Bible Study

All right. You want to go ahead and start? Okay. I'm glad to. Make sure I've got my microphone positioned correctly. These are very sensitive, aren't they? They are. Well, good evening to all of you. Glad to see somebody out again. We had a record crowd last time. There's no chili tonight. Actually, I didn't see anything back there tonight, except coffee and water. Anyway, there's cookies for those that are good during the Bible study afterwards. It's good to see all of you here and welcome to all of you that are online as well.

We're kind of heading into the Thanksgiving period here in a few days, so any thoughts are beginning to turn toward that? Well, last time we thought that we would get through two chapters in Revelation 11 and 12, and we didn't. So, Steve Byers and I had to come back tonight and finish chapter 12 together and cover a number of different topics that are in here. A very interesting chapter from a very interesting book, that being the book of Revelation.

Chapter 12 of Revelation is another inset chapter in the story that was given to John, the revelation from Jesus Christ of the events of the time of the end. This is an inset chapter that deals specifically with the church. We've already had two chapters, chapters 2 and 3 that had individual messages to seven churches. They're in Asia Minor. This one goes through the history of the church from the time of the Old Testament, the time of Israel, all the way down to the end of the age.

By the end of the book, in just a few short verses, 17 verses, it covers a lot of ground, packs a lot of information into it. There's a lot of direct information that we have. There is also a lot of symbolism. Out of that symbolism, there are some interesting nuggets of information that have always been fascinating to the church, which we will cover in as much detail as we can as we get to that.

Maybe that's something we could talk about for just a second. When we say it's an inset chapter, we just kind of assume that we know what that means. In the sense that this is information that's not following in a chronological order. So this isn't in sequence. It's something that's kind of just put in here. It gives us more information, some things that we can add in to our timeline, but it's not directly in correlation to the overall timeline to say that chapter 11 happens, and then chapter 12 happens, and then chapter 13.

So it doesn't flow like that. So this is one of those chapters that's giving us information, but it's not necessarily in that chronological order of things that we might find when we go through the seals, for example, or the seven trumpet plagues and things like that. But it is dealing specifically with the story of the church, and so that's largely what we are dealing with here tonight, and kind of the age-long attack that Satan himself has upon the church.

So I'll go ahead and start with chapter 12 and beginning in verse 1. As John writes it here, he says, He says that 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. And so here's another great image that has a woman symbolized here, a sign in heaven. In fact, there are several signs throughout this chapter, chapter 3. Another sign appears in heaven of a fiery dragon. So this is a sign of a woman that is clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head, a garland of twelve stars.

Now, in the story of Revelation and often in the Bible and the New Testament especially, this woman is really symbolizing the people of God and ultimately the church of God. As it appears here, it can be the church symbolized in the Old Testament period, but she's clothed with the sun, at least from an overall macro perspective.

The people of God have always been chosen to be a light wherever they were, reflecting the will of God, the way of God, the purpose and the law of God, by their actions, by their conduct.

And so immediately here, the people of God are clothed with the sun, the ultimate in light for this time and place in this world, symbolizing the people of God chosen to be a light to the world. And there's a contrast here with the woman that we have in chapter 12, as opposed to the woman that we'll read about in chapter 17, which is a different woman, a harlot, as described there, the mother of harlots. And that is a different woman with different morals, different character.

This particular woman representing the people of God has a whole different approach and a whole different image about it. Yeah, it's interesting how the woman is reflecting the light clothed in the sun. So we're wrapped around, you know, the image then is God's way. We're wrapped around God's way. So whether we're talking about Israel in the past or the church today, ancient Israel was supposed to reflect God, like the moon reference that it has here. The moon doesn't have its own light. It reflects the sun. And so Israel was to do that. They were supposed to be God's model nation. And then today, the church is also to reflect God.

We're supposed to reflect Him in everything that we are. And so we see that representation here, that this woman, and oftentimes in Scripture, the woman can represent different things. We know a woman in Scripture can represent a woman. Certainly that would be one thing. We know that the woman could also represent, as we're mentioning here, Israel, the true church. That can be a connection. And as Daris mentioned as well, a woman can also represent the false church. So there's at least three representations of what that woman can be. And so putting all those things together with the sign that's described here, we see that representation comes back to Israel in the past and the church today then.

And so we see a little bit of that indicated with the 12 stars. It kind of takes us back to ancient Israel with the 12 tribes in that representation as well. So we see that connection. Yeah, if you go back to Genesis 37, beginning in verse 9, you have a story of Joseph who had a dream that really began to get him in trouble with his brothers because he had this dream.

It says there, "'I dreamed another dream, and this time the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.' And he went and told this to his father Jacob and his brothers." Jacob got irritated with him and kind of sharp, said back to him, "'What do you mean? What is this dream that you dream? Show your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you.'" So if you look at it from the perspective of Joseph's dream here, Jacob and his mother, his wife, are pictured here, Rachel, and the twelve sons that he had, all the sons of Israel, eleven of them bowed down before Joseph, but of course Joseph would have been the twelfth one.

So this is giving a set up and a depiction of the beginnings through Jacob and his twelve sons of what Israel was to become within the Old Testament story as a forerunner of the Israel, the spiritual Israel of the New Testament. Yeah, and it's interesting that we immediately then get a change of perspective. Once we kind of take all of that in and what that symbolically can represent, we move pretty quickly to a literal interpretation when we get to verse 2 right away, because then it says, "'Then, being with child, she' – talking about the woman – "'cried out in labor in pain to give birth.' So suddenly we turn from this symbolic sense of Israel and the church to a literal interpretation of who was with child and giving birth would have been Mary.

And so literally the mother of Jesus Christ then begins to be represented in the scenario that is being painted for us here. So we've got this kind of duality in some of the representation here, the spiritual sense as well as the literal sense being played out through these verses. And so it describes what happened.

So in a way we're taking a quick look back in history of what happened when Christ was born. And we're given some details here of some of the influence and some of the effects of what was happening during that time. And some interesting details we might not know more about if we hadn't had this little section of Scripture here.

And of course Christ was born of the tribe of Judah. He was of the lineage of Judah, which was one of the sons of Jacob. And the prominent one, of course, at the time of Christ, the Jews being the prominent inhabitants of the area of Palestine during that period of time and exactly in the time when He was born. Yeah, one of the things that comes to mind reading that when you think about, okay, we're going to talk about Christ, we see that coming up in verse 5, shortly, to show that literal thing. There's also the sense here that's being played out that she cries out in labor and in pain. And oftentimes when you read about the tribulation, you read about the challenges to come. Tribulation, travail, and childbirth is connected throughout many of the scenarios throughout Scripture that that time that God's people go through is like a travail, a labor that ultimately gives birth to the kingdom of God. And so that also is another interesting connection in this regard as well. Okay, verse 3 then. We have another sign. Another sign appeared in heaven, And so here's the image of a dragon always in the book of Revelation, picturing a serpent being Satan himself. Of course, down in verse 9 identifies this particular sign as the dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan. He has seven heads and ten horns, which identify Satan with the beast of Revelation 13 and 17, which again is in the next chapters there. The beast as it was and will be from the time of the New Testament church until Jesus Christ's return and the various resurrections, permutations, and appearances of this beast during that period of time, during the New Testament period. But the dragon is certainly identified with Satan, and his heads and his horns show him to be kind of an antichrist of the spiritual world, just as his agent, the beast in Revelation 13, is an earthly antichrist sharing the same identifications, the same characteristics of opposition to the purpose and the will of God.

I wanted to mention, I forgot to make one point back in verses 1 and 2. The image of a woman clothed with the sun and the moon and giving birth in this sense is a very familiar image. One of the commentators that you could pick up and read on this shows that it talks about this being a common story from many pagan religions.

And you will read that as a comparison to these events and these various situations that we find described in the Scripture.

Too often, that is used to, in a sense, show that by at least some scholars that the church, Christianity, adapted and adopted from paganism these ideas in telling the story of Christ and the church and pulling it all together.

If you really understand and read the Bible as the revealed knowledge of God, the basis of this entire world, you understand it from a different perspective, especially with what we find about Satan, in that Satan being aware of God's purpose, God's plan, from the very beginning, having been the one to have rebelled against that, Satan in his world and among his agents injected the stories, the ideas, the symbolisms that were going to come through Christ, through the church, through Israel, and all these things that we realize long in advance of their actual appearing.

And so we see these stories, whether it's in Egypt, in Babylon, in Assyria, really around the world, of these differing ideas.

And so it doesn't have to be something that causes us to wonder about the validity of God's revelation if we understand Satan's deception.

Called by one author a number of years ago, Satan's great deception.

And indeed, he counterfeited this long in advance of the actual appearance of either Israel or Christ and the world at times in their effort to try to explain all this, they confuse it.

And we don't see the clear distinction, again, as a part of the delusion that Satan has placed upon the world, and this mixture takes place.

And so all of this was well in place before God's purpose and plan.

Yeah, and it's interesting the symbolism behind the dragon and the fire, as well as the heads and the horns.

Now, some of this we'll probably put on the shelf for the moment, because we'll have to come back to it when we get to chapter 13, and we can get into more about the seven heads and the horns and that sort of thing, because that's going to come up in the next chapter.

And it may fit a little bit more, maybe, to tear it apart at that time, unless you want to go for it now.

No, I think we don't want to tear it apart, but it would take another departure. Okay, we'll spend more than one night on chapter 12. We'll save that for the moment.

But I think one of the interesting things that we see in this is that we see something that departs from the image of what God's angels were created for.

And ultimately, Satan, Lucifer, the angels were to be over the earth. They were to be tending and keeping the earth. They were given authority over the earth.

But in this image, this sign, we're shown this fiery dragon. We see something opposite of the image of Lucifer, of the light bringer.

So we see something totally different, and we see that instead of being one who would watch over the earth and keep it, we see something just the opposite happening, especially as we get into verse 4, where it says, And of course, stars oftentimes in the Bible are representative of angels. And so it gives very specific numbers. A third of the stars, it says, and through them to the earth.

And I can't help but be reminded of just a couple of pages back in Jude. If you want to hold your place here in Revelation, just go back to Jude 6.

Jude 6, it talks about the angels who did not keep their proper domain.

God gave them their position, gave them their duties, but it talks about those who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode.

It says, He is reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

And so these particular angels that Satan drew with him gave up their godly responsibilities, and they tried to take authority unto themselves.

But we realize then, now they have a different perspective on things. And so as we see what happened, they're directly opposing the church. They're directly opposing God's plan.

And so we see that's exactly opposite. Angels are supposed to be ministering servants. They're supposed to be serving God's people.

And maybe a way to think of it is just the opposite of what's going to be described here in a moment.

We see the attack of the dragon on the church and on God's people, but God gave the angels to be ministering spirits, which in a sense conveys that they're supposed to help bring human beings to salvation, to bring children into God's family.

They're supposed to be a power authority, but they're supposed to minister and serve to help us, to help human beings.

And so that gives us a whole different perspective of what God intended them to be and then what position they took upon themselves to oppose God, to oppose His plan, and everything that God stands for.

And so we see that, you know, maybe that's part of the reason Ezekiel 28 describes Satan and what actually happened.

You know, if you were turning over there or somewhere near there?

Well, it's going to turn to Isaiah 14, and Ezekiel 28 parallels this as well. I'm going to start with Isaiah 14 just to show what happened at this particular point in time.

Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 are two chapters that contain information that fill in more of what we have described here in Revelation 12 when the serpent, the dragon with his tail, drew a third of the angels in this period of rebellion against God.

In Isaiah 14 and beginning in verse 12, as it gives us a description here of the fall of Lucifer, it says, How are you fallen from heaven? O Lucifer, son of the morning, how are you cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations? For you said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and I also will set on the mount of the congregation on the farthest far the sides of the north.

I will ascend upon the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high. You shall be brought down to sheil or to the lowest depths of the pit.

And so here, right into the middle of this prophecy in Isaiah, we get a little bit more information about this prehistoric, pre-Adamic event that took place before there was time.

When there was a rebellion in the angelic order, and a titanic battle is described here. I see a number of ABC students here tonight. I remember talking a little bit with them about this when we were going through the doctrine about Satan. I don't think I was here the night that we went through this in Revelation 2 and the churches. But I might just inject something right here to help us understand a little bit more about what is described here in verse 4 in Isaiah, this rebellion, and these stars of heaven, these other angels thrown down to earth. This is an event that is described in the Bible that doesn't give us a whole lot of other details.

I referred to mythology a minute ago. In pagan ancient mythology, there is a story that parallels this of A Clash of the Titans, not the movie. That made a couple of interesting movies. Not that interesting. Oh yeah, the first one was really cheesy. That's a better description. Yeah, that's probably it. But there's a story of angelic beings, gods, if you will, demigods battling in heaven and on earth for supremacy. Really, supremacy over earth, as it is put in these ancient mythologies.

These stories are told as part of all of those myths. But those myths are based upon a reality. And the reality is what we read here in these scriptures. There's an interesting place you can go to today. A few years ago, I was in Berlin at a museum called the Pergamon Museum.

And they have an artifact from the ancient city of Pergamon, which is the city to which the letter to the church at Pergamon in Revelation 2 was written. And you remember in Revelation 2, the message that is there is, Christ says that you dwell where Satan's seat dwells. In that ancient city, there was this giant altar dedicated to the god Zeus. And that altar has been relocated into a museum complex in Berlin today. You can go there and you can see it in the Pergamon Museum. This huge room contains the relics and a reconstruction of this altar to Zeus that stood in the ancient city of Pergamon. And on this altar...

I better get this out from under my feet.

I hope that's got it back on there. On this altar is huge figures of reptiles, of lions, and of giant gods and goddesses engaged in a great battle. And there's a mythological story behind all of that. But in reality, what it is showing, I think, is this. Now, I'm not the only one who thinks that. There are other scholars who understand the direct connection to what Christ said there as a seat where Satan's seat dwells. There's a description that members of the church would walk by every day.

And when they read that letter from John and he said, you dwell where Satan's seat dwells, they had a visual 3D cinematic display of that right in the center of their city, which was a description and a picture and relief form of this time of an attempted overthrow of the throne of God. And angels and demons being thrown back down to the earth.

This was a real event, and it is something that we can see not only in the stories of mythology, but even in an actual archaeological artifact that describes something that took place that laid the foundation for this present world in which we live and the spiritual struggle that we are seeing right here in Revelation 12. I wanted to tie all those together here with what we're reading in all these different verses. And it's important to note that as Satan draws a third of the angels with him, the stars of heaven, we see that they were thrown to the earth.

And so that seems to parallel what Christ talked about in Luke 10.18, where he says he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Because actually what's happening here is that we've got verse 4 that talks about the fact that they were thrown to the earth. And then later on, we're going to see something happen again. When we get down to verse 8, 7 and verse 8, we see that there is another casting out that's going to happen. And those are actually two different events.

And so we have to take note of that. This seems to be referring to an earlier event that probably ties in with Ezekiel 28, that kind of parallel what Darius talked about over in Isaiah, where it talks about the king of Tyre and the prince of Tyre, and makes his connection to Satan as well. Because that's the section where it says that Lucifer was taken in by his beauty, and he was lifted up because of his beauty.

And then it gives us information there that says, I will cast you to the ground, which seems to come back to that same section then, here in Revelation 12. So that's an important thing happening. And we see the time sequence about this throwing to the ground, the throwing to the earth in verse 4, because then we find the dragon standing before the woman, who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born. So as Satan is thrown to the earth, remember they had left their initial position, now thrown back to earth. What is his mission? Well, kind of what we read about there in Isaiah, that yes, he wants to destroy God's people.

Yes, he wants to destroy her child, Mary's child, Jesus Christ. But even more than that, if he can destroy the child, if he can destroy Christ, then he's thinking he can be supreme. He wants to be like the Most High. He wants to be the Most High. So really, the ultimate goal of Satan throughout Scripture is not just to interrupt God's plan, but he wants to be God.

He wants to be in charge. He wants to be worshipped. So as we read through this section, and we keep that in the back of our mind, Satan wants to be worshipped. He wants to be God. And that will come out even that much more clearer when we get into chapter 13 and look at the power of the beast and what is the authority behind the beast and who's really being worshipped when the political leader, the political emperor or president or whatever shape that takes, and the religious leader who really is behind those things that want to be worshipped.

And we begin to realize that's Satan the devil that's behind those things. So that's important to realize. So we have this readiness to destroy Christ even right there at his birth. If you turn back through Matthew 2 and verse 16, you see where this actually took place in the story of the birth of Christ with Herod the Great who knew that something significant had happened.

And of course it says back in verse 4 that the dragon stood before the woman. You've got this picture of the woman giving birth and the dragon standing right there in front of the woman, ready to grab it as it comes out of the womb to destroy its life.

And in Matthew 2, verse 16, we find that when Herod saw that he was deceived by the wise men, those who had come to see Christ, he was exceedingly angry. And he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all of its districts from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men.

Of course, Christ had already been spirited off to Egypt with Mary and Joseph to be spared this, and they were out of the country. But Herod, in his effort to find this prophesied son, this child, who he perceived as a threat. Now, keep in mind, Herod was the ruler over Judea, but he was an agent of the Roman Empire.

He was supported in his role there, placed there, and supported by Rome, which was the fourth beast and the agent on earth of the dragon in a physical form through the state and power of the Roman Empire at this time. So Herod was acting in that sense to fulfill exactly what we find back here in Revelation 12. It didn't happen. Christ was able then to grow, and the time passed, and he was able to accomplish his mission as a human being, which we all know what that was.

But again, it shows where Satan, at various times and places, came on the scene and has always been there to, in this case, try to destroy Christ's life at the beginning. Then he later tried to destroy Christ with his temptations just before Christ began his ministry in Matthew 4. That was successfully rebutted by Christ at that time. And then, of course, he engineered his death, which was a fulfillment of God's plan, even in that. So, several occasions we can see through the Gospel accounts of the dragon making an effort to stamp out the life of the Son of God on the earth.

So he was standing here before the woman to do it, even at the very birth, to devour the child as soon as she was born. Yeah, it's interesting to think about that concept for a minute. Satan attacks us individually, but if he could succeed in killing Christ, where would the sacrifice be for us? Wipe out the whole plan just with that. So no wonder he made such an attempt on his life right from the very start. If he could cut off Jesus Christ, then that would put a halt to him living a perfect life, to him sacrificing his life on our behalf.

And so no wonder he was… I mean, look at the descriptive word here. It's really, really interesting, the words that are describing what Satan was like. He's ready to devour her child. And so we see the imagery involved in that.

I think it tells an amazing story about just the nature that Satan developed once he chose to go against God's way. And it's also a reminder that he's going to devour this child. This child, Jesus Christ, it says, this male child, verse 5, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And so that's reminiscent back in Isaiah chapter 9.

And one of our passages we'll often read at the feast, but it's not just a feast passage. Isaiah 9, verse 6, talks about the child that was born, talks about Jesus Christ. That's at section Isaiah 9, 6, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, the Father has given us His Son for our sacrifice.

And it says, the government will be upon His shoulder, and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. It's interesting, the description then on the throne of David over His kingdom, what will He do?

In Isaiah 7 it says, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice. Is He going to rule? Absolutely, no doubt. And it says, from that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. And so, kind of God's purpose in a nutshell here, that God's kingdom is going to be established, it happens because of Immanuel, God with us, sacrifices His life for us so that this could be possible.

And ultimately, when He returns, He gave His life the first time, second time, He's going to rule with that rod of iron and establish His kingdom, and do an end to all the other kingdom of men that will be done over finished. Now God will ultimately establish His kingdom at that time.

Of course, verse 4 takes us in the last sentence, Her child was caught up to God and His throne, which takes us right within two sentences as you go through the entire birth, life, and death and ascension of Jesus Christ, as described in the Gospels and in the first chapter of the book of Acts, where Christ was finally ascended for the final time in front of His disciples, as they stood on the Mount of Olives and watched Him go into heaven for the final time, and then they were told that He would come back in light manner. So He was caught up to God and to His throne, which, if you recall from Acts, where the deacon Stephen, when he was being stoned, had this vision given to Him as the heavens were opened and He saw the Son of Man at the right hand of the Father in heaven. So that image right there ties in with what we are told right here in verse 5 of Christ as a child being caught up to God and His throne, fulfilling His purpose and making possible then all that the Scriptures tell us about Christ as our high priest and our soon-coming King. Someone was telling me a story about that the other day. They said to me, did you know that God was left-handed? I said, God is left-handed? What do you mean? He said, well, He has to be, because Christ is sitting on His right hand.

So I don't know what that has to do with this. I don't either. Okay, I'll try to not recall those things from here on out.

Now, it is interesting now that the scenario changes right away here. So as we're looking at the scenario, seeing what happened with Christ, Satan's mission to try to destroy Him, then in verse 6, we have a change of scenery. We've got a woman, the woman mentioned here, but now we see that, well, this isn't Mary. This is not talking about Mary and the physical birth of Jesus Christ any longer, because now it says the woman fled into the wilderness. Now, if you remember our symbolism here, it was just talking about a real physical woman in Mary.

Well, we know that it can also represent the church as well. And so this woman, the church, seems to be the representation here, that now the church, it says, flees into the wilderness. And it's interesting that at that time, after the death of Christ, was there a period of time where the church was on the run, you might say, or the church was fleeing into the wilderness?

And of course, it says a place prepared by God that they should feed their 1,260 days. Now, we know we do the division that comes out to three and a half years, but is it talking about three and a half years? Is it talking about 1,260 days? Or could it be talking about something else? How does that scenario fit in with something that seems to have happened not that much longer after the crucifixion?

That seems to be the question. At least we should pose right here. What period of time would that be talking about when the woman, the church, flees into the wilderness? One explanation that we have had over the years that has come from other scholars, biblical students as well, and I think can't offer an explanation. And one explanation as to what verse 6 is talking about in the entire framework here of this inset chapter.

If you keep in mind that at the end of verse 5, we are at basically the year 31 AD with the ascension of Christ after His death and resurrection, first century. When we come to verse 7, we are catapulted into this end time period right now. Verse 6 seems to indicate a possible explanation and a possible period of time intervening from that first century period to this. And if we look at the 1260 and apply the prophetic principle of a year for a day, in that we have a period of 1260 years.

Now, can we mark off a period of 1260 years in history and perhaps learn something that has an application that may be an explanation for this? Well, there is. And again, this has been one of the explanations we've had. In the year 325 AD, there was the Council of Nicaea, a very famous first church council in the city of Nicaea, an Asia minor called by the emperor Constantine, who was the Roman emperor who converted to Christianity.

He called this first-grade council, which decided a number of things regarding the nature and divinity of Christ, the matter of Easter, and also they ruled on the Sabbath. And they essentially, at that particular time, made a decree that Sabbath-keeping was to be forbidden, an outlaw.

That later had further explanation in other church councils. But from that period of time, there began to be this coalescing of church and state, not completely by Constantine, but by the end of the... let's say 75 to 80 years later, there was an ironclad link between church and state with a later emperor that began to actively persecute any remnant of people who were holding on to the true faith. By that, I mean keeping the Sabbath, keeping the Holy Days, and an understanding even of who God was and who Jesus Christ was. So you still have a church, but a much different church.

You have a completely different church. And what is the church, and believers... there's a scattering that takes place. And as you try to trace the story, then, in the subsequent generations and years, you find remnants of people, among whom must be, no doubt, the Church of God, as it is barely hanging on. But there are Sabbath keepers throughout the Alps of Eastern Europe, in Asia Minor, other parts of Europe, and the stories, and the scraps and bits of information that we have in regard to this.

But it is a persecuted minority. You'll find pockets of Sabbatarianism popping up, let's say, in Eastern Europe, modern-day Bulgaria, Romania, where whole communities are keeping the Sabbath. As they read the Bible, as the Bible becomes available in their language, with the printing press and after the time of the Reformation, people begin to read the Bible and they discover the Sabbath. And you find stories of whole communities keeping the Sabbath, merely because they read it in the Bible, and other aspects, little bits of what we consider the true faith.

And yet they are stamped out, they are persecuted by the Church, and by its agent the state, or vice versa. Until we come down to the late 16th century, the late 1500s, and we come to the story of England during the time of Elizabeth I. And about the year 1585, there is a consolidation of Elizabeth I's reign by an actual act of violence where she actually kills her half-sister, Mary, Queen of Scots. And has her beheaded to thwart any further Catholic effort to regain the throne of England. It's a fascinating story in history, but it is right after that that the Armada sails against England and Elizabeth in an attempt to knock this Protestant heretic off of her throne and regain England for Rome and Catholicism. But it fails. What happens with Elizabeth, and the religious picture in England begins to change and there begins to develop a climate again where little beds of the truth, if you will, and Sabbatarians can then begin to observe the laws of God, the way of God, and you begin to read of more and more people keeping the Sabbath and the story of...there's religious freedom that allows that to develop. So by the time you come to...here's the story. From 325 to 1585 you've got this period covered here by this 1260-year period. And it's a little bit of a neat package in history, at least to understand it, but I think there is some relevance here and application to what we read here of the church being protected wherever and whoever the church was in these places. Now I'm not one to pick every group of people that you might read from these stories and say, well, this group was the church or it was this group or whatever. We don't have enough information to say that. But I do know the prophecies, this prophecy, plus Christ's promise that the church would always be in existence. And what we do read from Scripture and some of those promises and what we can piece together, I think we have a neat little understanding that allows us to understand that God did prepare a place even then for the truth to be preserved, for ultimately the church to emerge in a modern context, in a modern world. And from that we can begin to trace that even on the eastern shores of America and subsequent years even down to our time and our experience. God has always prepared a place and a way of preservation for His people and for the truth and the faith that has never died out.

It's interesting, the symbolism in the verse as well. We've got the woman fleeing to the wilderness. Is that something that's easily recognizable? If you're out in the wilderness, you're probably out of sight. And what happened to the true church through those hundreds of years? If you study history, it's hard to pick that out. As Darris was saying, well, this might be a group, this might be a room, this tribe went over here, and it's not entirely clear. But what happens at the end of that time, suddenly, because the Church of England is able to exist, the true church can begin to come out in the open. And so it becomes more recognizable at that time.

And so we see that the place that God had prepared for the church was the wilderness. It was a place off, not of common knowledge. A little bit unrecognizable in that way. And over that 1260 years, he didn't allow it to die out. He continued to feed them, continued to sustain the truth, so that when the time was right, then the church could begin to flourish more. It could come out into the open once again. And so that scenario from Constantine forward seems to fit pretty well within that time frame. And so when you follow the church into the wilderness, whether it's in Italy or Switzerland or Southern France or in those areas, eventually, by the time we get to Elizabethan England, then we can begin to come out. And that history seems to bear that out when you put that scenario together as well. The wilderness, in that case, if that's what we were going to apply it to, it was places in Asia Minor, Eastern and Southern Europe, Western Europe, even in England itself. Places where pockets of the truth sprung up, where the church existed, and they were fed there. She was fed for this period of time. And so by feeding, there was a keeping alive. And it's not a great work in every case, as far as we can tell, but a nurturing and a sustenance that kept the flame going, even if it was very faint at various times. But there was persecution, there was martyrdom. It was to read this book, and as people did, I read a book about the Sabbath a few years ago, just written by a Jewish who had come back to the Jewish faith. And she was writing about the Sabbath and her love for the Sabbath. And she had a few chapters in there about this historical part of it. And she said, as the Bible became available in the common tongue, no longer just the reserve of the priests in Latin or Greek, as people read the Bible, and they just read it for what it said, she made an interesting observation. She said, they read about the Sabbath and they kept it. They read that it should be kept, and they were convicted to start to keep it as they read the Bible. The point was, you can't read the Bible without seeing the Sabbath in there. And this is very interesting just to note that this feeding that would have taken place in some of these remote areas to keep the truth alive and of people being prepared.

Now, after we finish verse 6, then we fast-forward to a time far in advance of this time period that this 1260 years covers. And so when we read verse 7, it says, War broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and his angels fought. So there's this big battle going out. It says, They did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. And so here is a second attempt by Satan to take God's throne. It seems there are times when Satan had access to God's throne. Think of the book of Job, where Satan comes before God and says, Hey, have you thought about Job? And now we finally have this ultimate action taking place with this big war that Satan makes this attempt, but he was thrown down. I don't know if you've ever tried to picture what this must be like. How do spirit beings fight in war? I don't know. I can only think of physical types of things that apply, but this is the description of what's taking place. And this seems to be a monumental battle, so that ultimately, he says, no place is found. Nothing is possible for evil to be in the presence of God. And so he is cast out in this great spiritual conflict.

There's one other verse, Zechariah 3, verse 1, where it shows Joshua, the high priest, in this vision, standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. A couple of what was mentioned in Job, where Satan came among the sons of God there in the first chapter of Job, there does seem to be, even down to this period of time, some access that Satan has to the throne of God. And again, we're dealing with a spiritual dimension of beings that... I don't hesitate to even use the word, but a life or an existence that we can't relate to. But Scripture gives us this indication that there is this interaction that occurs, but it will come to an end. And even in one final effort, there will have to be another battle where the dragon and Satan and his angels will fight. And in this particular case, Michael will repulse them. Now, sometimes people ask, well, we know when this happens. We see it through heavenly signs or whatever. I've had that asked many times. And again, I don't know. Maybe we would. And then maybe we would. It's a spiritual battle that would have to have some type of a physical manifestation. If you were to look and see some type of a heavenly sign up there, that would be a physical manifestation from the spiritual realm. It may be that we would not see it. Probably more likely, in my personal opinion, that it would not be something that you would know, but you would know the after-effect of it, because this begins then a period of tribulation. I think if you begin to speculate about it, maybe not see this happen, but the effects of what is going on, I think, will be evident. If we tried to tie this little section here into an event in our prophetic timeline, we know Revelation talks about the four horsemen. And as the four horsemen ride, we know ultimately that's going to lead to the beginning of the great tribulation. And so we've got this three and a half years of the first two and a half are Satan's wrath. And then the last year is God's wrath. So this three and a half year tribulation is divided up. So the first part is Satan. Satan is out to get God and condemn and torture and murder and do everything he can to defeat God's people. And so we've got this two and a half years of the great tribulation that is attributed to Satan's wrath, followed by the wrath of God to conclude the great tribulation. So is it possible then, as this war takes place and Satan is thrown down to the earth and coming in the future, is that the beginning of the great tribulation that Satan now realizes, this is it?

You know, all out war, I can't succeed against God, but if I can destroy His people, I still can win. And that may be part of where it fits into the overall plan, that Satan is cast down and that begins the great tribulation possibility.

Well, verse 8 says, "...they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer." So at this point, it seems that whatever access Satan has to heaven, to God, to His presence, ends. And it's finished. And there's a finality to this as the stage is set for the subsequent events leading to the culmination of the age. So there's no longer any place there. So, verse 9 says, "...the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. And he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." So here is a complete description of Satan in verse 9 that we very often go to to learn a great deal about that. He's called the dragon. He is called the serpent, taking us all the way back to the garden in Eden, Genesis 3. He's called the devil, the adversary. He's called Satan. And Lucifer is not mentioned in here. That's from other places. But we have all these images and names of Satan. And of course, to that has been added a whole list of other names that various cultures and peoples have given to the devil, depictions of the devil in so many different ways, down through the years, and popularized, and fearful, humorous, even sometimes sympathetic ways. But God labels it for what He is here, and that is the deceiver of the whole world. And His deception. Again, I'll go back to what I mentioned earlier, that Satan put in place a counterfeit religion, counterfeit myths, counterfeit stories to confuse the world long before Christ appeared, long before the church came into existence. And all of that was counterfeited in an effort to confuse people so that they would not recognize Christ in His first coming as the Messiah.

And already, you look at virtually every culture around the earth, and you will see, especially in the ancient pagan cultures, these very depictions of dragons, of serpents that are worshipped and are a part of the ancient culture, whether it's in South America, Central America, of course, throughout Asia. I shouldn't have to conjure those thoughts up, as we see the dragon very often in Thailand, in Japan, and throughout the various cultures and religions there. Depictions of a dragon are just part of the story of their life. A serpent is worshipped or looked upon with reverence, and you find images of sun worship, you find so much already there in place, hundreds and thousands of years before Jesus Christ was born, all of that setting up a worship of Satan through all of these symbols.

It's interesting that we see his intent is to deceive. It's deception. It's not just a little deception. It's described here as the one who deceives the whole world. That's monumental. So, no wonder, I mean, I immediately think back to Matthew 24, when the disciples were asking Christ, you know, what about the end of the age? When will these things be? What will be the side of your coming in the end of the age?

And what did he say? First thing, don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. And so, boy, does that harken back to what we read here in Revelation 12, that Satan is the deceiver. He is the opposer of the brethren. He is the one who wants to subvert the plan of God any way, every way he possibly can. And so, we see God cutting him off, but he's still on a mission at this point. He's still on a mission. And it's interesting then, as we go forward from there, I suppose it would be better if we were going to get through Chapter 12 tonight.

It says, I heard a loud voice saying, In heaven now salvation, strength, and the kingdom of our God, the power of Christ have come. For the accuser of our brethren, accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. So there we have that implication of the access that Satan had to accuse people like Job before God. Maybe he's brought up our names before him as well.

Who knows? That's part of his mission, to destroy whoever he can and accuse them as he may. And so, we see finally then, it paves the way for the return of Christ. Salvation and strength, the kingdom of God, it's on its way because finally Satan has been thrown down. So as a result of that, because we cast Satan out, and there's a connection here in a sense that salvation and strength comes, how does salvation and strength come to us?

Well, we make a choice as God opens our mind to His truth to live by His Spirit. And as we do that, we cast Satan out. We cast Satan out of our lives. God's given us His Spirit, so we have power over sin. We have power over the influence of Satan. We can cast Satan out of our own lives. And so, no wonder it's tied into verse 11, where it says, They overcame Him, we, that's talking about the saints, those who are striving to be true Christians, it says, We overcome by the blood of the Lamb.

So, through the sacrifice of Christ, because we receive the Spirit of God, it says, By the word of their testimony, and they didn't love their lives to the death. And so, what powerful, powerful symbolism that's found in just these couple of verses that revolve around Satan being cast out, ultimately. Of course, verse 11 puts an emphasis upon overcoming a positive development, even though we may be accused before God by Satan and or his agents. You know, anytime we start to unjustly or feel wanting to accuse somebody and really feel the strong urges out of hurt, jealousy, envy, in our relationships, this very verse should cause us to stand back and say, Wait just a minute.

Am I getting into this type of a spirit, of accusation, looking for something, digging for something? And wanting to put that out and lay that out in front of something, you know. We have to be very careful to recognize any proclivity, tendency in our own hearts toward that and be able to pull back from it. A lot of things can play into that in whatever situation we may find ourselves, but we don't want to become accusers as a way of life, as a part of our character, because even if there is a legitimate situation at some point in time, if that becomes a part of our approach, Satan can get in there and cause that then to be a point of division and poison within our own life, seeping out and impacting even the Church of God.

We don't want to let that happen, and that's a spirit of accusation begin to develop within us that becomes a part of our nature and our character. But it says that 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.

Verse 11 is a beautiful verse in the midst of the warnings against deception, Satan's continual pressure, ongoing attacks upon God's people, God's Church, righteousness, godly character. We're told that we can overcome those tendencies. We can do it through the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, we can use Christ's sacrifice in his life within us to overcome. And that is the source of strength to do that. That's the antidote to the deception and to the spirit of accusation that Satan can inject.

He says here, they did not love their lives to the death. That opens up a profound thought about our life, a sacrificial life to which we are called as the elect and as the people of God.

That those who are a part of the body of Christ, the Church of God, must come to a point where we don't love our life so much that our sole goal is to preserve ourselves and to preserve our life.

That doesn't mean we abuse ourselves. That doesn't mean we just neglect ourselves physically or spiritually and yearn for martyrdom in that sense. That's not what it says, but that we don't love our lives overly much.

We understand that our life is a calling to a sacrificial form of life once we are a part of the Church.

To overcome Satan, to resist him, and the tension that is created of being a Christian in a world that is deceived by Satan, and the spiritual attacks that he would make, requires us to be able to kind of lean into the wind and to be able to resist and deal with that pressure that comes almost as a constant part of our life where we're willing to commit to that and stay with that and understand that that is what we must bear.

It's interesting that you've got that physical sense that we could be martyred. Think of Matthew 24 when Christ described this time.

He didn't say, oh, you're all going to be protected, everything will be perfect, no worries, you know, your life is safe with me.

Well, what he said, he said, they'll deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my namesake. That's Matthew 24.9.

So during this time period, there will be martyrs. There will be martyrs. But ultimately, I think the connection then as well is overcoming through Jesus Christ.

If you remember back in Revelation 2, Revelation 3, and the letters to the churches, he overcomes the same will be saved. How do we overcome it?

He talks about overcoming, overcoming, overcoming. Well, we overcome because we kill the old person in us.

You know, we live by the power of God. We live by His Holy Spirit. We don't love our lives. We don't love our old life. We want to put that person away. We buried Him in baptism.

And so now we're to be a new person. We don't love that life. We want to be more Christ-minded. We have to become like Christ.

So we don't love that old life, the physical perspective. We want the spiritual perspective in our lives. And so we overcome that. We overcome that way of thinking through Jesus Christ.

And so when we do that, no wonder, verse 12 says, we can rejoice. Rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea.

The devil has come down to you having great wrath because he knows he has a short time. So there's that implication. Maybe we're talking about Satan's wrath and the beginning of the great tribulation.

So it says, now when the dragon saw he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. Okay, it ties back again then. We've got to overcome Satan and his influence because he is not happy.

He is out to get the church. He's out to get us as a whole collectively. He's out to get us individually as well. And so we see the church being persecuted. The woman representing God's church is going to be persecuted by Satan the devil. And ultimately we see the results of that persecution and then what happens from there.

Okay, so the dragon is cast to the earth. He persecutes the woman who gave birth to the male child.

Verse 14, but the woman who 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. Okay, now we're at verse 14. So here's the verse you've been waiting for all night. I wonder if we're going to get there.

This is why we all came out tonight. What is this describing? What are we being told here?

The woman is the church. She's given two wings of a great eagle to fly into the wilderness. We already talked about the wilderness earlier in verse 6 where the woman fled into the wilderness there to a place prepared by God. We gave a possible description of what that could mean from a historical time sequence of that and for that period of time there.

And so here's another one that is then in the sequence of the story here of chapter 12 is in the future. And it is after Satan is cast to the earth. It is within this timeframe of three and a half years. We have time times and half of times that is mentioned here. So we have a time period there of three and a half years, prophetically, that is talked about here, which puts us smack dab in the middle of what is called the time of the Great Tribulation. So a time would represent a year, times would represent two years, and then a half a time would be that six months. So you've got the one plus two plus a half. So 160 days. So under 60 days, three and a half years seems to be the representation there.

All right. So notice what it is called here. It is called her place. This is singular. It's not plural. We've already seen from this chapter as I said a time of preparation. We should note that there are other references to a fleeing, a flight throughout the Scripture. Obviously, Israel fled Egypt, and it's even described there by God on the wings of a great eagle. He carried them out on the wings of an eagle. How did they leave Egypt? Do you remember? They walked. They walked out with Moses. We've all seen the story on the Ten Commandments. And so that wings of a great eagle doesn't mean that we might fly off on a silver bird. That's what he's talking about here. But it is being carried by God. It is being taken by God. The whole process is engineered, developed, and orchestrated by God in His benevolence, in His way of protecting and watching over people, but to a place. So there must be a literal place that is talked about here. If we're going to take this as it is laid out for us, let's just take this as a place. Now, does it tell us where? No. Does it tell us for what is going to take place here? Not exactly. It just says that the woman is given an opportunity to move into a place. Now, if you go back to Luke 21 and a statement that Jesus made as He described the time of the end and armies surrounding Jerusalem, He made a statement there about to the church that He said, when you see the Jerusalem surrounded by armies, those who are in Jerusalem flee to the mountains.

Now, there's a literal application of the people of God fleeing there. A few years actually after the time of Jesus' pronouncement there in Luke 21. In the year 6869 AD, the Roman armies did surround Jerusalem, the Roman armies, under the emperor at that time.

Josephus records an account of the priests being in the temple on the day of Pentecost and hearing a voice say, Get the hints. The Jewish historian Josephus records that. The church from what we know in the history, the church that was in Jerusalem, the church from the book of Acts, actually literally fled. And they fled to the nearest mountains they had, which would have been across the Jordan. And they went to a city called Pelah, which was on the eastern bank of the Jordan River in what is modern-day Jordan. And you can go there today. I've been there a couple of times to the city of Pelah. They've excavated some of the ruins there, but it's an actual spot. And there we have the story that the church fled to that point. And it's kind of nestled in some low-lying mountains. So that happened literally to the church, and a portion of them escaped the ravages of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and the carnage that took place at that time. Some of them eventually came back a few decades later, but that's where they went, and they did. Now, Jesus' prophecy has a more typical or literal application to the time preceding His second coming, as that prophecy does. And we can at least understand that when we tie it into what we find here, that the setting is the same as we look at that period just before the second coming of Jesus Christ. Yeah, when you look at Matthew 24, Mark 13, yes, some seems to be referring to the time of around 70 AD or so. But is there a greater application as well? I think that becomes part of the question. It's interesting that when you look at this particular passage, it says you're given two wings of a great eagle. Certainly angelic beings, some of them have two wings, in a sense that is that part of what it's talking about? There's a description of an angel flying like an eagle in chapter 8. And how does that tie in? It's very unclear when you look at it like that. But it's interesting that it says the woman flies, might fly into the wilderness. Previously, we see the woman fleeing in verse 6. The woman fled into the wilderness. So in a sense, man flees, and then God is flying in a sense. So how does that fit into the overall story? And in what sense are we to take that? And where exactly would this place or her place be? The one thing we can get out of this, it says it's from the presence of the serpent. And so there's a place that is a place of protection from the presence of the serpent. And I think that's important as we begin to realize what's happening here. It's also interesting that water comes into play as well. When we talk about crossing the Jordan, we know of events that happened as the Israelites came into the Promised Land. They had to cross the Jordan, and it divided much like the Red Sea when they left Egypt. How does water come into play? Is this a literal thing? Is this symbolic of something else? Well, we know that oftentimes throughout the Bible, waters and floods can be compared to armies.

And so is that what's happening as this woman is being protected in this place from the presence of the serpent? It says, 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. That seems to fit with the scenario of the King of the North and the armies that would be surrounding Jerusalem at this time. Does that come into play? It seems like certainly that could be a part of what's happening at that time as well.

I've already mentioned that this is speaking of a singular place. It seems to be a focus location. If we want to take this, as I do, literally a focus location, where a portion of God's people will be miraculously preserved during this period of time, as Satan pours out his wrath, floods of armies against her, and the portion of the church will be preserved. Not the entire church. I think something that ties in well with that is if you looked up that word for the place, it does seem to mostly indicate a particular location in its most common usage.

So I think that that does play more literally than in that sense. Notice down in verse 17 that there are others that will meet the wrath of Satan. He's going to go and make war with the rest of her offspring. And so this is not talking about the totality of the church at this particular time, but a portion of the church. Now, notice that it does not say here, it says, her place.

It does not say a place of safety. It does not say a place of final training. Those are ideas that by our traditions and our understanding and our culture over the years, as we've tried to more deeply understand this in the church, we attach certain other names to it that are not there scripturally. It's just talking about her place, the church's place, a place prepared by God and a place of focused protection.

Now, this leads to a discussion. We have to keep it rather brief, but at least we need to touch on it, I think. In our tradition, in our culture within the church, we took other prophecies from the book of Isaiah and from the book of Daniel, and we made certain leaps of ideas that this place could be a place in modern-day Jordan called Petra, or Petra, as we would say. But you go to Jordan and they call it Petra. Petra is the ancient Nabataean city, the Rose-red city, half as old as time as the poet called it, that is found in southern Jordan in what is biblical Moab, and is a very, very popular tourist attraction if you ever go to Jordan today.

It is one of the wonders of the world. It's a world heritage spot. It is a fascinating place. I've been there twice. And it is within our church culture, a place that we had speculated about that could be possibly this place talked about as her place. Because of certain scriptures, Isaiah 16 is one, I could just quickly turn there, where it talks about the rock and the wilderness in verse 1.

From Selah to the wilderness, for it shall be a wandering, and verse 2, a bird thrown out of her nest, so shall be the daughters of Moab at the fords of the Arnon. Moab is modern-day Jordan. The Arnon is a river just to the north of the area of Petra today, flows through Jordan. Take counsel, execute judgment, make your shadow like the night in the middle of the day.

Hide the outcast. There is a phrase that we latched upon. Do not betray him who escapes. Verse 4, Let my outcasts dwell with you, O Moab. Be a shelter to them from the face of the spoiler, where the extortioner is at an end, devastation ceases, the oppressors are consumed out of the land. This and other verses are those that we kind of piece together through the years in the church to speculate that if the Bible tells us where the place of safety is, that it could be in Moab.

And there is this place called Petra that even the Apostle Paul went to during a period of time in his early ministry after he was converted. That could fit this description.

There is another reference over in Daniel 11, of the king of the north and the king of the south, that is very interesting in this as well.

Maybe as you turn over there, one of the things that is interesting in Isaiah 16 is that when it talks about the ruler of the land from Selah, or Selah, that word is literally rock or Petra.

Petra is just a huge rock city carved out of solid rock.

It's a location that says the wilderness, from Selah to the wilderness. And so that's where this connection then becomes a little bit more serious, I think. If you turn to Daniel 11 and in verse 40 it talks about the king of the north attacking the king of the south after the provocation. The king of the north shall come against them like a whirlwind with chariot's horsemen and many ships and enter into the country, overwhelm them, and pass through. He shall enter the glorious land. Many countries shall be overthrown and they shall escape from his hand. Now, the cities that are overthrown are Egypt, verse 42. And this king of the north winds up in the glorious land which is Israel, Jerusalem, Palestine, that area. But it says, these shall escape from his hand, Edom, Moab, and the prominent people of Ammon. Now, it is interesting. Moab is modern-day Jordan. Ammon is a name for the area where the actual capital of Jordan today is Ammon, Jordan, taken from the people of Ammon. And Moab and Edom are the modern-day area of Jordan. And in this prophecy, that area east of the Jordan seems to be spared by the king of the north.

All of this is very interesting. You put it all together and you can make a very interesting story based on Scripture, bits and tidbits of Scripture. This is what I was taught when I was young in the church, and we had this idea that we were going to flee to Petra. And I kind of grew up with that. Through the years, I looked at these Scriptures and thought, hmm, I don't know. We're reading a lot into it. It's not clear. Herbert Armstrong himself even said, the last comment I ever remember him making about this, he said, if the Bible tells us where the place of safety is, it might be Petra.

Now, that's not a whole lot to build a doctrine on. He said, if the Bible tells us, which leaves a lot of questions. And so, these are all very interesting. There is a place. It's called Her Place. In 2005, I went to the feast in Jordan.

We kept the feast there and went down to Petra. And I went back in 2007, a second time. And after going to Jordan, I'll have to share this with you. Going to Petra, you don't want to go there. I mean, you want to go there as a tourist. Because there's not much… I mean, busloads of people empty into Petra every single day. It's the national park of Jordan. They come from all over the world. It's a tourist center. There's a holiday inn right outside the entrance to Petra.

I stayed there. If it is a place of safety, I want to stay at that Crown Plaza Holiday Inn. Sounds like a deal. It's a deal. Swimming pool, overlooking the rocks, it's nice. Buffet meal. As we'll go in style. That's right. That's right. But inside Petra, at dark, you don't want to be there. And it's a fascinating place to go to. But when I began to study a little bit about the modern story of the modern nation of Jordan, I found it interesting because the modern nation of Jordan today is a country basically built for outcasts.

That's what we just read in Isaiah 16. Hide my outcasts, Moab. The Hashemite kings, King Hussein, King Abdullah, his son who is on the throne today, the Hashemite family were outcasts who were given the area of modern-day Jordan. It was a country created for them out of the ashes of World War I. They came up out of Arabia. They didn't have a home. They were outcasts. Through the subsequent centuries, outcasts have poured into Jordan. It is probably the largest repository of Palestinian refugees from Israel today. You go to Amman, and right at the center of the city is this huge Palestinian refugee camp, one of the biggest around.

They tried to kill Hussein many times over the years and take over the country of Jordan, and they failed to do. It's full of Palestinian refugees. After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, Kuwaitis fled to Jordan, those who had money. They fled to Jordan. When George Bush and American troops went into Iraq in what was it, 2003, rich Iraqis went, you guessed it, to Jordan. Outcasts. They pumped a lot of money into the economy. There are other groups from Syria that are flooding in there even today with the Syrian Civil War. There's a group of people that I met when I was over there in 2007-05, a group of persecuted Christians from the southern area of Russia called Circassians, who have come into Jordan as outcasts.

It's a nation of outcasts. And I thought, interesting, interesting. Not enough to build a doctrine on, but I look at these Scriptures and I will have to admit that I've had to just back off, and I'll let God be the one who finally reveals it all in His time and place. There is a place, Her place, and He knows what He's going to do and where and exactly how. There are other things for you and I to do if we're alive at that point in time, if we are a part of that group, or if someone else is, whoever those are that are going to be in Jerusalem, they're going to go someplace.

It says, flee to the mountains. So, God does promise a place for a portion of the church at this time. And there's so many passages in the Bible that refer to the whole concept of being hidden by God, being sheltered by God, a place of protection, deliverance. A lot of the concepts come from the fact that the Philadelphians are sealed, which gives that implication of protection through these things. As long as we're speculating, it's interesting to look what Joel talks about. Joel 2 was a passage that comes to mind because it gives us the prophecy of the pouring out of God's Spirit. We know on Pentecost, Joel 2.28 talks about God pouring out His Spirit on all flesh and sons and daughters prophesying in old men dreaming dreams.

We probably read that passage every year at Pentecost. A few verses later, it fast-forwards to the time of the Great Tribulation. It talks about, the sun shall be turned to darkness, the moon to blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.

Then it says in verse 32 of Joel 2, It shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be a deliverance. And so, is that referring to the environs of Jerusalem, the surroundings of Jerusalem, as a place where God's people will be? It's interesting that the two witnesses will be prophesying. The headquarters will be Jerusalem at that time. Is it possible that the church will be in the environs of Jerusalem to help the two witnesses? Because it's not just a momentary thing that the two witnesses are prophesying, is it?

It's three and a half years. And so the church, three and a half years, there's some interesting connections there as well. Now, if you get back to Revelation, Revelation 11, even in verse 13, it talks about this great earthquake, a tenth of the city, Jerusalem fell. It says, 7,000 were killed, the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven. What people is that talking about that are in Jerusalem giving glory to God? I don't know.

But just some interesting connections as you put some of these passages together. No doubt, God is going to watch over His people. We're going to overcome because we have our faith in Jesus Christ. That is going to enrage Satan. He will do everything He can to disrupt and destroy the church. And yet, at the same time, as Daris pointed out in verse 17 of chapter 12, the devil is not going to be satisfied with just those that are being protected from the presence of the serpent.

Verse 17 reminds us that he's going to go make war with the rest of her offspring. And that offspring has to be true believers. That has to be converted individuals. Why? Because it says those are the ones who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

So it becomes obvious that not all of God's people will be in this position to be taken from the presence of the serpent. So that's something interesting to consider in the whole scenario as well.

Well, how are we doing? One minute. One minute. That's about it, isn't it?

I would make just one final comment, and that is that look at these Scriptures and be careful not to read into them what is not there, but to read carefully as to what it does say and recognize that in the whole drama of the chapter, verse 1 all the way through verse 17, it is, again, Satan's age-long attack upon God, the people of God, all the way down to the very time at the end, and that none of it will be easy. And whoever may be in a place called her place will still have challenges and difficulties, even though they may be kept from some of the worst of what is here. But even those who go through and face what verse 17 describes are no less Christians. If some are going to be martyred, as this indicates, then they will be in company with Peter and Paul and Christ Himself. And they are not inferior Christians in any way, shape, or form. So they'll never buy into that type of divisive theology that tries to compartmentalize Christians, because that doesn't work scripturally. A couple things just come to mind real briefly. Where was Daniel's place of safety? In the lion's den. Where was Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednev's place of safety? In the fiery furnace. So don't assume things that may not be there. And I think if we're going to put our trust in a rock, in Petra, who is the rock that we have to put our faith in? Colossians 3 is the passage that comes to mind. Colossians 3-4, When Christ who is our life appears, that's what we're focused on, the second coming of Jesus Christ, when He appears, it says, you also will appear with Him in glory. That's if we have died and our life is hidden with Christ in God. So you want to base your life on the hope of a rock? It better be on the rock, our Savior Jesus Christ.