41: World News & Prophecy - Revelation 12:1-17

[Darris McNeely] Okay, we're going to cover chapter 12 this morning of Revelation, so you can go ahead and turn there. And we're going to get into chapter 13. And there's a lot in chapter 13. I don't know that we'll get everything covered in chapter 13 today, because I want to do it thoroughly for the sake of the recording and go slow enough to where we get it all kind of locked into our heads and a lot of details.

But as an overview, Revelation 12 gives us an inset chapter, one of these inset chapters in the Bible that talks about and focuses upon Satan, the devil, and his efforts to thwart the plan of God. And it's quite detailed. There's a lot of information in there that we don't have from other parts of the Bible. And then there's more details of what we do have from other parts of the Bible.

Revelation 13 is a dramatic presentation of two beasts that rise up out of the sea. And in that presentation, we find that Satan is the power behind these two beasts. So my point is that in chapters 12 and 13—and of course, chapter 13 toward the end talks about this strange thing called the mark of the beast, which we'll get into maybe this morning, but certainly in a future class—it is the work of Satan. So there's a concentrated focus upon the work of Satan in these two chapters. And I just want to make that as an overview comment of chapters 12 and 13 as we dive into them.

So with that, let's go ahead and turn to chapter 12 of Revelation. I said here at the beginning that this is an inset chapter in that we've had a flow of the opening of the trumpet plagues, and we've covered six of the trumpet plagues. There's one last to blow and that will come a little bit later. But here, God has given us another inset chapter.

Chapter 11, if you recall, about the two witnesses and the measuring of the temple there—that too was an inset chapter in that it focuses in on certain events, in that case, the work of the two witnesses and expands upon that within the story flow. And that story of the two witnesses really is encompassing much of what the book of Revelation covers in terms of the three and a half years of the tribulation and the witnessing of those two individuals against the beast power.

Now in chapter 12, we have another inset chapter that again expands on information and tells us things that, in a sense, have already begun to develop and how and why they will increase in intensity, particularly with Satan's wrath upon the earth, knowing that it has a short time. So that's, in a sense, kind of why it's an inset chapter. It gives information regarding everything there.

And chapter 13 is another inset chapter as well, and chapter 14 will pick up the story flow of Revelation once again.

So with that, let's go ahead and go into chapter 12. That opens here in verse 1 by saying this: "Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars" (Revelation 12:1).

Twelve is a significant number here in the Bible. Twelve tribes of Israel. There were twelve apostles that Jesus chose to be the foundation of the church. So we have these twelve stars here. We'll talk about the symbolism here in a minute. Let's go ahead and read the next two verses:

"Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads" (Revelation 12:2–3).

Crown-like fixtures upon these seven heads of this great fiery beast identified as a dragon. So we have a lot of symbolism here in these first three verses of Revelation 12.

And let's break it down based on what we already know and can easily know from Scripture in terms of what we're being told here. So John sees this in his vision as a sign, and a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and on her head a garland of twelve stars. We take this woman to be Israel, Israel of the Old Testament. Okay? This is quite commonly understood among commentators as well. And so the woman here is Israel, the Old Testament nation of Israel, descendants of Jacob through his twelve sons in this particular case.

And then there's a sun that is mentioned and a moon and then the twelve stars. Now, if we look to the other parts of the Bible, we can see some interpretation here. Back in Genesis 37:9–10, Joseph had a dream.

In that dream, there was a sun that represented Jacob, Joseph's father. And in that dream that Joseph had, the moon was interpreted to be his wife and the stars that were in that part of the dream, their sons, twelve in all, if you count in Joseph. So in other words, the symbolism in Joseph's dream referred to Jacob's family.

And so it's not a big leap then to take this to the conclusion that as we see this opening in Revelation 12, the woman with the sun, the moon, and the twelve stars would be taken to be Israel, this composite picture of Israel descended from Jacob and his wives and the sons that they had. Because this woman now in Revelation 12 is clothed with all these same symbols representing that family who became a nation. Israel then became God's chosen people with a special covenant at that time.

And so she's also pictured as being with child and pregnant, about to give birth. "And she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth" (Revelation 12:2). Well, you know the story of Israel. After hundreds of years of time, the Jews and the remnants of the nation of Israel obviously were in the land. They went into captivity at the hands of both Assyria and Babylon. The northern tribes never really came back to the land. Babylon conquered the nation of Judah, took them captive. Seventy years later, the Jews are restored back into the land at the time that the story told in Ezra and Nehemiah. And then they are there until the New Testament opens, and we see then this nation of Judah that is there, a remnant of this.

