God's Story is Our Story: From Acts to New CreationSample

John's vision in chapter 12 is of a woman (Israel) who is pregnant and being hunted by a dragon (Satan). But, the woman is protected by God and enabled to give birth to her child (the Messiah). After his failure to stop the woman and the child, the dragon turns his attention to the woman's other children (the church) in order to make war with them.

This is the part of the story that we only get brief glimpses and hints of: that there is an unseen spiritual war between spiritual beings that we are involved in. Paul tells us in Ephesians 6 that our warfare is not against flesh and blood but against these dark spiritual forces. Peter warns in the church in 1 Peter 5 that our adversary, the devil, is prowling around like a lion seeking for someone to devour. Here in John, the dragon is warring with us.

What is this war? Satan's agenda is to keep people from being saved and reconciled back to God. His tools are temptation, lies, and accusations. This means that there are thoughts running through our heads that might be the work of unseen spiritual forces who are lying to us: telling us lies about God and ourselves, trying to get us to disobey God, and then keeping us from returning to God by overwhelming us with shame and guilt and despair. Paul tells us in Ephesians 6 the way to fight in this unseen spiritual war is with the armor of God. The armor represents what Jesus has done for us. But, the offensive weapon we are given is the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. The Word is how we discern the lies, the temptations, and the accusations. The Word is how we fight to believe the truth.

We are living in a war, and the danger is not being aware of it.