John has given us a great deal to think about in these chapters, and when you go through them bit by bit, you have a chance to see the component parts, as we have done. Yet when you take a couple of steps back and take the whole thing in as a unified picture, you can gain understanding that is hard to see bit by bit. Consider what we have seen:

The basic problem is that there is a battle going on between God and Satan. For centuries, Satan held sway on the earth; he really had very little opposition after the Fall. Some men remained faithful to God always, but the overwhelming majority went Satan’s way. When God established Israel as His holy Nation, most of the people still opposed God, and time and time again through the Old Testament, you can see the Nation acting in open rebellion against God, and God responding to it… but there was always a remnant that remained true to Him. This is a story familiar to most any Christian when talking about the Old Testament, but what we usually don’t even consider is that Israel was only one very small and relatively insignificant country in the eastern Mediterranean. What about everybody else; all of the other nations and peoples all around the globe?

They were going the way of Satan.

When the birth of the Christ was looming near, Satan was ready to kill the child at birth, but God prevented it. As the child grew up and began His ministry on the earth, Satan opposed Him at every opportunity, but God prevented Satan from stopping Jesus until His time fully came to be sacrificed to redeem Mankind… and then Satan had his big day…. Only to discover that God had outsmarted him. When Jesus rose from the grave, Satan became frantic.

Jesus established God’s Kingdom on the earth in the form of His church, and while Satan had failed to stop Jesus, He turned his full fury on the church, but God protected His church, and Satan could only go after individuals. Employing human agents, governments, violence and oppression, Satan fought furiously against the spread of God’s Kingdom, but God, always in ultimate control would never allow Satan to destroy it. As it turned out, violence and oppression, while useful weapons in Satan’s arsenal, could not stop God, and the Enemy needed different tactics, so he used Man’s own thinking and intelligence against him. He perverted our wisdom, filled our philosophy with lies and distortions, and even polluted our educational systems and culture.

Let’s be clear; I’m not suggesting that these things are bad or evil in and of themselves, but we need to recognize where they have been corrupted, for it is very easy to fall into the trap of deception that our Enemy employs, and quite frankly, most people will fall into it. Our Enemy also uses the impulses and sensations of the physical body to trap us, along with the allurements of wealth, position and influence in this world.

In addition to all of this, Satan has lured us into false religions, and even managed to influence teachers of the Gospel into spreading his lies within the church, bringing about divisions and controversies, or as Paul described it, “endless disputes.”

In our time, Satan has introduced his most dangerous deception of all, the terrific lie that he doesn’t even exist. Yet even through all of this Satan-inspired chaos, there remain a people of God on this earth. Never let anyone tell you that God is not in ultimate control of events, even though He allows a certain latitude, He will not be defeated by Satan… and Satan is very well aware of that.

I have taught for a very long time that you cannot interpret Revelation with a newspaper (as some try to do), but you can interpret the newspaper with Revelation. Just look around you at the culture we live in, at the news on any given day: Court decisions, government edicts, the latest best sellers and popular movies and so on… can you see what is really going on here on earth?

We have just seen in chapters 12-14 that there is a spiritual battle going on all around us that we cannot see with our physical eyes; yet it is there nevertheless. Still, even though we can’t see it physically, in light of the revelation of Scripture, we can discern it and act accordingly until the great day comes when Jesus returns for His people… and that Day could be today.

Until He comes, we have been called to share His love with those around us, to love God, to love our neighbor and to make disciples. If we comprehend the world around us, it will have little appeal, and we should have little hesitation to speak His Truth in love, for there are so many more of His dear ones, those for whom He also died, who desperately need someone like you or me to show them the way to find His peace. Surely, we will not try to fool ourselves into thinking we have better things to do.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!