Okay, so here is all that God was teaching me as I read Revelations 12 many times during the following 24 hours after He first led me to read it. Obviously there is a similarity between me and the woman under attack in the bible. And a similarity between the war against her offspring. Now, I totally understand that this chapter is all about Jesus His offspring, the church, but, the similarity was just too close to be a coincidence so I asked the Lord, what is it you want me to know? Well, He is so amazing. God gave me not only an understanding of what He had been doing for me the past 2 years, but He also gave me the strategy of defeating this nonsense of an attack. So first of all, let me explain that God was well aware of what was going to happen and had prepared a place for me. Rev. 12:6 says:
6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
God revealed to me why He had us living with my parents. He had prepared a place for me in the wilderness, that they should feed me. And truly, they do feed me. Both my parents are great cooks and my dad is one mean grocery shopper!!!
Some people may read wilderness as desert as they are the same word in the Herbrew. And, the most amazing part He started to show me since this happened is that in all the examples in the bible, those who are in the desert are there just prior to entering into their Promised Land. And He told me that we all have a choice. We can choose to trust Him and walk by faith into our Promised Lands or we can choose to die in the desert like the Israelites who wandered in the desert 40 years. I have heard some people say in a negative way that they are in the desert or the wilderness. I now understand that this is an AMAZING thing. If you are in the wilderness it means that God has a promise for you and you only have to walk by faith to get there. WOOHOO!!!
And so, He was teaching me the benefit of the desert and revealing that He had a special place prepared just for me. And in reality, I have been in a place prepared by God. My parents house has been a place of rest since Caleb was born. Jason and I are so grateful for the hospitality and kindness they have shown us through all of this. And when I did a word study of the word nourished in the following scripture, it reveals that one of the definitions is “to be brought up”. As in, matured, raised up. Rev. 12:14 says:
14 But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.
And so, I had been in this place of rest in the wilderness to mature me in the things of the spiritual. He was raising me up to be a Warrior for His great Army. One who walks by faith and not by sight as 2 Corinthians 5:7 says.
And as I am now called to be a Warrior, He gave me the strategy of war. Graham Cooke says we are all inducted as foot soldiers into His army the moment we are born again but at some point He may promote us up the ranks. Revelations 12:11 is the key verse:
11 And they defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.
Obviously the blood of the Lamb part is as simple as choosing to believe in Jesus as my Savior. And the Word of their Testimony is a basic war strategy to use scripture to combat the devil. I have to be honest, I ignored the last part of that verse and they did not love their lives to the death because the word death freaked me out. But, in a future blog post I will share how He helped me to understand that part too.
One of the key things He showed me was that it says THEY defeated Him. Meaning, God’s angels. Earlier in verses 7-9 it says:
7 And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, 8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them[a] in heaven any longer. 9 So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
I didn’t even have to fight against the devil myself because He would do the fighting for me. I always thought Exodus 14:14 meant that God would fight for me and I was to remain silent, but I now understand it means to remain peaceful.
14 The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”
He began revealing certain verses to me over the next few weeks that I have printed out and pasted all over the walls in my house. Every time I walk by one I pray it out loud and declare it over myself. Isaiah 53:5 is in my bathroom on the mirror:
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His wounds we are healed.
WOW. That last sentence is in present tense in the bible. Meaning, it doesn’t say that by His wounds they were healed back then. It means that because of what Jesus bore on the cross the day He was crucified, WE ARE FOREVER AND ALWAYS HEALED. ACTIVE PRESENT TENSE. So, now I have the spiritual strategy to defeat the plans of the devil. Simply to trust in the Word of God and walk by faith into my Promised Land. AND DECLARE IT, IN PEACE, WITH MY MOUTH. Not to entertain any of the fearful thoughts the devil attempts to plant in my mind.
My next blog post will explain how I also used this scripture for my own purposes to reinforce MY plan, yes, that plan I talked about earlier on that was so clearly cooked up in my mind.
You have a great way of telling a story and explaining g the Bible at the same time