But when we come to the time of the New Testament and the remnant of the Jews that take part or are the nation of Judah, Rome is the power that is occupying Judah and the Jews are under the Roman power. We've studied Rome already in our studies in Daniel and identified Rome as that fourth beast of Daniel 7, the fourth part of the image of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2 of Daniel, that part of the image that was of iron, legs of iron and iron mixed with fiery clay on the toes.

And so at the time of the New Testament, the Roman Empire dominates the scene. When the Gospels open, we find that it is during the time of this Roman emperor Augustus. We've talked quite a bit about Augustus. I call him the big guy, who founded the Roman Empire and at whose time Jesus was born. All right? So He was born during the reign of Augustus.

And so what we are looking at here back in Revelation 12 then, this woman, Israel, with child, cries out in pain and gives birth. And it's a picture of the birth of Christ.

As a child, Christ was of the line of Judah. Those genealogies are traced both in Matthew and Luke's account in the Scriptures. He was of the tribe of Judah. We know from what is said about Judah in Genesis 49 that the scepter would not depart from Judah, speaking of a kingly royal line, which began with David and continued through to the fall of Judah. And then Christ, being of the line of David, continues that line. And so His birth during this period of time then is what we were talking about.

But then in verse 3, here comes another sign. "And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads" (Revelation 12:3). Now we've already understood the symbolism from Revelation about a dragon being that for Satan himself. This great serpent is referred to all the way back from Genesis.

And so the serpent has seven heads and ten horns at this particular time. Now the Gospels record how Satan influenced Herod, the ruler—or he was more than a tetrarch, he was really kind of the king appointed by Rome over all of the Jews and Judea at the time. Herod was influenced in the early episodes there in the Gospels to seek to kill Jesus, this prophesied king that he had heard about and inquired about of the wise men that came. And so he kills all the firstborn of the children in Bethlehem where the birth of Christ took place, all of those that were two years old and younger at that time, as told in Matthew 2.

But Christ was spared. Herod didn't know at the time that Joseph and Mary had already been warned to flee into Egypt, and they did. That's told in Matthew 2:13–14. And so God protected Christ and allowed Him to be spared from that holocaust, which is what it was, of Jewish children in Bethlehem at that time. And Satan was prevented from destroying the seed of this woman here in Revelation 12.

That doesn't mean that Satan has given up trying to seek to kill God's people, God's children at the time of the end as we will see, but that's what we have.

And so the story goes on then in verse 4: "His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born" (Revelation 12:4).

Now, we understand that this refers to Satan and what we know from Ezekiel and from Isaiah—Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. That's been covered in other classes—that Satan, a powerful angel, angelic being, very close to the throne of God, engineered a rebellion, drawing, it would seem, a third of the angels with him by what verse 4 here tells us, and threw them to the earth. And as a result of that rebellion, Satan and his angels were cast back down to the earth after they attempted to overthrow God on His throne and are awaiting judgment in a condition or place of restraint, a situation that is described by Peter in 2 Peter 2:4 of a place called Tartaróō.

I believe you haven't gone through Peter yet in your general epistles, or have you covered 2 Peter? You're in 2 Peter, so you'll go through that in a bit more detail. But that word restraint, Tartaróō, only used in 2 Peter 2:4, indicating a place of restraint for the fallen angels. And Jude 6 also gives the same indication here of what took place. And so they were thrown down to the earth, and this has been in a sense their domain, their place of rule.

And other scriptures, some of which we'll get to later, show very clearly Satan being the god of this world, that demonic angels, demon spirits, are worshiped through idols that men have crafted with their own hands through all different forms of false religion down through the ages and different cultures that have practiced idolatry, paganism. The Bible clearly shows that to worship an image of a god or goddess is to worship a demon. And so that is what they crave. Revelation 13 is going to bring this out even more.

And so looking at this, we then have quite a picture that begins to develop.

Now, let's just continue reading on. "His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven, and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born" (Revelation 12:4).

And so this dragon, the serpent, stands, lays, whatever you want to say, before the woman to devour the child at its birth. Again, through Herod, this attempt was engineered to destroy or kill Christ by having the Jewish children in Bethlehem, two years of age and younger, all killed. But again, they were protected.

