In this sermon, the speaker begins by praising God for his goodness and grace towards humanity. The focus then shifts to the significance of God's work with Israel, particularly since their reestablishment as a nation in 1948. The speaker emphasizes the importance of standing for Jesus and trusting in God's protection, using biblical examples such as the burning bush and the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The sermon concludes by highlighting God's plan for his people to be a light to the world and the ongoing spiritual battle against Satan.

Father, God in heaven, how good you are to us and how we do not deserve it. And yet you are so good. You've lavished your grace upon us again and again and again. And I pray Lord that each one of us truly would expect to be blessed. It's the hard times Lord when we must walk by faith that we start to doubt you will bless us or love us. But you do know best and you are ever and always working our highest good. God give us the grace to wait upon you and let you make all things beautiful in your time. Bless this study to our hearts. Illuminate our minds. Give us understanding that will stay with us and we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. In Revelation 12, 13 down through 17, we find that God is working with Israel. If we just stop and look around the world today, we find that God is working with Israel, which is an amazing thing. If you consider that in 1948, Israel became a nation again. They have not been a nation again for very long. They were scattered everywhere. And yet somehow they came back to that little tiny place, that little plot of ground that they have on planet earth and became a nation again. And they are still with us. And so much of revelation is about God fulfilling his promises to them. And one of the things that happens, I'm going to say this and we'll read the text. One of the things that happens walking with God for us as individuals, and it happens studying Israel is that God works his plan and it becomes so far above and beyond the realm of our own thoughts that we begin to think that his providential ways of working are in fact contrary to the promises he's made to us, that his providence is contrary to his promises. In other words, yes, he intervenes and he works supernaturally in the natural realm. That's providence. But at the same time, the way he works causes us to start thinking that his promises are in fact lies. And that is where the devil will hit you the hardest throughout the entire pilgrimage you have on this earth. That's why this passage is important because God has made promises to Israel. God will fulfill those promises to Israel. He will fulfill them exactly at the appointed time he planned when he gave them the promises. In the meantime, as they've been scattered around the world, persecuting everything else, you study it, you look at it, you begin to think, well, this is so contrary to everything he promised them that surely he changed his mind and he's introduced a new plan and now his providence is contrary to his promise. And it's from that whole syndrome that good Christian people end up forming a theology that will accommodate that kind of error in thinking. And they turn Israel into the church in their theology because of the very things I just explained to you. Israel is Israel. The church is the church in the Bible and in the book of Revelation. Israel is right at the center of everything because God is wrapping up everything on planet Earth and he's moving everything toward the fulfillment of every promise he ever made to Israel, toward bringing them to Christ as their Messiah. Then he said that he would sit upon the throne of David and until he is on that throne, he is not going to stop working and he will sit on that throne for one thousand years on this earth, restored and made new. And then you have a new earth and time to be with the Lord forever. So that's what it's all about. As we come to Revelation, Chapter 12, verse 13. You remember in our last study, Satan was cast down to the earth from heaven and confined permanently here so that every demon in existence is now confined to the planet Earth for for about a period of somewhere from seven to for sure the last three and a half years of man's history on earth before Jesus Christ comes back. When God casts him down, we read in verse 13 now when the dragon that Satan saw that he had been cast to the earth, it's like he hits the earth. He looks around. He realizes there's no way back. What is my next move? What is my next move to block Jesus Christ from coming back and setting up his kingdom? My next move then will be to persecute Israel and seek to exterminate them. So there are none of them left to populate the earth in the thousand year reign of Christ. I will reign and he will not. That's what's going on. So verse 13, when the dragon saw he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the child. The woman is Israel and the male child is Jesus and the dragon is Satan. Verse 14. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the wilderness. I love this to her place, to her place. God always has a place for you to her place where she is then nourished for a time, times and half a time, which is the language of Daniel, three and a half years, which is basically language of revelation as well. Back to verse 14, nourished three and a half years from the presence of the serpent. So kept safe and nourished, fed and all of that. The serpent then spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. 