On July 4th, 1776, the American colonies declared themselves to be free and independent states severing their governmental ties with Great Britain. It was done, and they were now free. However, another seven years would pass before the British would sign the Treaty of Paris and pull their troops out of New York City.
On January 1st, 1863, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring that the slaves of the states still in rebellion were free. For many, however, over two more years would pass before the South surrendered, and this freedom was realized.
In Revelation 11:15-19, the Spirit of God describes the climax of the coronation ceremony taking place in the great throne room of heaven. The Lamb has stepped forward to claim the crown, His qualifications declared. He has taken the scroll of power and authority from the hand of God the Father and has opened the seven seals. Trumpets have started to sound, heralding the ascension of the king. As the notes of the last trumpet fade, the proclamation made by loud voices echoes through the halls of the heavenly throne room, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.”
It is done! Our Lord is now officially the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords. He now holds the office with all its rights, authority, privileges and responsibilities. He has overcome! The victory is won and has been declared!
Nevertheless, a sobering fact yet remains. Even though the victory has been won and is assured, even though He is crowned as King of all kings and Lord of all lords in heaven, there will be many intense battles and struggles before it is consummated upon the earth. Although but a short time will now pass in heaven before the King makes ready His return to earth, on the earth three and a half agonizing years must still pass. Those upon the earth who look forward to the return of their King will struggle against a seemingly almost omnipotent enemy. The text for this chapter is:
Revelation 11:15-12:17
| 11:15 | Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.” |
| 11:16 | And the twenty-four elders, who sit on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God |
| 11:17 | saying, “We give You thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who are and who were, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign. |
| 11:18 | “And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.” |
| 11:19 | And the temple of God which is in heaven was opened; and the ark of His covenant appeared in His temple, and there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder and an earthquake and a great hailstorm. |
| 12:1 | A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; |
| 12:2 | and she was with child; and she *cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. |
| 12:3 | Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. |
| 12:4 | And his tail *swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. |
| 12:5 | And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne |
| 12:6 | Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she *had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days |
| 12:7 | And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, |
| 12:8 | and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. |
| 12:9 | And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. |
| 12:10 | Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. |
| 12:11 | “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. |
| 12:12 | “For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.” |
| 12:13 | And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. |
| 12:14 | But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she *was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. |
| 12:15 | And the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood. |
| 12:16 | But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth. |
| 12:17 | So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. |
There are many ways to divide this section. For the purpose of our study, it is divided into three parts:
| 1. | The sounding of the seventh and final fanfare and the proclamation of our Lord as King of kings and Lord of Lords (11:15-19) |
| 2. | The signs of the Lady and the Dragon displayed in heaven which declare the history of the conflict up to the then present point (12:1-6) |
| 3. | The war in heaven which evicts Satan and confines him to the earth for the duration of the Tribulation Period, another three and a half years (12:7-17). |
The Trumpet
The stage of events in chapters 10 through 11:14 was the earth, but now our view shifts back to the heavenly throne room in verses 15 and following of chapter 11. The seventh and last angel sounds his trumpet of the royal fanfare announcing our Lord. Then loud voices in heaven proclaim his ascension. The response to the announcement of the trumpet and the voices is the praise and worship of God by the twenty-four elders who fall on their faces before the throne of Almighty God. They say:
| We give You thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who are and who were, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign. And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth. |
Praise is given to the One on the throne, God the Father, because he has taken His great power and has begun to reign. But, has not God always reigned and was not our Lord just crowned? Why not say our Lord has begun His reign?
Yes, The LORD God, God the Father, has indeed always been in power and control. He was, is and will always be sovereign over all. What is in view here is the rule upon the earth. The power and authority to rule upon the earth were delegated to Adam at creation. He was to rule and have dominion over the earth as God’s representative in God’s image carrying out the will of God upon the earth. God would then rule upon the earth through His personal representative, a human being. At the fall, Satan usurped man’s rule, took control, and is now the god of this world. God the Father no longer rules through a man; Satan does. This condition continues even today at the time of this writing. However, Jesus Christ, our Lord, became a man, perfect and sinless but with all the limitations of a fallen human body, lived a perfect life without any sin or ever bowing His knee to Satan, died to redeem us who were under condemnation and rose again. Having met all the requirements, He claimed the right to fulfill what was entrusted to Adam and rule the earth. At His coronation, God, through Jesus Christ, will again rule over the earth. For this, the twenty-four elders are praising the One upon the throne. Yes, God has always been in power and control, but on the earth, He has not directly ruled since Adam fell into sin. This rule is reestablished at the crowning of our Lord as rightful King of the earth.