Now, verse 5 says, "She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne" (Revelation 12:5). Again, another description from Isaiah about the Messiah. And so in one verse, it is described—the birth and death and resurrection of Christ are described, in essence, with what you have here. So the whole thing is in verse 5.

Again, through the Gospels, we know the story. Christ did grow to adulthood, began His ministry and conducted that ministry. Then His death was engineered again by Satan through the Jewish and the Roman authorities. And the story is told there of His resurrection and His ascension to the throne of God, which we read about in Acts 1. So all of that then is covered in verse 5 here of Revelation 12.

Then verse 6 says, "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" (Revelation 12:6). So here's another numerical reference here of a period of 1,260 days. And with the biblical day-for-a-year principle, we could interpret this then to be 1,260 years.

So here's the woman, and the woman now being more than Israel because after Christ ascends, the Church begins. All right? So you should understand, and that's been covered as well, that we have then the Church as the, in a sense, Israel of God—the fulfillment of what Israel was in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, it is the Israel of God. I'll just put “Israel of God” here. And the Church then is the ultimate fulfillment.

So this 1,260 days—actually I should probably put it over here. This 1,260 days, she goes into a wilderness, a place of remote place of protection. And anytime the wilderness seems to be used and referred to in Scripture, it's a place of solitude. Christ went into the wilderness and fasted for 40 days before He then came and was tempted of Satan—you know, the account from Matthew 4. And the wilderness then here as it is used in these Scriptures being a place of a remote place set apart from, let's say, the mainstream of human activity or human life or actions or activities.

And in the context of what we have here, we see a development of Israel through the woman who is clothed with the sun. And the Church that then is the body of Christ that begins by… when does it begin? It began on Pentecost officially, the giving of the Holy Spirit. We kind of mark that as the beginning of the Church, but that kicks it off. And so the Church then is the center of the activity of this dragon and of Satan and his efforts to destroy the work of God, the people of God, the very birth of the Messiah, the Son of God. And all as a part of Satan's grand design and effort to thwart the plan of God is what we are reading about here.

So when we look then at verse 6 and this woman going into a wilderness to a place prepared by God to be there for 1,260 days, and if it's a period of 1,260 years, which many interpreters have taken, and it's been our traditional interpretation as well within the Church, that the Church in a sense is kind of protected or hidden or apart from the major activities of the world that is taking place.

So one interpretation of this, and it has been the traditional interpretation of the Church, is that this 1,260-year period would be a period between 325 A.D. and 1585 A.D. 325 to 1585. What took place? Well, in 325 A.D., there was a very significant church council at the city in Asia Minor of Nicaea, the Council of Nicaea. You've heard that many times referred to.

We talked about it when we were talking about the origin of the Trinity teaching earlier. The Council of Nicaea in the year 325, a very famous church council, typically looked at as the first great church council. It wasn't the very first time a group of ministers or bishops got together. They had already been gathering, but this was the kind of the biggest one, and it was called by the emperor Constantine, which is what made it significant.

Constantine had already legalized Christianity in the empire. He'd had this fantastic vision at the beginning of one of his battles of a cross in the sky that appeared to him kind of in a dream. And he heard a voice: “By this sign you will conquer.” So he then quickly put the sign of the cross on all of his soldiers, and they went out and defeated Constantine's enemy, a rival for the throne at that time. And from that point on, the God of the Christian church and the symbol of the cross was Constantine's. And he legalized it, more or less adopted it.

Constantine was really not baptized until he died. In those days, people like that would put off baptism until the very end of their life because they continued to do bad things. And then they waited to get absolution or forgiveness with a deathbed forgiveness. And that's exactly what happened with Constantine. And he did some pretty bad things through the years, even though he was, in a sense, professing Christianity. But he calls this Council of Nicaea. And this is where a lot of the teaching, false teaching, begins to get codified. Easter is codified here. There's a reference made against keeping what is called by them the Jewish Sabbath. And other matters, as well as trying to deal with this issue of the nature of the divinity of Christ. And subsequent church councils refined a lot of that.

But this is taken as the beginning of this time. And through this period from 325 to the 16th century, there is a period of church rule through political power, the Holy Roman Empire—first the Roman Empire, then its successor called the Holy Roman Empire, which we'll talk more about in Revelation 13—the various revivals, down through a period of medieval history, sometimes called the Dark Ages of history, where the civil and religious government are wedded together and a Catholic orthodoxy is enforced.

And if you were going to keep the Sabbath, or if you were going to believe anything different from the established accepted teaching of the Church, the Roman Catholic Church, you were in a small, very often persecuted, hunted, and even killed group. And this happens through the stories of this period of time. And people that are labeled as heretics are hunted down in places in Europe—in the Alpine regions of France, Switzerland, Italy, Eastern Europe. The stories are there, chronicled in many ways, bits and pieces of the story of groupings of people that were persecuted.

Now, our understanding and teaching—and I think it's correct—that among many of these different groups that we can identify from history, there are remnants of what we would identify as the Church of God. Not all groups necessarily could or should fall in that category for a number of reasons, which I don't want to get into here today. But so many of these groups were just picked up. They didn't believe in the worship of Mary. They didn't, in some cases, accept the Trinity. They didn't accept the authority of the Pope. Anything that countered Orthodox teaching was subject to being wiped out and killed.

And many Christians we would call people of the truth's sake, the Church of God, would have been a part of that. And this went on for 1,260 years, roughly.

And in the year 1585, what would be, let's say, a demarcation from that occurs during the time of Elizabeth I, the Queen of England. Elizabeth I, she was the daughter of Henry VIII by his last wife, Anne Boleyn. Very famous story there. And Elizabeth I was a Protestant queen at a time that England, under her father Henry, had broken from the Roman Church and established the Church of England.

But Elizabeth had a sister who was Catholic. Her name was Mary, Queen of Scots. And for a time she ruled, and there was a tug of war. Mary, Queen of Scots had her head cut off. Elizabeth finally got the upper hand, and—whoop—Mary, Queen of Scots got her head cut off, which ended any hope that Catholicism then would be able to reassert control over England.

And though there were many other challenges for that time forward, this becomes the date at which there's a guarantee, at least an assurance, that there's a certain level of toleration within England for keeping the Sabbath, keeping other teachings. Not completely across the board. There were still persecutions under even the Church of England against Sabbath keepers and others, but that's another part of the story. But the day is dawning, is a way to put it.

And so this time of wilderness that Revelation here is talking about has been looked at as possibly this 325 to 1585 period in history. And that ties in with a lot of general understanding about church history, and also the promises to Abraham and the Abrahamic peoples that have been fulfilled through certain modern nations—the English-speaking nations of Great Britain and ultimately the United States. And so it's a part of that story as well.

So we're given kind of a synopsis to look at all of this as all of this is gathered here. But 1585 as well, you have during that period what we look at as the Protestant Reformation, again, that created a more favorable climate for the Church to survive. You also have the various translations of the Bible into not only English but other languages, which allows for the transmission of the Word of God to begin to be put into the hands of everybody. During this period and prior to it, the printing press didn’t allow for that. Translations weren’t there for the Bible to be in the language of the people. And the Church had control over this knowledge, and they did exercise control.

There’s one book I would recommend that kind of tells the story of this period from a political and religious point of view. It's a book called A World Lit Only by Fire, by now-deceased author William Manchester. And he describes this period roughly that we're talking about here as a world that was lit only by fire.

Knowledge was suppressed. Advancement in all different fields of human knowledge was not encouraged because the Church had control. And anything that even threatened church control, church teaching, church orthodoxy was dealt with. And the Church had the authority of the state to accomplish that. That gets told more in chapter 13.

So with that, then, I think enough of that at this point. That sets the scene for, let's say, coming into the modern period, as much as God once needed that to be set here in this particular chapter.

So let's go into verse 7, because now we shift to a future event. Verse 7 then says, "And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought" (Revelation 12:7).

Satan is the dragon. His angels are the demons. Michael, we’ve already been introduced to in the book of Daniel, if you remember. He was introduced there in chapter 10 as this powerful angelic being who would come and assist the other angel that was delivering the message to Daniel in the struggle with the princes of the kingdom of Persia and Greece. And at the end of chapter 10 of Daniel, that angel says, “I now have to go back and contend with both these two archdemons, Greece and Persia, but I will be helped by Michael. I will be helped by Michael.”

Now, Michael is also mentioned in Daniel 12:1. Let me turn and read that one just so I get the quote correct. "At that time Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered, every one who is found written in the book" (Daniel 12:1).

So we have a reference to Michael here in the prophetic flow of this great ending prophecy of the book of Daniel. Remember, Daniel 11 just continues on into Daniel 12. The chapter delineation there is man-made, but it's the same prophecy. So this has already been projected into the time of the end by the time we come to Daniel 12:1. And it tells us then of a time of great world trial or tribulation, and Michael standing up for God's people.

Well, again, go back here then to what we are reading in Revelation 12:7. This war breaks out in heaven. Michael and his angels fight with the dragon. All right, so we have this continuation of this scene here.

But they, verse 8, "did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. 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" (Revelation 12:8–9).

All right? So what this is describing is a second effort on the part of Satan to overthrow God on His throne. We've already read about the first part in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. Now this is a second one, and it's yet future, or at the time of the end.

Sometimes people want to think, and perhaps do think, that maybe it's already happened. Maybe this battle has already taken place, and Satan has been cast down. Honest people can have differing opinions about that. But I think that if we put all these scriptures together, whenever that does happen, persecution is going to be upon the people of God unlike any in this time. All right? So clear on that.

This is a second rebellion. He's repulsed. God's will is not thwarted. And there's another casting out. So again, you just see this—just a point to think back on.

I said at the beginning, Revelation 12 and 13 are giving us deep dives into the work of Satan from going back to the time of Christ to, you know, at the very end of the age. And they have dominion on this earth. And there is work. I've mentioned before about having—I tend to follow certain sources that focus on modern religion, spirituality, what's going on within the religious world, the larger religious world, both those that are religious, those that are agnostic, those that are atheists, those that are trying to come to some type of spirituality, because it all ties into Bible prophecy and the ability to understand our time.

There's a great deal of interest among some that I've been reading about evil in the world. And one of my articles popped up a recent book that was talking about how Satan has, the greatest thing Satan has done is to make people think he doesn't exist, which is true. And I looked at a book and I thought, I want to read this book.

And it sounds interesting, informative, talks about it. I mentioned in the previous class, it talks about the black arts and the black magic down in Mexico today, how prevalent it is. I thought, no, I really don't have the time and I don't really want to immerse my mind into all of that right now. So as I'm preparing for this class here this morning, I realized I've got the core material right here.

I've got more detail and more truth. Now, yeah, there's a lot to understand about the evil in the world today and to be able to label it as demonic in some cases. And human nature being inspired and led by Satan, that's the origin and the source of evil as well. But what we have right here is the core. This is the bedrock. This is the benchmark, if you will, of understanding about the world, the nature of evil, the origin of evil, and Satan as its source. And verse 9 tells us that he deceives the whole world (Revelation 12:9).

Satan has been behind religion, ideology, politics—from Marxism to every form of dictatorship, communism, and other forms of human government that have come and gone—that have not been of God upon this earth and within human beings from eternity, from the beginning as we find these stories here in the Scripture. And he does deceive the whole world. And we have—all people in the church should remember that and not forget it. We don't walk around every day necessarily reading these verses and thinking about it and obsessing on it, but that's part of the operating system that does help us to develop an understanding of the world the way it is and why it is.

As we study, read, observe, make evaluations, and certainly come to conclusions and judgments about the world, about life, and how then we will live. God's Word drives us and dedicates us to that.

All right, let's continue on. Verse 10. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down” (Revelation 12:10).

So here's another revelation about Satan. He's the accuser of the brethren. Now the book of Job gives us a scenario, an episode of Satan accusing Job. And that's instructive that he has had access to that, to God. And you remember in the Gospels, Jesus one time turned to Peter, said, “Get behind me. Satan has sought to sift you” (Luke 22:31, paraphrased). It's like Satan zeroed in on Peter and wanted to remove him. But it didn't happen. But Christ reveals that. And Christ was aware of the spirit world as He was in the flesh as God. We talked about that when we studied the nature of God and Christ earlier. He knew what was taking place in the spirit world, even while He was in the flesh. And He revealed that to Peter.

Tells us then that Satan accuses. Does he accuse us? When we accuse others, we fall into the influence of the mind that is like Satan. When we get into deep accusatory modes at times, we should always check ourselves on that. We should always check our motive and maintain a humility and a right relationship with God so that we don't become, get into a personality type that is always critical, negative, accusatory, looking for the worst.

There's a time to make an evaluation. There's a time to make a judgment. But just make sure that that is not your whole approach to life, people, situations. Because he does accuse the brethren before God day and night (Revelation 12:10). But now it says he's been cast down.

Now verse 11 says, “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death” (Revelation 12:11). These are the people of God, martyrs.

“Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time” (Revelation 12:12). So there's great wrath upon the earth and the people of God especially, because he knows when this event takes place, he has a short time.

That also can be a little bit of a trigger to answer the question, has this happened? Because remember the fifth seal was that of martyrdom, in the beginning of the tribulation. Have we begun to see martyrdom? Have we begun to see an intensified persecution of the people of God? That's what we will see when this event takes place. We can answer that as we look at Scripture and kind of discern where we might be.

Now verse 13, “When the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child” (Revelation 12:13). And so this persecution then comes upon the church.

That is the identity here at this point in the story. But verse 14, “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” (Revelation 12:14). Verse 14 is a very key verse that we've always looked at and understood to be a promise from God. When this time of tribulation erupts and Satan is wrathful against the people of God, persecuting the woman, God promises a protection.

And this mirrors what we read back in chapter 3 of Revelation. Let's just go back and read that again in the message to the church at Philadelphia that we're in verse 10. “Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial” (Revelation 3:10). And when we went through there, I showed you that that phrase hour of trial can only mean the end-time trial, as it is used in Scripture. The hour of trial. So it's a specific period as well as a promise. “The hour of trial, which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 3:10). So it's a worldwide period of trial. And you bring that back then to verse 14 of Revelation 12, and that promise clicks together.

Now, in verse 14, there's this language, the symbolism of the wings of a great eagle. Now that's always, in Scripture, where you find that phrase used, it's referring to God helping His people. He brought Israel out of Egypt on the wings of an eagle, and it's used in other places as well. So here it applies to a protection. But again, this woman goes into a place of her wilderness, and it's for a three and a half year period of time. Again, another 1,260-day period, and we would interpret this to be a literal three and a half years during the time of the tribulation, referencing back to chapter 11 and the preaching of the two witnesses.

And so we've looked at this and understood this promise to be from God, that a part of the church will be protected. I talked about this when we went through Daniel 11, the various ideas about in the church—we coined this term and have used it traditionally—called the “place of safety.” And we talked about that at the time. But if you look at what verse 14 says, the biblical term is her place. Her place. And I personally prefer just to use that term because it's in the Bible, in referring to this time of protection that God does promise. Where it will be, exactly how God will do that, is something that we cannot always know from Scripture.

There have been many different ideas about this from the second century A.D. on. I mean, people reading the Bible in the second century, reading these Scriptures, were talking about a place in the area of Jordan today where Petra is—even back in the second century A.D. It’s a long-held idea. And whether all of this will be by supernatural means, by a physical removal to a place—God knows. God will make that clear to His people when it's necessary. What is clear is that God will preserve a remnant that will make it through this period of time.

And we know that there are going to be others that are equally part of the Church of God as we read on. The serpent goes out after a remnant. Look at verse 15. “So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood” (Revelation 12:15). And this is, again, a symbolism of pouring out of water—armies and peoples—that cause her to be carried away. “But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth” (Revelation 12:16). So this is describing this time of protection.

But then in verse 17, “the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17). And so the chapter ends by Satan thwarted in his efforts to destroy a segment God intends to protect in a place called her place. And then he goes to make war with the rest of her offspring.

The rest of the offspring of the church would be the people. But here's the important thing. Here's what it says about them. These are people of God who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ (Revelation 12:17). That's an identifying sign and the testimony of Jesus Christ. That's a good description of the church even today. We understand how to apply the commandments of God, the Old Testament if you will, and the Gospels or the New Covenant. We understand how they work together to express the purpose, mind, and will of God.

And we understand we keep the Sabbath, we keep the Holy Days, we keep God's Ten Commandments. We know that we don't do sacrifices today. We know that that part of that system, that Old Covenant, is not to be done. Christ fulfilled that. But we also know about clean and unclean meats and how to keep, let's say, the Days of Unleavened Bread in a proper way. We have come, I think, as God has led us to an understanding of how to keep the commandments and the testimony of Jesus Christ as New Covenant Christians.

These are markers and identifiers of the people of God at the very time of the end. Shows many things. Shows the law of God has not been done away with, that the people of God, the Church of God, will be commandment keepers, including the seventh-day Sabbath, which we'll learn about when we come to the mark of the beast and what that can tell us about things that might yet transpire to create this persecution in more detail.

So as we come down to the end of the chapter here, this gives us quite a composite picture of Satan, his efforts to destroy the plan of God, and attack the people of God down through time. We're going to go deeper into it when we go into chapter 13 and see this system that Satan has engineered in more of its grisly detail with the two beasts of chapter 13 and John's vision, which we'll get into in the next class then.