One of the main problems with the way modern Christendom interprets prophecy is that the main players and their activities throughout history and at the present time are not considered. According to most popular preachers, Christ has been virtually sitting at the right hand of the Father for the last 2000 years doing nothing much, while His creation on earth suffers without any apparent reason--He'll come when He (arbitrarily) gets ready. And Satan is little more than a cosmic fall guy that we can blame for anything we don't understand. But one writer proposes:
"The Bible is its own expositor. Scripture is to be compared with scripture. The student should learn to view the word as a whole and to see the relation of its parts. He should gain a knowledge of its grand central theme—of God's original purpose for the world, of the rise of the great controversy, and of the work of redemption. He should understand the nature of the two principles that are contending for the supremacy, and should learn to trace their working through the records of history and prophecy to the great consummation. He should see how this controversy enters into every phase of human experience; how in every act of life he himself reveals the one or the other of the two antagonistic motives; and how, whether he will or not, he is even now deciding upon which side of the controversy he will be found."
So much of Scripture is overlooked or even discarded today. The principle expressed in Ephesians 6:12, for example:
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly realms.
But, for most (but not everyone), it is much easier to turn against each other, or what we can see, rather than study to see truly Whose side (and how) we should be fervently supporting, and exactly what it is we're fighting against and how to overcome it.