The twenty-four elders state, “And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came,” Our Lord’s rule will be contested. The nations will rise in anger and oppose Him. They will do this when He first returns to set up His kingdom, and they will do this after a thousand years of His rule upon the earth. Psalm 2 speaks of this. It also speaks of the wrath of God being poured out upon a rebellious world for rejecting God’s chosen king.
| 2:1 | Why are the nations in an uproar And the peoples devising a vain thing? |
| 2:2 | The kings of the earth take their stand And the rulers take counsel together Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, |
| 2:3 | “Let us tear their fetters apart And cast away their cords from us!" |
| 2:4 | He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord scoffs at them. |
| 2:5 | Then He will speak to them in His anger And terrify them in His fury, saying, |
| 2:6 | But as for Me, I have installed My King Upon Zion, My holy mountain." |
| 2:7 | “I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, 'You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. |
| 2:8 | ‘Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, And the very ends of the earth as Your possession. |
| 2:9 | ‘You shall break them with a rod of iron, You shall shatter them like earthenware.'" |
| 2:10 | Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; Take warning, O judges of the earth. |
| 2:11 | Worship the LORD with reverence And rejoice with trembling. |
| 2:12 | Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way, For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him! |
The last part of the statement made by the twenty-four elders in praise of God is that “the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.” This time has come indeed, although it will not take place until the end of the kingdom period, a thousand years after our Lord establishes the kingdom upon the earth.
Following this, John sees the heavenly temple open in heaven and in it, the Ark of the Covenant appears. A question that has long intrigued archeologists and scholars alike is what happened to the Ark of the Covenant. It seems to have disappeared from the temple, but no records exist of what might have happened to it or if and where it might be found today. The answer is simple. It is not on the earth today; no matter where you look, you will not find it. It is in heaven. When God took this is unknown, but here it is, appearing when the temple is opened in heaven at the coronation of our Lord as the king. Then lightning and thunder erupt, hailstones fall, and the ground shakes as a strong earthquake strikes.
The Signs
Chapter 12 introduces something a bit different. Verse 1 begins, “A great sign appeared in heaven…” What John now sees is a sign or a symbolic presentation of events past and future. We are not to understand that a literal woman or a dragon appeared since the text states these are signs. This is, if you will, a visual aid on a grand scale. However, it is something that John did indeed see and describes for us. The question arises then, in the future, when these events take place when the coronation ceremony is ongoing, and the seventh trumpet sounds, will we also see this visual presentation? Possibly. It might be a part of the ceremony, but that will only be known then. While it does not seem to be a necessary part of the coronation ceremony on that day, it is needed in the Book of the Revelation for us today because it introduces and identifies the enemy whom our Lord will defeat upon His return to rule, Satan who is the great red dragon. In the chapters to follow, both Satan and believing Israel are identified by the descriptions introduced here. First, the woman is introduced in chapter 12, verses 1-2.
The woman is clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet. While the significance of this description is debatable, it might have a reference to the woman as being human, an inhabitant of the earth. The crown of twelve stars is, in all likelihood, a reference to the nation of Israel, the Twelve Tribes. The woman was pregnant and about to give birth to a son. This son, we know from verse five, is our Lord, the Messiah, the one destined to assume the throne of the earth. Many then would identify this woman as an individual, Mary, the physical mother of our Lord. However, this cannot be the case, for the woman appears later, being persecuted by the dragon throughout the Tribulation Period. The woman, rather than an individual, is better viewed as the spiritual mother of our Lord, true Israel, the Israel of faith, who awaited and looked for their Messiah. Our Lord came from that line! That group in the Tribulation Period is the 144,000. They will be pursued and hounded by Satan during those days.
The dragon is identified in verses 3 and 4. It is a dragon with seven heads and ten horns. There are seven diadems or crowns upon the heads. There is no problem identifying the dragon, for John does this for us in verse 9 as the serpent of old, the devil, Satan. The seven heads and ten horns are identified for us in chapter 17. At this point, suffice it to say that they represent the human kingdoms and rulers through whom Satan exercises his rule and power over the earth. The dragon swept away a third of the stars and threw them to earth. The stars here refer to the angelic beings that Satan subverted to his purposes and fell with him. Being swept to the earth does not mean that they are now confined to the earth in our day; instead, it is a reference to Satan’s subversion of them. Satan and his angels, or demons as we call them today, currently have access to heaven. This, however, will soon change, and then indeed, they will be confined to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman in order to kill the child she was about to deliver. This is a reference to Satan’s attempt to destroy the Messiah before He could assume His throne. Satan tried to do this soon after our Lord’s birth through Herod.
