to the death. There is a call in heaven to rejoice but not so much for those believers, the redeemed of God still on the earth because the devil, Satan, the Dragon, the serpent of old is angry, he is not just angry he is wrathful because he knows that his time of ruling the kingdom of this earth is coming to an end. He is going to do as much damage as he can while he can. Have you ever seen anything like that? When we were houseparents at the New Mexico Girl’s Ranch I had to supervise the girls in taking care of the horses, and the pigs. The pigs were up on top of the hill and the horses were down in the bottom. When I came down from getting the girls started at the pigs I came down to the bottom and saw that two girls were holding another girl while a third girl was beating on her. They all saw me coming, they were caught and they knew they were caught. Instead of just letting the girl go they each took one more shot. They knew their time was short and they were going to do as much damage as possible. That is what is going on with Satan. Now just for the record I believe that is what has been going on since Christ took His place on the throne making intercession for us. Satan could no longer slander and accuse the people of God before the throne of God because they have been declared just by God so he is going to take his wrath out on the redeemed of God on earth.

When we get to verse 13 we find that borne out because when the dragon realizes he no longer has access to the throne room to accuse God’s people he turns he attention on the woman, the redeemed of God still on the earth. If he cannot destroy the Child on the throne then perhaps he can destroy the woman, the redeemed of God. And here is where the symbolism gets really difficult. Revelation 12:13-17 13 Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. 14 But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. 15 So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. 16 But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.[5] I don’t think this is a second time that the “woman” went into the wilderness. This is just bringing us back to what was going on before the vision of Satan being thrown out of heaven, losing access to the throne room. I believe that the wings given to the woman is representative of God’s care while in this world of evil. It is the way God described His protection of Israel when He delivered them from Pharaoh in Exodus 19:4 You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself.[6] Though Satan has been attacking the people of God for over 2000 years it will intensify as the end draws closer. There will come a time described as a time, times and a half of time, 42 months, 1260 days, or 3 ½ years when his wrath will be the strongest and his attacks more and more relentless. Yet the suffering of the redeemed of God will be limited to what God permits. There will be mistreatment of the redeemed of God and we can see that in verses 15 and 16. There will be a flood of attacks on the people of God. Even though the Serpent strove to totally destroy the redeemed of God he could not. He poured everything into destroying her but God uses His creation to preserve His new creation, the redeemed of God. I don’t know how this comes about but we have to know that God can use whatever He wants, whenever He wants, to preserve those He wants to preserve. But we have seen in Numbers 16 where the ground opened up and swallowed up the unrighteous of the people in the wilderness. This picture simply illustrates the spiritual security of believers in relation to all that Satan can do against them. He may be powerful but verse 10 told us: salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come. In verse 17 we see that Satan comes to the conclusion that he cannot destroy all of the redeemed of God as a whole. He cannot destroy the church that is still on the earth so he turns his attention, his wrathful attention to individuals in the body of the redeemed; he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Literally we see here that though the redeemed of God are taken from the face of the Dragon he still seeks to do them harm and we know from back in chapter 2 that there will be martyrs. But we also know that they are persecuted only because they keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ; they claim Jesus as Lord and they live their lives as if He truly is Lord. Their words line up with their actions, but they do not love their lives unto death. Obedience to God that results in eternal life is more important than disobedience and a preservation of life in this world. That causes me to have to ask this question: If we are not keeping His commands and have the testimony of Jesus Christ now, if our words do not line up with our actions now then how can we expect that they will under persecution?

I am not going to go back over what we have learned in this chapter. I want to boil it down to just one thing that stand out the most that applys to us today, after all that, I believe, is what the Revelation of Jesus Christ is all about, encouragement and warning for today. From what I can see life for the redeemed of God on this earth is not going to get better and better. The time of people claiming to be Christian and getting respect is fast coming to an end. And to be honest it is our fault. We have spoken the words of Christianity but lived the lives of the world. This passage we have been looking at makes it clear that the redeemed of God overcome Satan and his world system not by being a good person, not by being friendly with people, not by saying Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays, not by voting Republican or Democrat but by the blood of the Lamb and their testimony. Their lives lined up with their proclamation of Christ. Things are going to get worse for those who are true believers. I’m not saying this because of the election, it is going to happen no matter who is in elected to office. Clearly Satan wants to destroy the Hero of our saga and since he cannot destroy Christ, and he cannot destroy the whole of the redeemed of God he is coming after you if you are a true follower of Christ. How will you overcome the enemy? Does your life line up with your proclamation? If so then Scripture is clear that you will overcome the enemy. But if not then wouldn’t today be a good day of repentance? Let’s pray.

[1] The New King James Version. (1982). (Re 12:1–17). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

[2] The New King James Version. (1982). (Eph 6:12). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

[3] The New King James Version. (1982). (Ro 8:1–2). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

[4] The New King James Version. (1982). (Ro 8:31–34). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

[5] The New King James Version. (1982). (Re 12:1–17). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

[6] The New King James Version. (1982). (Ex 19:4). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.