Revelation 12 Studies

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each chapter is divided into a number of studies and each study or passage has a simple four-Part, verse-by-verse approach, to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Rev 12:1-6

1 A great 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. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its 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 it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who ‘will rule all the nations with an iron sceptre.’ And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

A. Find Out:

1. How was the woman dressed? v.1
2. What was her state? v.2
3. How was the dragon described? v.3
4. What was it intending to do? v.4
5. What are we told about the child born? v.5
6. What happened to the woman? v.6

B. Think:

1. Who are the figures in this passage?
2. What double evil was the dragon involved in or intent upon?
3. How did God overrule him?

C. Comment:

      Note first of all the woman crowned with twelve stars (12 tribes?) who brings onto the earth a male child who will rule ALL the nations, and who was opposed by the dragon but taken to the position of rule in heaven. The child is obviously Jesus and that therefore makes the woman Israel .

      The woman’s end is significant – fleeing into the desert (the world) where she is “taken care of” for a period that is half the complete period of God’s purposes. After the fall of Jerusalem in AD70, Israel was dispersed across the face of the earth and has been preserved until only this century has she been returning to her land. That might indicate that we are now in the second phase of God’s two-phase plan, but the phases don’t have to be the same length of time!

       The dragon, we’ll see in v.9 in the next study, is clearly Satan. He has seven heads, indicating much wisdom, ten horns indicating authority in the world, and seven crowns meaning he has a present right to rule. He appears to have taken a third of the angels with him when he rebelled in heaven and sought to destroy Jesus on earth. In the cases of both Jesus and Israel , God overrules Satan and allows him to move just as far as God’s purposes permit.

D. Application?

1. God is supreme over all things – including Satan and his followers who God makes use of!
2. God HAS a plan which He IS working out!

Passage: Rev 12:7-12

7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down – that ancient snake called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

‘Now have come the salvation and the power
    and the kingdom of our God,
    and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
    who accuses them before our God day and night,
    has been hurled down.
11 They triumphed over him
    by the blood of the Lamb
    and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
    as to shrink from death.
12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens
    and you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
    because the devil has gone down to you!
He is filled with fury,
    because he knows that his time is short.’

A. Find Out:    

1. Who were the two sides in the war? v.7
2. What was the outcome? v.8,9
3. What four things had now come? v.10a
4. How was Satan described? v.10b
5. What threefold way was he overcome? v.11
6. What was the “bad news”? v.12

B. Think:

1. How many names or descriptions or activities of the enemy are given in these verses?
2. What appears to be the twofold result of the war?
3. How did the saints overcome the enemy?

C. Comment:

      We must remember the passage that has gone before which involved the coming of Jesus. This passage starts with “And” implying it is happening at the same time. It would appear that Satan had the right to come before God to point out the failures of God’s people on earth, to be the legal prosecuting counsel in heaven. Sin appears to have given him that right.

      When Jesus died to take our sins, Satan no longer had a ground on which to demand our judgement, but the picture appears to indicate that he persisted in coming and so Michael (obviously a leading angel) resisted him and forced him and those angels who supported him (a third, see also v.4) out of heaven. Satan then took a new place of dominance on the earth.

      The believers in Jesus now defeat Satan by trusting in Jesus’ blood for their atonement, by testifying to what God has done for them and by giving their lives totally over to God for His purposes. Satan is thus left to war against unbelievers, which God allows him to do, to bring people either to their destruction or to their senses (see 1 Corinthians 5:5). God thus PERMITS Satan this time of activity to accord with all of the Lord’s purposes for eternity.

D. Application?

1. Jesus died to destroy the works of the evil one (see 1 John 3:8)
2. God is THE Lord over all things, Satan included!

Passage: Rev 12:13-17

13 When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the snake’s reach. 15 Then from his mouth the snake spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. 16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring – those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.

A. Find Out:

1. What did Satan now do? v.13
2. But what happened to the woman? v.14a
3. How long would that be? v.14b
4. But what did Satan try to do? v.15
5. Why wasn’t he successful? v.16
6. So what did Satan then do? v.17

B. Think:

1. Who did we previously say the woman was?
2. How has history shown this passage to be true?
3. What does it suggest about the sovereignty of God?

C. Comment:

      This passage harmonizes the two previous passages we have just considered. When at Calvary Satan was disarmed and was forced out of heaven, he first turned his attention to the woman, the natural nation of Israel. He attempted to destroy Israel, but God in His sovereign will ensured that that didn’t happen. We see this happening in history as in AD70 Jerusalem was overcome and the Jews scattered and spread across the face of the earth. There they have lived, continuing to maintain their identity even though scattered.

      The time for this is three and a half periods, half of the seven, the perfect time for God’s purposes. Their scattered state was to be the first part of that period for God working out His plans (although this isn’t to imply that the second part is to be another 1900 years, for of course it was only part way through this century that they came together again as a nation). Although the Jews have continued to be persecuted the main thrust of Satan’s attack since Jesus has been against His church, and persecution continued from the Acts of the Apostles to the present day, but as always God says “Thus far and no further” (as in the story of Job). He is still Lord!

D. Application?

1. Marvel at this special people who have survived across the world.
2. Marvel at the power of God that has kept His church despite all that Satan has brought against it.