In verse 5, the woman gives birth to a son, who, it is stated, is to rule the nations with a rod of iron. This son is then caught up into heaven. This is a summary of our Lord’s life. John mentions only the beginning of His life on the earth (His birth) and the end of His life on the earth in His first coming (His ascension); he does not include events in between these. These were well known to the readers in John’s day and to us today as well.
The church age is hidden between verses 5 and 6. Verse 5 ends with our Lord’s ascension (beginning of the church age), and verse 6 begins with the woman, believing Israel, fleeing into the wilderness to be protected by God for 1260 days or 3 1/2 years (The end of the church age and beginning of the Tribulation Period). It is important to remember that the Church was a mystery; that is, it was hidden in the Old Testament and in much of the New as well. It is hidden here as well in between verses 5 and 6 as John witnesses a visual representation of historical and future events in God’s master plan to reestablish His kingdom on the earth.
The War
Verses 7-9, while they do continue depicting the signs in heaven, detail events that begin at the current point in the events taking place in heaven or immediately preceding it. There is a war in heaven. It is not a long, drawn-out war or battle; it probably is over rather quickly. Michael and the angels under his command evict from heaven Satan and his angels. With the King of kings now assuming His office, there is no place for the rebel Satan and his minions in the courts of heaven. Satan and his angels fight back but to no avail. They are evicted and banned from heaven and confined to the earth.
The king has been declared, and now comes the announcement of Satan's defeat. What glorious news this is! The salvation, power, the kingdom of God and the authority of Christ have now come. Salvation, because the great accuser has been banished and there is no one to bring an accusation against the redeemed; power because now after long millennia, the most powerful created being in the universe has suffered a defeat; the kingdom of God and the authority of His Christ or anointed one has come because those who would deny and oppose it have been forcibly evicted. The liberation of the earth has now begun, and it has started in heaven!
The great accuser has been thrown down. Believers have overcome him, not because they were physically stronger than he, but because of the blood of the Lamb, that is because our Lord sacrificed himself for them so that their sin might be atoned. They overcame him because they witnessed their salvation to others and the message spread. They overcame him because death held no fear for them. No matter what their enemy did to them physically, even taking their lives, they would live again! Believers had defeated the accuser spiritually, and now he was being defeated physically as well.
Heaven is called upon to rejoice, for the enemy has been vanquished from their realm. To the earth, however, woe is declared. This is the third and final woe associated with the sounding of the seventh trumpet. It is the most terrible judgment upon the earth. The world has rejected God’s rule through the Messiah, it has chosen Satan over God, and accordingly, God has confined Satan to this world until the King returns to establish his kingdom. Furthermore, Satan is angry; his anger rages because he has realized his defeat is inevitable and knows he has only three and a half years left to wreak destruction upon mankind.
Verses 13-17 describe the dragon’s response to being confined to the earth. He first tries to destroy the woman, the elect of Israel, the 144,000, but God providentially protects them in a special place for a time, times and half a time, that is for 3 1/2 years, the last half of the Tribulation. When he sees he cannot touch them, he goes to make war with the rest of the children of the woman, that is, all other believers apart from the 144,000. It is his purpose to exterminate them from the earth. He will almost succeed.
The war to establish the kingdom has begun. Satan and all his demonic forces are cast out of heaven and confined to the earth. It is a great victory. Nevertheless, just because the first battle has been fought and decisively won, just because victory, in the end, is now assured, this does not mean there will not be many more intense struggles ahead. There will be bitter battles, and long struggles before the earth itself is liberated. Those who live upon it will have to rely upon the blood of Jesus Christ, the word of their testimony, and they must not hold their physical lives dear. Most who live below will pay the full price for their faith, but they have won.
The same message rings out to us today. How dearly do we hold our lives and our comforts? Are we willing to sacrifice part or all for our Lord, who gave everything for us? The following chart summarizes this section of Revelation, and then two more charts are offered which lay out the chronology of Revelation 12:1-17
