We no longer find the time descriptions of 1,260 days, 42 months, or time, times and half a time.  We are not reading about the second half of the Tribulation now, but what comes next.

This next beast comes out – the third part of the unholy trinity.  It looks like a lamb, but speaks like a dragon.  He exalts the beast and enforces his will.  Just as Satan works through the antichrist, so the antichrist will work through his prophet.  It will deceive the people of the earth.  The message for God’s people is clear – don’t be deceived.

Revelation 12:17 says the dragon went to make was against “those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony  of Jesus.”  The testimony makes believers a target.  But in V. 11 we’ve already read, “They overcame him (the accuser) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.”  The testimony that makes them a target is the testimony that gives them victory.

Satan wanted heaven, but he is denied, cast down to earth.  Enraged, he tries to vent his anger on the Jews, and is again frustrated.  He has one target left for his fury: “the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”

None of us can defeat the dragon, but that doesn’t matter.  If God says the dragon can’t hurt us, the dragon can’t hurt us.

The seventh trumpet sounds, and victory is declared.  Voices in heaven declare that God’s kingdom has come (Matt 6), that the nations raged, but God’s wrath has come (Ps. 2), and that the time for rewarding the faithful and punishing sinners (Matt 25, 2 Cor 5:10) has come.  It’s been a long time coming, but God’s kingdom will come.

The world will gloat when God’s two faithful witnesses are slain. 

The courts of the temple are given over to the gentiles; but the temple itself is only for those who are true to God, however few they may be.

God’s Word is sweet to His people, but when Jon at the little scroll, which was at first sweet; it became bitter.  God’s sweet Word, when rejected, leaves pain for those who care.