Rev 13:1-10
Chapter 13 introduces us to Satan’s emissary the Anti-Christ.
As believers in the Lord we will definitely not see him at any cost.
Anti-Christ appears in the middle of tribulation period.
Tribulation begins soon after the rapture of the Church.
Dead will rise first at the trumpet sound and we who are alive will be raptured.
So we will not to go thru tribulation period.
Anti-Christ is the central person of the Tribulation.
John is able to see the rise of a very wicked, vile and violent person out of the sea of humanity.
First  verse gives us an impression that it is a combination of ten kingdoms united under Anti-Christ.
In Daniel 7th chapter we have a detailed description of the Anti-Christ called ‘the beast’.
Daniel described these world empires using symbols.
In 2nd  verse we get the detailed description of the composite beast.
Leopard symbolizes Greece – Alexander attempted conquer with his swiftness.
Bear symbolizes Medo-Persian Empire because of its brute strength.
Lion symbolizes Babylonian Empire because of its fierce power and nature.
We have seen the world history where many tried to rule the world but never succeeded.
People like Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and Alexander the Great and even Hitler wanted to dominate the entire world.
John is witnessing the emergence of the Anti-Christ from these ten kingdoms.
Many scholars opine that the beast is from the revived Roman Empire.
We are looking at a composite of world powers consisting of 10 European kingdoms ruled by one kingdom which is the revived Roman Empire.
Out of the revived Roman Empire emerges the Anti-Christ
This beast, Anti-Christ will have demonic power, influence and great authority over all nations.
Here we have to understand that God removes all restrains and allow Anti-Christ to do his worst.
This beast had a fatal wound but that wound was healed.
Something super-natural happened either to the composite or to the individual beast.
“The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast.”
An overwhelming majority of the people will be amazed by the composite beast’s ability to come back to life after death or the survival of the Anti-Christ.
Satan will be able to impress upon the whole world by his miraculous powers. 
It could be a counterfeit resurrection of the beast with a mortal wound to our Lord’s resurrection from the dead.
The whole world watches this deception on satellite TV. 
A strong delusion affects one and all in the Tribulation.
With this counterfeit resurrection of the beast Satan affects the whole world.
People were so impressed and influenced that they began to worship the dragon.
They also worshiped the beast, the Anti-Christ because he also had the authority of the dragon.
This is how Satan establishes counterfeit religion all over the world.
In the people’s minds, the beast was invincible because of dragon.
Satan designs all religion to worship him and the beast and people forget God completely.
Satan always wanted the world to worship him instead of God.
He accomplishes that during the tribulation period.
The Tribulation stands as a period of power politics and one world religion.
Only people who will NOT worship the dragon and the beast are the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.
One author says “The beast will slander anything associated with God, using the most vulgar and profane language and description possible.”
The dragon is able to grant forty-two months to the beast, the Anti-Christ.
The composite beast fulfills Daniel’s (Daniel 7th chapter) prophecy.
Verse 7 speaks of Satan’s war against God’s people.
God allows Satan to inflict pain and suffering on the believers during 3 ½ years of tribulation period.
It will cost many saints their lives to take a stand for God in the Tribulation. 
8th verse clearly tells us that all people who rejected Christ will worship Satan and Anti-Christ.
Their names will never be found in the Book of Life.
Verses 9 & 10 address the believers in the tribulation period.
This is a word of exhortation and courage from Apostle John to the reader of this letter during tribulation period.
Some will go to prison to be persecuted and some will face ultimate death for their stand on the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.
Apostle John is telling all the believers that God is in control and everything that is happening to them is according to HIS will and purpose.
Satan is active even today and he has anti-Christ spirit working for him in our world.
Many worship Satan instead of God without knowing that they are doing.
But God is still in control and Satan is still limited in his powers in our world.

Rev 12:10-17
Verse 10-12 we see a ‘collective shout of joy from heaven’ in response to the outcome of the war in heaven between Satan and Arch Angel Michael.
With this defeat Satan was permanently banned from entering heaven.
