A War Throughout Time

Now the first wonder that John sees is the Woman clothes with the sun. Who is this Woman, can we identify her from the description John gives us?

Revelation 12:1–2 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:  And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

She is clothed with the sun, the moon is under her feet and she has a crown, a στεφανος, stefanos of twelve stars. She is also about to give birth. This woman can only be the nation of Israel, whom the Bible throughout the OT has described as the wife of God.

We have a very good identifying clue in Genesis 37:9 9 And he (Joseph) dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. Jacob his father on hearing this said, Genesis 37:10 Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?

So Jacob whose name had been changed to Israel and gave the nation its twelve tribes identifies Joseph’s dream as his family. Now in the book of Revelation we see that same imagery used to identify that family now a nation, and a people.

John sees the woman and then he sees another, The Second Wonder in heaven in vs. 3 Revelation 12:3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.

There is no doubt who this is. In vss. 9 and 10 than in any other single passage in the Bible.

Revelation 12: 9-10 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. 10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down

In fact that term in the Old Testament would have been serpent, this is the same being, Lucifer the fallen archangel who has become the arch enemy of God, that tempted Adam and Eve in the garden. He was the Dragon then and He is the Dragon now.

In vs. 4 it says, And his (The Dragon’s) tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth. These stars are symbolic of the angelic host that fell with Satan.

And John is seeing this dragon waiting to ready to devour, to destroy the child she was ready to deliver. A child who was to rule we a rod of iron, an obvious reference to the Messiah as foretold in the prophecies of Psalms, Isaiah and Micah.

In verse 5 we see the child is caught up to God and to His throne and the woman flees into the wilderness where she will be fed in a place prepared for her by God for 1260, one thousand two hundred and three score days. Once again a period of 42 months or 3 ½ years. So this protection of the nation Israel must take place in the last half of the tribulation.

Vs 4 takes us back to the birth of Christ, while vs 6 takes up forward to the last half of the tribulation. It is a distillation of time and history giving us a picture of the conflict with Lucifer from before time to the tribulation at the end of time.
The Fall and War With Satan

Jesus once made a statement to the Disciples after they had returned from a mission for him in which they had been able to cast out demons by His name. Jesus sharing in their joy relates an event to them in Luke 10:18 And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.

Sometime in the past Jesus saw Satan, Lucifer fall from heaven. This would seem to be an insight into what we read in…

Isaiah 14:12-15 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

So sometime in the past, probably eternity past, before time began, Satan in his pride, rebelled against God and was cast from heaven. From this passage it appears that he took with him 1/3 of all the angelic host. We do not know how many that was but we do know how powerful they would be as angels. From that time on Satan has been at war with God and has been striving to destroy God’s creation and especially that creation what was made in the image of God, Man himself.

That War has especially been targeted again against the woman we see in Revelation 12, Israel the wife of God and her seed.

Pharaoh threw all the male children of the Hebrews to the crocodiles of the Nile, motivated by Satan.

Haman, was able to convince the King of Persia to destroy all the Jews, throughout all the lands ruled by the King, which was most of the earth at that time.

Herod, upon hearing of the child born “King of the Jews” killed all the infants 2 years old and under in Bethlehem.

In Medieval France and Germany, Jews were blamed for the Black Plague and torturously treated. The year that Columbus discovered America, 1492, Spain drove every Jew out of the nation. The Roman Catholic Inquisition slaughtered Jews in the name of Jesus Christ, and the numbers of them are beyond counting, massacred in the name of Christ. In 1882, the Russians massacred thousands of Jews in order to sieze their land and drive them from their country.

More recently Hitler in the 1930s and 40s tried to litearlly exterminate all Jews upward of 7 million were shot, bayoneted, put in gas chambers and burnt to ash in ovens.

Today Islamic terrorists like the Taliban and ISIS are killing all Jews and Christians that come into their power.

Why such hatred against these people? Because they are God’s people, God’s nation and God loves them. Therefore, Satan hates them and from the time of Jacob until the Tribulation He is in a blind killing rage to destroy that which God loves. And the precious it is to God the more Satan seeks to corrupt, ruin and destroy it.

God has always protected Israel.

How have such targets people survived? How is it after so many centuries upon centuries of hate, persecution and murder have they been able to not only exist but even to flourish and once again found their own nation? How can this be but by the power of the God of Heaven, who has and always will protect them.

One of the greatest, most undeniable proofs of the reality of God is the survival of the Jews. They should not exist, they should have been wiped from the plane of existence and yet here they are. Only possible by the power and promise of God.

God’s promise to Abraham Genesis 12:2-3 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

Psalms 72:18-19 Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel,
who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.

 A promise of protection and enduring that sees its final fulfillment in Revelation 12 with God protecting Israel in the wilderness. Some believe this will be and actual physical refuge and for many if may well be, but I also think it means that many Jews will be protected in the wilderness of the Gentile nations and people. When Jesus judges the nations at the end of the tribulation the criteria for those nations to enter into the kingdom is that they “cared for His brethren” during the tribulation.

Now all that is the past from the first rebellion of Satan to the end of Jesus ministry and now in vs 7 we jump back to another future war, this one taking place in heaven itself.