The Woman In The Wilderness

THE WOMAN IN THE WILDERNESS

Revelation 12:10-17

James A. Gunn

Preached on August 12, 2007

Used by permission.

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Revelation 12:10-17

1 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.

2 Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.

3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.

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.

5 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.

6 Then 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.

7 And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought,

8 but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer.

9 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.

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.

11 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.

12 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."

13 Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child.

14 But 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.

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.

16 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.

17 And 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.

My objective in this spiritual exposition of The Revelation of Jesus Christ is that by God’s blessing that this local body of Christ will find encouragement and comfort that the Holy Spirit intended for the Church as she remains on earth and suffers the assaults of Satan. Verse 17 calls the true Church on earth “the remnant of her seed” or “the rest of her offspring.”

Chapter 12 is a complete story of redemption told in symbolic language.

You must agree that this is symbolic language, i.e. the woman cannot be a literal woman and the great fiery red dragon a literal dragon. So ask yourself an honest question: If this passage is so obviously figurative language what else in this book have you insisted to be literal that may be figurative as well?

The redemption of elect sinners in Christ was determined before the foundation of the world. That is the doctrine of God’s sovereign choice in election. But no one was justified by God’s sovereign choice in eternity past.

The elect of God must be brought from spiritual death to life in Christ Jesus.

The fact that an event is certain in God’s providence does not preclude the necessity of it actually happening. It was in the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God that Jesus of Nazareth would be born of a virgin; the eternal Word must become flesh; but Jesus must die on the cross according to the Scriptures as the only sufficient Substitute for the propitiation of the sins of His people.

And dear soul you must not take a moment’s refuge in the sovereign choice of God in election until you have personally repented and put your hope of a peaceful eternity in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

There are some who believe in a perverted doctrine of election who believe that an elect person need not actually trust Christ while he yet lives. They say that if a person is elect that they will finally be in heaven. But election is not salvation. Election is unto salvation.

E. W. Johnson said it this way, “Justification waits on faith.”

Where you spend eternity depends on a deliberate act of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, I know that faith is a gift from God but you must have faith.

That is one of the main points of this great chapter 12. The saints of God have the faith to endure to the end, even under the raging assaults of Satan.

Verses 1 and 2 describe in symbolic language a glorious woman who is in labor and the pain of childbirth. The woman pictured here is the Church. The Church is made up of all of the redeemed of the Lord from Adam onward; Abraham and David and Peter and Paul and John and everyone that names the Name of the Lord.

And it was the expectation of the Church in the OT that the promise of the Seed of the woman, Eve, would come and bruise the head of the serpent.

Verses 3 and 4 introduce Satan who was cast out of heaven because of his rebellion against God. Satan would not submit to God’s purpose to have the angelic hosts be subservient to humans.

Verse 5 tells us that the woman brought forth the long expected male Child who is the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners and so He did and He was caught up to God and to His throne. There He intercedes for the saints on earth until He returns in glory at the end of this present age.

In Verse 6 the woman fled into the wilderness to be preserved from destruction for 1260 days, a fixed period of time that is known only to God.

Verses 7-9 tell us about a war in heaven; the heaven of the spiritual realm, not the heaven of eternal bliss. Michael the archangel is Christ and with His elect angels He fights against Satan and his minions, and Satan, the devil, is cast out of heaven into the earth.

This is the old, old story of Jesus and His love. The Law and the Prophets and the Psalms all predicted that the Savior would come. On Friday morning I was reading in the Book of Acts. More and more I am impressed with how many references there are in the NT to the Gospel as it was revealed in the OT.

Paul was on trial before King Agrippa.

Acts 26:19-23

19 "Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,

20 but declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance.

21 For these reasons the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.

22 Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this day I stand, witnessing both to small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come —

23 that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles."

The Savior did come and went to the cross of Calvary and He actually accomplished what He came to do. Are you as bothered as I am by the preachers that present Christ as a failure. They preach that Jesus wants to save everyone but that He cannot save anyone unless they give Him permission.

Salvation, they preach, is really up to man and not to God.

But Jesus did not make salvation “possible” He made propitiation for His people.

Are you one of His people? The only assurance that you are truly saved is that you have quit sinning without repentance and have come in faith to Jesus Christ. Notice that I did not say that you have quit sinning. That won’t happen until you are safe in glory. But if you can continue to sin without repentance you probably are not saved at all.

This chapter is about saints who have trusted Christ and they are still on earth. This is the Church militant; the woman in the wilderness.

That gets us to Chapter 12; verses 10-17.