He goes to heaven to complain and accuse the believers before God.
Now the stage is set for the commencement of the Lord’s millennial rule on earth. 
God created this world and everything in it and simply set it in motion for all these ages.
God always controlled this earth but never ruled with authority.
God always knows everything that happens on earth. 
Nothing surprises God because HE knows everything.
In HIS eternal plan God allowed Satan to rule this planet earth.
That is why we have this burning question why bad things happen to good people.
Satan is the source of pain and suffering on earth.
So when God rules with authority there is no disobedience on earth.
All will be subjected to HIS authority and that has never happened before.
Lord Jesus will rule with absolutely authority during 1000 year rule.
In Verse 11&12 we are specifically looking at those people who were washed in the blood of the Lamb, saved by grace, stood for their faith, killed during the tribulation period, and now enjoying the bliss of heavens waiting to come down with the Lord.
People on earth will now have a terrible time facing the fury of Satan because he knows his time is short.
He has to inflict maximum pain and suffering on humanity during great tribulation.
In some way Satan knows from the beginning that people of Israel play a vital role in God’s plan and purpose in the human history.
Israel rebelled against God Almighty but God never forsook them.
The human history proves that.
God always protect the remnant from such disasters and eventually brought them back to the Promised Land in 1948.
First Satan tried to annihilate them just to prevent the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ to provide redemption from sin.
He used his Antichrists Pharaoh and Haman in the Old Testament.
Later Satan used his Antichrists like Stalin, Hitler in the previous centuries to kill Jews. 
Today Satan’s main mission is to eliminate all Jews to prevent establishing Lord’s kingdom on earth..
You know why Arabs and Muslims hate the Jews.
Antichrist spirit is always at work in these nations to hate and to kill Jews.
That is why we have Antisemitism in our world.
The remnant of them will flee to the mountains on the south of Jerusalem into the protective custody of God Almighty.
God always protects and preserves HIS people Israel.
In this chapter Satan uses flood of water to overtake them and kill them.
Flood of water could be flood of military attacks in an attempt to kill Jews.
Under Satan’s authorities, many nations will prepare to kill the fleeing Jews.
If this is real flood water deployed by Satan, God will supernaturally eliminate that threat by opening the earth to swallow it.
If it is a military troop, God will create an earth quake to swallow them.
In Great Tribulation Satan clearly understood that his end is very close.
So he became really angry and wanted to do the utmost harm to God’s people.
First he is going after the Jews who were still outside of the protection of Petra and the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Satan will always hate the Jews as well as those who believed in the Lord Jesus.
He will attack them viciously and persecute them horribly during the great tribulation period.
One thing we know from this chapter that God’s plans are always right on course.
Satan cannot prevent them from happening.
Many a time it looks like Satan is winning but it is God who allowed Satan to succeed to bring out God’s plan.
But we have to understand that Satan’s time is always short.
When such terrible things are happening during the last part of great tribulation, we have to keep in mind that we will not be there at all.
All believers are raptured and safely with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Rev 12:1-9
We all know that our God is a Trinity whom we understand as a Holy Trinity.
Satan also has a trinity which we call them as un-holy trinity.
In the 12th chapter Apostle John introduces us to the first person of the un-holy trinity.
John also uses seven signs in the Book of Revelation.
We see the first and second signs in this chapter.
We also see 4 symbolic women to represent a view point of Apostle John.
Rev 2:20 Woman Jezebel symbolizes immorality in church of Thyatira.
Rev 12:1 Woman with child symbolizes the Nation Israel
Rev 17:1 Woman as a great prostitute symbolizes false religion.
Rev 19:7 Woman as a bride of Christ symbolizes the church
The woman in the first verse refers to Nation of Israel during the time of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The labor pains refer to the political oppression of the Roman Empire during the time of the birth of Lord Jesus.
Great red dragon in the third verse is the second sign representing the evil one Satan.
This dragon represents ten kings with seven in authority.
All these kingdoms wanted to just to prevent the rule of the Lord on the earth during millennial rule.