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. Now you might be thinking this is a mess. We've got a vomiting snake. We've got a woman who sprouted wings and she's flying. This is really bizarre. No wonder nobody should study revelation because you can't understand it. Verse 17, the dragon was enraged with the woman and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. What is this? This is the war of Satan against God and his people, Israel and believers in the last days, Gentile believers in the last days. The language is symbolic and it points to a reality. And we'll see that as we go through. This passage, however, is just so instructive on God's invincible protection for his people. We find that God intervenes. He intervenes to make sure that his people here's the first thought survive for the long haul. Second thought are secured in persecutions and he intervenes to sustain against the floods that come against his people, survive for the long haul, secure in the persecutions and sustained against the floods. That's our God. That's how he operates. And he's doing that here with his people. The Lord is going to make sure that Israel survives for the long haul. So we read in verse 13. Now, when the dragon saw he'd been cast to earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle. She might fly into the wilderness to her place where she's nourished from the presence of the serpent. We see the hand of God enabling Israel to survive for the long haul in so many ways. We see it biblically, we see it historically, we see it prophetically in all these ways. Let me just give you a few thoughts along those lines. Biblically, God's people were chosen by the Lord to be the light of the world, tutored at Mount Sinai for a year in the law of God, the word of God, then led by God to the promised land, empowered by God to drive out the inhabitants. And that land became theirs. Well, the whole design was that they would be the light of the world. And, and you read in the Bible as they come in, the nations roundabout heard about the God that part of the Red Sea. And they knew that the God of the Israelites was God. That was the plan. Then God was to come and step on planet earth in the form of a man, go to the cross, die, raise again, fulfill Genesis 315, and be the savior of the world to the Jew first, Paul said, and also to the Greek. And so it's to the Jews he came and then they were to offer him to the world. But sadly, the nation of Israel rejected him. He came into his own, his own received him not so that over the centuries they have been scattered. They have been persecuted. And much of that is because they rejected God almighty himself when he came personally to them after he had personally worked with them to prepare them for that arrival for so long. And that's part of the reason they've been scattered. So God always marked this whenever God chastens, believe me, he's been chastening Israel ever since they rejected Christ. But when he chastens is always for redemption. Whenever God chastens, it's always with redemption in mind. He has chastened the nation Israel with redemption in mind. Paul writes about it, Romans nine, 10 and 11. To bring them back to Christ, has God cast off his people whom he for knew perish the thought may not be so. God forbid. Redemption is God's goal in the chastisement. Satan in the process is allowed by God to be part of the process here. And though he is used by God in his chastening process, he has a different goal than God. His goal is not redemptive. His goal is destructive. So throughout all the history of the Israelites, as you look at them and after the through the Bible and after the rejection of Jesus Christ, his goal has been to destroy them, not redeem them. And thus we see him even here in the book of Revelation still doing what he's been trying to do for so long to destroy the people of Israel. Do you see that all biblically to the point that even before Christ came, the northern kingdom is split with Rehoboam. Then later, the southern kingdom is split. They go into captivity. Later, they reject their Messiah. They go into the outermost parts of the earth, really only to be gathered back in 1948 to become a nation again. Biblically, historically, in post biblical times, the story has been tragically very sad. The history of the Jewish people for the last 2000 years is sad. It is very sad. Persecution against the Jews was first widespread by the Crusaders. They went in 1095 to Jerusalem and they got there. They took a bunch of the people in the city, put them in a synagogue and burnt it. And they began to massacre the Jews. They were followed by others. King Edward the first in England banished all Jews from England in 1290. France followed suit in 1306. Spain, oddly enough, in 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, Spain in the same year as that happened, Spain in the same year began to persecute the Jews in an unbelievable way. In the 19th century, the outbreak of anti-Semitism in Russia was tragic. And during the reign of Stalin, 13 million Jews were killed. Thirteen million Jews killed during the reign of Stalin. The darkest hour in the long history was with Adolf Hitler. He did not seek to just afflict the Jewish people or persecute them. He sought to exterminate them. And behind all of this ever and always has been Satan, because his goal has been to exterminate them. Why? So that God cannot fulfill his promises to Israel and Jesus Christ cannot come back and sit on his throne that he promised to them he would. It is all pointed toward the second coming of Jesus Christ and the rule and the reign of Christ for a thousand years on earth and then forever. It's all pointed toward that everything we've just discussed. I love what John Phillips wrote. He said that looking at how they've survived through all this, he said significantly, the turning point in Moses life came when he saw that mysterious burning bush. He said that bush flamed and blazed away, but