When Satan was cast down a great change occurred in the spiritual realm. No longer can Satan hold the nations in the chains of idolatry. That does not meant that idolatry no longer exists but it means that now the Gospel is preached, not in types and shadows of the OT sacrificial system and the prophets, but in its fulness that the propitiation for sin has been made.

The accuser of the brethren has been cast down. Before Christ died on the cross Satan had a legal case against the saints of God.

There is no better passage of Scripture to illustrate this truth than Romans 3:21-26:

21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,

22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference;

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,

26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Already I have used the word “propitiation” several times. The word is “propitiation” and not “expiation” because the atonement not only has to do with the forgiveness of sin, “expiation”, but “propitiation”, the turning away of the wrath of God.

Here is the case in point. “… that He might be just ….”

Is there any question as to God being just?

Before the actual death of Christ on the cross the accuser of the brethren could point to Abraham or any of the saints in heaven who died before the crucifixion and declare that they are not in torment and yet their sins have not been propitiated. That is not fair! It is true that Abraham believed the promise and that was the same as believing the Gospel but his sins have not actually been covered by the blood of a sufficient sacrifice.

Ah, but now all the sins of all believers have been propitiated.

It is finished! The Lord cried out..

Since Calvary there can be no question about the justice of God. The sins of His people have been imputed to Christ and the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer when they have faith in Jesus Christ.

Be reminded that it is by imputed righteousness and not infused righteousness that we are found acceptable to God. The Roman Catholic doctrine is that you are made personally righteous by the infusion of righteousness through the sacraments of the church.

No, no! I am as sinful as I ever was, but now God sees me in Christ and not in Adam.

Will Satan still attack your conscience and accuse you day and night? Of course he will, but now you can resist the devil and he will flee from you. [James 4:7]

11 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.

The only way a sinner can get the best of Satan is by the “blood of the Lamb.” This is why I said this chapter is about the Church in her struggle with the assaults of the devil.

There are three vital things in this verse:

What has Jesus done?

What are we to do?

What is the extent of our commitment to Christ?

What has Jesus done?

The hallmark of Christianity is the forgiveness of sin. All false religions and, yes, apostate Christianity is about what you must do. True Christianity is about what Jesus has already done, even the forgiveness of sins.

Justification by faith alone:

Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.

What are we to do?

Because we are believers in Christ we testify, we witness, we are martyrs.

Not every child of God is called to be a martyr in the classic sense of the word. Not many are called on the be burned at the stake or thrown to wild beasts, but we are all called on to give witness to the Gospel, and that is the etymology of the English word “witness” from the Greek word “martyr”. As the Church martyred or told others about the Gospel, she was persecuted; thus witnesses became martyrs.

What is the extent of our commitment to Christ?

While we are well advised not to boast of how we would face death as a witness of the Gospel; we must determine before we are called on to suffer what our priorities are. If I am not prepared to die for the Gospel then it may be that I do not believe the Gospel.

The heavens are the spiritual realm of the believer.

Ephesians 1:3

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

Ephesians 2:6

and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Philippians 3:20

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,

While the believer in Jesus Christ is yet on earth their spiritual realm is in heaven.

The inhabitants of the earth and the sea are unbelievers. In the Bible the earth and the sea usually denote the wickedness and impenitence of the multitudes of lost men and women.

The sea:

Isaiah 57:20

But the wicked are like the troubled sea,

When it cannot rest,

Whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

Jude 13

raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame;

The earth:

John 3:31

He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.

Philippians 3:19

whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame who set their mind on earthly things.

James 3:15

This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.

Notice that the woe is to the unbelievers: the inhabitants of the earth and the sea.

The rage of Satan is not only against the believer but against the entire human race. When Satan discovered that it was the plan of God to have the angelic hosts serve man, his wrath was toward all men.

There is an application of this verse to the insane actions of followers of radical Islam who indiscriminately murder children. These killings are Satanic even as these crimes against humanity are done in the name of “Allah”.

The Book of Job teaches us that Satan is limited by God and our verse 12 tells us that “the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”

13 Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child.

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.

The devil knows that he is “cast to the earth” that he has but a short time and that he will never again dwell with the Most High God. The devil cannot ever again employ wicked men to crucify Jesus but he still can attack the woman who symbolizes the Church.

This persecution began with the death of Stephen, who testified in Acts 7 to the stiffnecked nature of the Jewish people and was stoned to death. Saul of Tarsus stood by giving ascent to Stephen’s death and assumes the role of the persecutor of “The Way” as the Christians were called.

After a time Saul was confronted and converted by the risen Christ on the Road to Damascus as he captured and killed Christians. Paul became the apostle to the Gentiles. Paul the Pharisee who used to believe that only the Jews had God’s blessing had to preach that the Gentiles were always included in the Church and that God does not make a distinction based on race or gender.

Then for a period of about 40 years of Jewish persecution of the Church, the Dragon raised up a succession of Caesars who tried to eliminate believers who would only declare that “Jesus is Lord” and not that Caesar was lord.

The persecution of the Church reached floodtide level under Emperor Domitian who was the Caesar when John was exiled to the Isle of Patmos for the Word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ [1:9].

The persecution of the Church by the Roman Caesars continued until Constantine attempted to make everyone a Christian by force.

The cunning of the Dragon is seen as he raised up a religious empire headquartered in Rome to succeed the Caesars and produced a religion of externals. Great posturing before visible altars; claims of magic that changes bread and wine into flesh and blood; investing in sinful men the power to forgive sin .

Rome is the successor of Babylon to enslave millions in a false religion.

And alongside this false religion there is another religious success story. Let’s make the Church look like the world and the world will join in and you can be entertained on your way to hell on the broad way that leads to destruction.

But while all this grandeur of external religion goes on there is the Church, hidden and often unnoticed, being nourished by God in the wilderness.

The Woman is given “two wings of a great eagle” as John again goes to the OT for his symbols.

Deuteronomy 32:9-12

9 For the LORD's portion is His people;

Jacob is the place of His inheritance.

10 "He found him in a desert land

And in the wasteland, a howling wilderness;

He encircled him, He instructed him,

He kept him as the apple of His eye.

11 As an eagle stirs up its nest,

Hovers over its young,

Spreading out its wings, taking them up,

Carrying them on its wings,

12 So the LORD alone led him,

And there was no foreign god with him.

Exodus 19:3-4

3 And Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel:

4 'You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself.

The figure is the same under Moses and with John. The Lord preserves His Church by bearing her through trials as though on eagle’s wings, and hiding her in His providential care.

She is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent

The “time and times and half a time” are from Daniel 7:25 where the Fourth Kingdom is the Roman Empire of Daniel’s vision. Mr. Alexander notes that all parties agree that the Fourth Kingdom is the Roman Empire but on the interpretation of the Ten Kings no parties agree.

For those who may not have heard, “time and times and half a time,” “1260 days,” and “42 months” in both the OT and the NT indicate a span of time that is specific to God but unknown to us.

Daniel and John are no doubt seeing the same vision but as to its interpretation there are as many theories as there are expositors.

The wilderness is the world and the nourishing is by God.

In the flight from Pharaoh the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years while they were fed with manna and their clothes and their sandals did not wear out. [Deuteronomy 29:5]

Jesus said that He was the True Bread sent from heaven.

John 6:30-35

30 Therefore they said to Him, "What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do?

31 Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"

32 Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

34 Then they said to Him, "Lord, give us this bread always."

35 And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.

This is the manner in which the Church is nourished in the wilderness of the world. As Satan rages against her she is sustained by the Bread of Life.

It is very true that Satan can incite the wicked of this world to attack the church but as long as Christ intercedes for His people she is “nourished from the presence of the serpent.”

Are you comforted by this passage in Romans?

Romans 8:31-39

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

33 Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

36 As it is written:

"For Your sake we are killed all day long;

We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." [Psalm 44:22]

37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 3

9 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Have you made your calling and election sure?

[Cf. 2 Peter 1:10]

John writes in the next Chapter at verse 10,

“Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.”

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.

Literalism can make nothing of these words. If the woman is symbolic so is the flood of water spewed out of the mouth of the serpent.

Hengstenberg interprets the flood as, “The hostile overflowing of the Church, the beginning of which gave rise to this Book, namely the Roman persecution.”

The flood is a common figure in the OT of the rising tide of enmity aimed at destroying the people of God.

Jeremiah 47:2

2 Thus says the LORD:

"Behold, waters rise out of the north,

And shall be an overflowing flood;

They shall overflow the land and all that is in it,

The city and those who dwell within;

Then the men shall cry,

And all the inhabitants of the land shall wail.

The flood waters in this verse are the armies of the Philistines which came against Jerusalem in the days of Jeremiah.

Just two other uses of the flood waters:

Psalm 18:16

16 He sent from above, He took me;

He drew me out of many waters.

Psalm 124:1-5

1 "If it had not been the LORD who was on our side ,"

Let Israel now say —

2 "If it had not been the LORD who was on our side ,

When men rose up against us,

3 Then they would have swallowed us alive,

When their wrath was kindled against us;

4 Then the waters would have overwhelmed us,

The stream would have gone over our soul;

5 Then the swollen waters

Would have gone over our soul."

That is how the Bible uses the symbolic language of an overflowing flood to picture the hostility of the enemies of God’s people.

How the earth helped the woman.

16 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.

It is blasphemous to imagine that God could fail in the slightest degree to carry out His purpose. To think of God a trying to do something but being thwarted by the will of man is blasphemy. But neither is God the author of sin. This great paradox of the Word of God will not be solved by me or anyone else before the “mystery of God is complete.”

The sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man are both laid down side-by-side in the Scripture and it is the preacher’s task to proclaim both and not to err on either side.

Ezekiel 33:10-11

10 "Therefore you, O son of man, say to the house of Israel: 'Thus you say, "If our transgressions and our sins lie upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live?"'

11 Say to them: 'As I live,' says the Lord GOD,'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?'

Explain that Jim! I can’t and I make no excuses for my ignorance.

Tom Nettles in By His Grace and for His Glory gives the comparison between Arminianism and Hyper-Calvinism.

Arminian theology takes God off of His sovereign throne and puts the idol of man’s free-will in the place of God.

Hyper-Calvinism relieves man of responsibility and teaches a perversion of the doctrine of election that has an unconverted man going to heaven.

Nettles writes that both Arminianism and Hyper-Calvinism say that God does not command what a man is unable to obey.

The Arminian thus concludes that man is able;

therefore God is not sovereign.

The Hyper-Calvinist thus concludes that man is not able;

therefore man is not responsible.

The Bible consistently teaches the sovereignty of God AND the responsibility of man.

The Bible says this:

Matthew 11:28

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

But it also says this:

John 6:44

No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him

But some do come, and how are they able to come?

John 6:65

And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."

God leaves some men in their sin and others He draws to Himself.

One thing is certain, if you go to hell it will be because of your unbelief. And if you find that you are an object of grace you will give God all the glory and despise any thoughts of your free-will as being the cause.

The earth helped the woman as the purpose of God is fulfilled.

The mystery of providence. A caravan “just happens” to come by in time to rescue Joseph who winds up on the throne of Egypt. A princess goes to the river to take a bath and finds a baby in a basket and draws Moses out of the water.

This is a mystery but it is what the Word of God says.

Psalm 77:19

Your way was in the sea,

Your path in the great waters,

And Your footsteps were not known.

The Remnant of Her Seed.

17 And 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. NKJV

17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. KJV

The Woman is the Church and the remnant of her seed is that portion of the Church militant that remains on the earth at any particular time. It is the difference between the individual believer who yet lives on earth and the mystic body of Christ, the Church already in glory.

The Church is only known on the earth by her testimony of Jesus Christ and as she demonstrates her love for her brothers and sisters, yea even the love of her enemies.

Against this testimony the Evil One rages trying to bring her to shame.

It is the mark of the believer that he or she truly desires and strives to keep the commandments of God. The fact that we cannot does not excuse us from trying.

“The church as a permanent feature of the Lord’s providence and care, is nourished perpetually by the Lord and is indestructible, although ‘the remnant of her seed’ (represented by individual believers), may often be exposed to the full might and cruelty of Satan and his agents. The individual children of the church may be harried and slain, as often they have been in history, but they always overcome, even in death.

It is sure from this figure of the church hidden in the wilderness that she is not an earthly, visible institution decked in all the pomp and pride of a kingdom of this world (as the Roman error teaches and practices). She is hidden, invisible, heavenly, and known only by the preaching of the Word and by her worship ‘in spirit and in truth’.” Charles D. Alexander

Keeping the Commandments

Bengel: “It is a great question whether such is possible to man or not. Those who have attained to faith in Christ serve God in a new and willing spirit and this is called, ‘keeping the commandments of God.’ Those who keep the commandments of God have also the testimony of Jesus. If our hearts are convinced of this our mouth will not fail to deliver a steadfast testimony respecting it. These are the persons on whom Satan makes war, and hence it rouses strong suspicion if one recoils from keeping the commandments of God.”

“If ye love me keep my commandments.” [John 14:15]

“This is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, that as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it” [2 John 8]

May God give us the courage and the determination to keep His commandments and to have the testimony of Jesus Christ and to overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony and that we do not love our lives to the death.

Amen