It should not strike the Christian as strange that right now there is a great and terrible warfare going on in the spiritual realms. It is an invisible war that is unseen to us. But that does not mean the effects of that war are unfelt or not being played out on our soil.

Like so much of what we read in Revelation we are not to take matters literally but rather see these matters for what they are visions of a spiritual reality.

I think it really is O.K. not to try to answer the question of when this war arose. The point of the vision is not to identify the point in time when this happened, the point is to identify the great spiritual conflict between Satan and his angels, that is the demons and Michael who has a great military made up of angels.

When Revelation 12:14 says, the woman (referring to Israel) is given two wings of an eagle we are supposed to be reminded of Gods’ miraculous deliverance of Israel out of Egypt.

Revelation 13:1-4 describes the beast. Verses 5-8 now give us a picture of what the beast does, his activities.

The tests for determining the truth from God is to see whether the prophet is speaking words that are in line with the revealed will of God found in scripture.

The book of Revelation is filled with angels who do the bidding of God.

The Bible often speaks of harvest as an image of the end of the age. Once the harvest is ripe God sends out his reapers.