Chapter Twenty – The Place of Safety
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If the rapture is unbiblical, and God will not unexpectedly “vacuum” the saints to heaven, how does He plan to protect His faithful servants? While the rapture is fiction, the horrific plagues and earth-shaking events of the Day of the Lord and the Great Tribulation are not! This includes all that happens before these periods.
The Bible reveals that those who take heed can escape! How is another story. And this time, unlike the rapture, there is plenty of proof.
A Way of Escape
Even Jesus’ disciples, who heard His Matthew 24 prophecy, did not at first grasp the timing of events preceding His Return. Similarly, we saw Daniel did not understand what he recorded: “I heard, but I understood not…” (Mt 12:8).
The only place to start this subject is by re-examining a plain statement that the reader either believes or does not believe: “Watch you therefore, and pray always, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:36). The phrase “all these things” means all end-time events—those just before Christ’s Return. The previous verse was the one warning that all others would be taken unexpectedly by the “snare” of global calamity.
It is God’s purpose that some be spared—that they escape.
The coming cataclysm will be so unprecedented in severity that without God’s intervention “…there should no flesh be saved [alive]: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matt. 24:22). The elect, God’s people, are to be protected. This is but one reason God will not permit the entire world population to be destroyed—His people are counted in that number.
Since Daniel adds, “There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time...” (Mt 12:1), and Jeremiah states, “Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it” (30:7), we might use the vernacular and ask, “Just how in the world does God protect His people from all of this?
Understanding Church Eras
One of God’s most explicit promises of safety is found in Revelation 3:10, addressing what is the Philadelphian era of His Church: “Because you have kept the word of My patience, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation [or trial, meaning the Tribulation], which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.” This has to be the same as the “snare” of Luke 21:35. Yet, rapturists actually cite Revelation 3:10 as proof of a secret rapture. You will soon see it to be proof of ignorance.
The promise of safety is directly tied to the biblical understanding of Church eras, outlined in Revelation 2:1-29 and 3:1-22. The sixth era—Philadelphia—is promised special protection at the end. This is only understood when one recognizes the earlier explanation that the Church of God has existed through seven eras. Protection is connected to the very closing history of the true Church. Those who reject one unified true Church, and its eras, are destined to never understand a literal place of safety—or be included.
Overview of the True Church
Those who will be protected, as well as how this will happen, cannot be understood without at least a brief overview of the true Church of the New Testament.
Overview of Church Eras
Above is a listing of the seven successive eras along with the approximate dates and key events of each era. (The term “RC” in the chart is an abbreviation for Roman Catholic.)
Jesus Christ built one Church (Matt. 16:18), which does His Work of announcing the true gospel around the world and warning the greatest nations of impending punishment. It also holds to and declares all of the many truths of the Bible. This Church exists and functions under God’s government, which in part enables it to be as wonderfully efficient and productive as it is. Of course, it has the guidance and backing of the all-powerful living Jesus Christ in all that it does (Matt. 28:19-20).
Revelation 12:1-4 reveals that Satan attempted to destroy Christ when He was born of the “woman” depicted there. This woman symbolizes the Old Testament Church that was ancient Israel—called “the church in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38).
We saw Ac 7:6 adds, “And the woman [now spiritual Israel, the New Testament Church] fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore [1,260] days.” We will see that, on several occasions—this is one—history demonstrates that God has sent His people into hiding in a special place to protect them.
The day-for-a-year principle of Bible prophecy appears again here. With the Nicene Council in AD 325, the Roman Empire forbade the true Church from functioning within its domain, forcing God’s people to flee into north-western Europe. Ultimately, this allowed God’s Church somewhat greater religious freedom. Catholic domination ended in Britain and Holland in about 1585. Thus, 1,260 years of suppression and martyrdom came to an end.
Revelation 12:1-17 continues, “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Rev 12:9). This leads to the event described in Rev 12:13: “When the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman [the true Church] which brought forth the man child.” The timing of this persecution is now in the near future.
Notice how the woman is to be protected: “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” (Rev 12:14).
A biblical “time” is equal to a prophetic year of 360 days. Revelation 12:14 refers to the same period, that of three and a half times (Revelation 11:2 says “42 months”) or 1,260 days (3½ x 360 days). In this case, the context of time is in units of literal days. This will be important when we revisit Daniel 12:11-12 because the 1,260 days correspond with verses and two key time periods revealed there. The Revelation 12:1-17 woman was taken into “her place” in the wilderness for three and a half years—the length of the Tribulation.
Some have misunderstood the phrase “she might fly into the wilderness.” This does not indicate the mode of transportation, but rather that the woman escapes, or flees—“flies”—from Satan’s persecution. Notice how Exodus 19:4 uses this same term: “You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto Myself.” The Israelites did not literally fly out of Egypt—they walked! Yet God still carried them on “eagles’ wings”—He provided for and protected them in their journey.
The providing of a place for the Church (Rev. 12:14) directly corresponds to the promise given to Philadelphians (Rev. 3:10).
Miraculous Intervention
Revelation 12:15-16 continues this prophetic account: “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman [the Church], that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.”
This paints a dramatic picture. Incredible, absolutely miraculous delivery is here seen to be necessary for God’s people to survive. The term “flood” represents an army sent to destroy the Church. A number of scriptures use this analogy.
For example, notice Isaiah 59:19: “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.”
Speaking of Korah’s rebellion against Moses’ authority—and we saw this in the earthquake chapter—Numbers 16:32 gives the following account: “And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.”
The account of the earth swallowing up the “flood” is also analogous to the Red Sea closing in and drowning the Egyptian army pursuing the Israelites. The parallels are clear. Revelation 12:15-16points to God’s deliverance of His Church during the time of protection when the woman is “in her place, where she is nourished” (Rev 12:14). The timeframe indicates Satan’s attempt to destroy the woman.
Here is the devil’s next move: “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed [children—brethren], which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev 12:17).
This obviously occurs very early during the Tribulation—the time of Satan’s wrath against the modern nations of Israel and the true Church. The Greek word loipoi translated “remnant” also means “remaining ones,” “residue,” or “the rest.” These are those of the lukewarm Laodicean seventh era—who have neither held to pure biblical truth nor stressed personal growth and overcoming in their lives as they should. But they do still keep God’s Law—His Commandments.
The “remnant of her seed” are brethren who will not be protected. Scripture shows that none of the seventh era of the Church, Laodicea, survive the Tribulation. Those who purchased “gold tried in the fire” (Rev. 3:18) will die physically, but survive spiritually—they do enter God’s kingdom. Those who yield under pressure and take the mark of the Beast (Rev 13:15-17) to save their physical lives will lose out on eternal life for failing to hold to all of God’s truth, including aiding in His final Work before the age concludes.
Thus, within the Revelation 12:1-17 overview of the true Church are the first clues to how God will protect His people.