12 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. 3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. 5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, 6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.
7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10 And 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 brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. 12 Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”
13 And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. 15 The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. 16 But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. 17 Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.
With this chapter we come not only to the beginning of a new section of the book, but also to its second main division. It will be useful here to remind ourselves of the salient points in what has gone before, by way of summary. In the first half of the book, there are three main sections. In chapters 1-3 we had the letters to the seven Churches, reflecting conditions in the Church of God throughout the entire age, and to presence of the risen, exalted Lord in the midst. In chapters 4-7, we had the vision of the seven seals, opening upon the earth the troubles and persecutions and oppositions of evil. And towering over all, we had the vision of the Throne. There was also the subsidiary vision of the work of the Church during the dispensation, the elect being called out, and the final picture of the Church triumphant. In chapters 8- 11 we had the vision of the seven trumpets - God's answer in judgments to the persecutions mentioned in the seven seals, with a subsidiary vision here also of the mighty angel and the little book, the measuring of the temple and the ministry of the two witnesses, representing the whole Church, and their fate at the hands of the beast, then the final victory of Christ. Now in each of these sections the theme is essentially the same - the conflict between the Church and the world. But now, in the second great division of the book (chapters 12-22) we are taken behind the scenes, so to speak, to see what lies behind that conflict between the Church and the world. We are thus introduced to a deeper dimension, and told that, that conflict is but the outward manifestation of the war between Christ and Satan. The world, and in particular the hearts of men, must be seen as the battleground of spiritual forces that strive for the victory. It is this intensification that we now turn to study in this and subsequent chapters.