Apostle John time travels back and forth in between 4th and 6th verses.
He captures the beginning of Satan’s fall and casting down to the earth with other angels turned devils.
John explains the attempts of King Herod to kill baby Jesus is another symbol of red dragon to devour the child.
In verse 5 John refers to the millennial rule of the Lord and time travels backward to the time of Lord’s resurrection and ascension.
In verse 6 once again Apostle John time travels to the end times to the middle of the tribulation period.
The remnant of Jews caught up in the persecution by the Anti-Christ’s army will flee to the mountains in Petra, Jordan.
This was to fulfill what exactly prophesied by our Lord Jesus in Matt 24.
John describes a war between Michael, the arch angel and his angels with red dragon, Satan and his angels/devils.
Michael and his angels prevail over Satan and his angels and were hurled down to earth.
This war I presume to be at the midpoint of tribulation.
After casting out from heaven Satan did have access to heaven back and forth to accuse and blame God’s people with God the Father.
With this war Satan lost all access to heaven as a beginning of his end before the Lord Jesus comes with the Church to rule the planet earth for thousand years.
Twelfth chapter is pivotal to grasp the end time story.
I strongly suggest reading the book of Daniel 11th chapter, Isaiah 14th chapter, Zechariah 3rd chapter and Gospel of Matthew 24th chapter. 

Rev 11:7-19
The second part of the 11th chapter deals with the killing of the two witnesses who were tormenting the people with super-natural powers given to them by God.
No one could kill them except the ‘BEAST’ who came out from the Abyss with satanic powers.
This beast is none other than the Anti-Christ introduced first time in the Book of Revelation.
The two prophets’ work is finished on the earth before the great tribulation starts.
It was in God’s plan to allow the Anti-Christ to overpower and kill them. 
Killing of the two witnesses gives the Anti-Christ enormous powers over the world.
This will go a long way for Anti-Christ to establish himself as the leader in the remaining part of the tribulation.
This was all happening in Jerusalem city which God compares it to Sodom and Egypt.
Sodom stands for sexual perversion (homo sexuality) at its peak.
Egypt stands for idolatry at its worst form.
The people of Jerusalem did not give them any burial for three and half days.
That shows how much they hated these two prophets who inflicted pain and torture for three and half years.
They were so glad to get rid of them and celebrated by exchanging gifts with each other.
Their party is over as the breath of life came from God and entered the dead bodies.
They became alive once again to the shock and fear of the onlookers.
We have to remember that the whole world was watching 24/7 through satellite networks all that was taking place in Jerusalem as breaking news.
The world watched their super-natural powers, the torment of the people by the two, death in the hands of Anti-Christ, and coming alive after three and half days.
Verse 13 speaks of a severe earth quake and tenth of Jerusalem collapsed.
Seven thousand people also lost their life.
The survivors in that city were terrified and gave glory to God.
In Verse 15 we see the 7th angel sounded the trumpet and declared that the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ is about to come on the earth.
That points to the Second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with the Church.
The remaining judgments will take place in rapid succession for the final showdown of the Lord Jesus with Satan and beginning of the millennial rule of Christ on planet earth.
Closing verses give us a glimpse of the response in heaven with worship of God.
The Great Tribulation will be the greatest period of religion the world has ever known.  
Religions of the world always distorted the message our Lord Jesus Christ.  
Satan will use these religions as the basis for his counter revival.  
The source of the beast’s authority is straight out of the pit and satanic system. 
In this chapter satanic system goes to war against the two witnesses. 
So also the satanic system is at war with all believers in Lord Jesus Christ today.
The believers in the Lord are always attacked by the religious systems of the world.
For as long as we are alive, God will protect us from the devil until God’s plan for us is fulfilled.
We are reminded today that our life is too precious for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our response today is to submit to HIS divine will and purpose.
True believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is a faithful witness and testimony through his/her life sharing message of the Gospel of Christ.
That message is the gift of salvation from sin in every individual through death and resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ.