Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #8 of Revelation, chapter 12, and we are going to be reading Revelation 12:5-6:

And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

I will stop reading there.  In our last study we were discussing Christ ruling with a “rod of iron.”  The word “rule” is a word also translated as “feed,” and we looked at some of the verses where God uses the same language, especially in Revelation 19, in the context of Judgment Day.  We have learned that on May 21, 2011, the beginning of Judgment Day, Satan was put down from all rule which he had previously held and the Lord Jesus Christ was exalted and began to rule over all that Satan had ruled over.  Since that date and at the present time and for the rest of earth’s history Christ rules with a “rod of iron” over the people of the world in this time of judgment.  He is ruling with a “rod of iron,” or feeding with a “rod of iron,” because the Bible teaches that salvation is ended; there is no more grace or mercy of God.  This is a very harsh judgment of God and, yet, this is what the Bible teaches.  Therefore, it is like a shepherd with a “rod of iron” that feeds his flock, but at the same time He destroys the unsaved people of the earth.

Then it says in Revelation 12:5:

… and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.

This is a reference to the “man child,” or the “male son,” the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the Son of God.  He is also the Son of man.  He is the son of the “woman,” who is a picture of the body of believers, the elect.  Notice in this one verse, it goes from the birth of Christ (“And she brought forth a man child”) to the catching up of the Lord Jesus Christ into heaven (“And her child was caught up unto God”).  A single verse spans the entire life of Christ on earth, from His birth in 7 BC until 33 AD, a span of about 38 years.  In just one Scripture verse, God covers the entire earthly life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.  It reminds us of what we read in Revelation 11:11-12:

And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.

In these two verses, we have the point after the “three and one half days,” which is 1994, the dividing point of the Great Tribulation.  Once the two witnesses stood upon their feet, it was at the end of the 2,300 evening mornings, in September 1994.  At that point they stood upon their feet, which is language that they were again bringing the Gospel to the world.  In the very next statement, it says, “And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither.”  And this occurs at the very end of that approximate 17-year period of  Latter Rain, on May 21, 2011, when God had saved all the elect and, spiritually, they “ascended up to heaven” in the Lord Jesus Christ to be seated in heavenly places (even though no one was literally caught up).  We can see, from one verse to the next, there is a span of about 17 years.  In our verse in Revelation 12, in the very same verse God jumps from the birth of Christ to the very end of his earthly ministry.  It is not His focus at this point in Revelation to go into detail concerning the life of Christ and His ministry on earth; He is focused on other matters, so He quickly summarizes, in a single verse, the entire period of Christ’s visitation to this earth.  Remember, mankind had waited for over 11,000 years for Jesus to come.  By the way this verse says that Christ “was caught up unto God, and to his throne,” and the reference to “throne” is because Christ came to earth as a king.  Remember Pilot asked him, “Art thou a king then?”  Jesus responded, “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world.”  He was born to be King.  He is King of kings and when He ascended up to heaven, He went to His throne as the glorious King of all the kingdom of God.

Let us to Revelation 12:6:

And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

Once again, the woman represents God’s elect.  She fled into the wilderness right after the Lord Jesus was caught up and after He went back to heaven.  We know why the woman flees, but the information about the reason for her flight comes later in the same chapter, if we go down to Revelation 12:13-14:

And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.

This is the detail as to why she fled from the serpent, from that great dragon that sought to devour her child as soon as He was born.  Satan desperately tried to destroy Christ at His birth, as he moved through King Herod to destroy all the children two years and under, but also He tried to destroy Him throughout the earthly life of Christ.  Finally, he stirred up the Jewish authorities to arrest Jesus and turn him over to the Romans in order that He would be crucified.  This was all a result of Satan’s desperate desire to destroy Christ, so that he might be God and the supreme ruler.  Yet, God was just using Satan, knowing full well that he would do everything in his power to kill the Messiah; God manipulated Satan and orchestrated events as He permitted Satan to accomplish that desire, but, in doing so, it fulfilled the predetermined counsel and foreknowledge of God; it fulfilled the perfect will of God that the Lord Jesus Christ would go to the cross to demonstrate the things He had accomplished from the foundation of the world. 

It just shows how pitiful Satan’s attempts are to “outwit” God and to overcome the Eternal God.  Satan is just a creature, a fallen angel, and he has limited ability, especially in comparison to the Almighty, infinite God of the Bible.  God has no problem using Satan, time, and again.  Later, during the time of the Great Tribulation, God (knowing Satan better than Satan knew himself) loosed Satan to enter into the churches and rule as the man of sin.  What would Satan do?  He would do what he longed to do with Jesus long ago – he would destroy the churches and devour the congregations and all the people within them.  In doing so, he precisely did the will of God.  He became an instrument and a servant of the Lord to accomplish God’s purpose to bring judgment upon the house of God.  God is really amazing in His ability to know His creatures and to know even the fallen creatures, their tendencies and what they will do.  The Bible tells us that all things work together for good, to accomplish the perfect will of God. 

When the woman in Revelation 12:6 fled into the wilderness the “wilderness” is a reference to the world.  We read in Isaiah 14:16:

They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

This is referring to the king of Babylon and God calls him a “man” because He is using the king of Babylon to typify Satan.  In this chapter there is a clear identification of the king of Babylon with Satan.  Then it says in Isaiah 14:17:

That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?

Satan made the world a “wilderness” when he deceived Adam and Eve into disobeying and sinning against God.  That brought terrible spiritual desolation to this world.  It turned this world, which had been a Garden of Eden, into a spiritual wasteland where there is no “water.”  In sending the Gospel of Christ’s atoning work for His people from the foundation of the world into all the earth, God turned some of the wilderness places into “rivers of water.”  The churches had been used to bring that Gospel message and functioned as “rivers” or “streams” of water, but then God dried up the message of the churches by removing His Spirit and turning those places back into a “wilderness.”  So a “wilderness” is the typical situation in this world since the fall of man into sin, unless, and until, God opens up “water” in a special way to bring His Gospel of salvation.

So, the “woman” fled into the wilderness of this world and it goes on to say in Revelation 12:6:

… where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

So she fled to a place in the wilderness that was “prepared of God,” and we wonder what place did God prepare for the woman?  The answer is that it was the New Testament churches and congregations.  It fits the timing of what we are reading here; when Jesus ascended up into heaven, it was early in the first century AD.  Just a few days later on the day of Pentecost in 33 AD, the Holy Spirit would be poured out to officially begin the New Testament church era.  The church age would continue for 1,955 years, from 33 AD to 1988 AD.  That was the “place” God prepared in which the woman, the body of believers, would be fed and nourished for the figurative “1,260” days.  We can know this is the case when we turn back to Deuteronomy 16:16:

Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before JEHOVAH thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before JEHOVAH empty:

You may be wondering why this verse that speaks of the three main Jewish feasts has anything to do with the woman fleeing into the wilderness to a place prepared of God.  It has application when we realize that each one of these feasts must have a spiritual fulfillment. 

The first feast, the feast of unleavened bread, or Passover, was the feast in which Christ had come into the world, and then went to the cross, and when He was dying on the cross, it was the time of Passover.  Therefore, Jesus was the fulfillment of Passover.  That feast had a “place” in which it was observed and that was “Israel.”  Israel and the Passover identify with one another.

The next feast is the feast of weeks and this is another way of referring to the feast of firstfruits or Pentecost.  This feast was spiritually fulfilled, according to Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit was poured out in 33 AD.  It says, “When the feast of Pentecost was fully come,” because the feast of Pentecost, or firstfruits, always pointed to God bringing in the fruit during the church age.  The “place” where the Feast of Pentecost was observed was not Israel, but it was the New Testament churches and congregations – God changed the “place.”  This is why He says in Deuteronomy 16:16: “Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before JEHOVAH thy God in the place which he shall choose.”  God means that it is not always the same place. 

For the first feast, which was Passover, the “place” was Israel; for the second feast, which was the Feast of Pentecost, the “place” was the New Testament church.  The third feast was the Feast of Tabernacles, which was held in conjunction with the Feast of Ingathering; the Feast of Tabernacles identifies with the end of the world and it is the final feast and the time when God will bring in the last of His elect.   He brought in the precious fruit of the earth during the last half of the Great Tribulation period (after the church age had ended) when God sent forth the Latter Rain outside of the churches in the world.  Through sending forth His Word in a mighty way across the face of the earth, God saved the great multitude out of Great Tribulation.  And the “place” for that feast, regarding the saving of the great multitude and regarding the final fulfillment of the feast when God will destroy the world on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles – is in the world.  The great multitude was not saved in Israel and they were not saved in the churches, but they were saved outside of the churches in the nations of the world, as God sent forth His Word without utilizing the churches and congregations.

So in each of these feasts, the place God chose was a different place: it was Israel, then it was the New Testament church and then it was the entire world.  Yet at the point of time we are reading about in Revelation 12, after the Lord Jesus is caught up unto God to His throne to rule as the glorious King of heaven, the woman flees into the world immediately following that and it is the church age – the place God has chosen and prepared of God where the woman would be fed.  It is interesting that we read in Matthew 14:14-15:

And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick. And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place…

The word “desert” is a translation of the same Greek word translated as “wilderness” in Revelation 12:6 and elsewhere, so this is a “wilderness place.”  The word “place” is the same word that we find in Revelation 12:6:  “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God.”  Here, in Matthew 14, we read of a “wilderness place.”  Then it goes on to say in Matthew 14:15-21:

… and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals. But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes. He said, Bring them hither to me. And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.

This is an historical account that illustrates exactly how God fed the woman in the wilderness.  It was through the opening up of information (from His Word) to certain individuals.  The Lord determined that a certain one would be a teacher and understand these things.  God would give the desire to that person and equip the person to understand truths for the purpose of sharing those truths with others.  Here, Christ multiplies the bread; He gives the bread to His disciples; the disciples give the bread to the multitude.  It is a continuation of the “gift;” that is the giving of the bread and the giving of the disciples to the multitude; they are both coming from God.  The Lord Jesus Christ is the one that is miraculously multiplying the bread and He is the one equipping the disciples to feed the multitude and the bread nourished the multitude: “And they did all eat, and were filled.” This is what took place, spiritually, throughout the entire church age of almost 2,000 years.  God directed the woman to flee to the wilderness, the desert place, where He had a place prepared where she would be fed for the “1,260” days.  The “1,260” days is a number God gives to represent the duration of the church age, and we will have to talk about that in our next study.