for all the crackling of the fire was not consumed. And then John Phillips writes this. He said that bush clearly symbolized Israel, which cannot be consumed despite the ceaseless hatred of her foes. Why? Because God is in her midst. Israel cannot be assimilated into the nations, nor can she be exterminated by the nations. She is a burning bush in the wilderness. End quote. Those are such good words. God's purpose will be established in his people because he is in the midst of his people. And I want to encourage you to take that burning bush for yourself. That's take home food. That's take home. Take it with you today. Biblically, historically, we see all this prophetically. The Bible speaks of what's going to happen and we're studying it now with the Antichrist and everything else, the persecution that will come in the last seven years on this earth. In the last three and a half years, the Antichrist will especially persecute the Jews. Right now, if you go to Jerusalem, go to the Temple Institute. Remember, we studied that already. We looked at all those things. If you talk to the Orthodox Jew right now, their hope and their prayer is that the horrors of the Holocaust and World War Two will never happen again. I've been to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. It's awful. Their prayers that it will never happen again. The sad thing is that tragically it's going to happen again in the time of the Antichrist. And the Bible says this. It warns in Jeremiah of a time called the time of Jacob's distress. Jesus described it in Matthew 24, 21, as a tribulation that has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now. That means the horrors of it all are going to surpass anything we've talked about up to this point. The tribulation will be the worst of time for Israel. But you know something, it's also going to be the best of times because finally Israel will come to embrace Jesus Christ as Messiah and Satan's efforts will not succeed. His worst fears will be realized when Zachariah 12, 10 says when they will look on the one whom they have pierced and they will mourn for him as for an only son and they will weep bitterly over him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. That is when Israel will acknowledge Christ as their Messiah and they will weep for the fact that they rejected him. But God will forgive them and they will rejoice for the fact that they finally came to him and his kingdom will be established as prophesied in Hosea 2, 14 through 23. Daniel prophesied of it. Daniel chapter 12. So it's going to get worse before it gets better. Now, God, however, has preserved them as we've been discussing. Only God can be the answer for how there could even be a nation of Israel and how even at this point people still continue to return there and how all of this will continue to unfold as we're reading it in Revelation. The only answer as to how that could happen is God preserving his people for the long haul to accomplish his purpose. Now, Satan attacks them all this way along, right up to the end. I'll follow this because I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. Satan, at the beginning of the last seven years on this earth, is going to thrust forth a man who will become the ruler of the world. We call him what? Antichrist. He will possess that man, empower that man. He will become the ruler of the world. He comes right out of the first seal in the book of Revelation. Peace is on that white horse. World peace, temporary world peace. And behind that world peace is the Antichrist. As the seven year period begins, last seven years, he is going to be world ruler and he will be the ultimate poser in the sense of being Israel's ultimate friend. Now, look at the world today and look at how many enemies Israel has. If you've been to Israel, you sense it because everywhere you go, you see people walking around in army fatigues. You walk into a convenience store and there's four 16 year old girls in there and their army fatigues with their machine guns slung over their back, just chatting and having some candy. You see soldiers everywhere. That's because on every border they have enemies. As you look at this, you realize we all know Israel has enemies. They're in the news all the time. And every time we plan a trip to Israel, it gets worse. All of a sudden you realize then they're surrounded by evil, right? The Antichrist is going to come along first three and a half years of the tribulation. He is going to help them. He will help them rebuild their temple. We saw lots of pictures that they already have everything ready to rebuild the temple. He will help them to rebuild their temple. He will have to keep their enemies at bay. In other words, they're not going to be able to build their temple on a temple mount with a dome of the rock shrine there with the Muslim community right there. They actually control the temple mount. They're not going to be able to rebuild it there without protection. Would you agree to that? Guess who's going to give them the protection? The Antichrist for three and a half years. So now let me ask you a question. Listen very closely as I ask it. Do you think Satan would ever protect you and help you in your life as a Christian? Do you think Satan would ever help you and protect you as a Christian in your life? That's the kind of question where you go. Absolutely not. He's my worst enemy. Let me ask it again. Do you think Satan would ever protect and help you in your life? How could he protect me from evil? He's in charge of it. Very simple for him. So the Antichrist will help Israel rebuild their temple, help protect them against their enemies. So they are going to think he is the greatest man ever. They will think he's their Messiah in the prophecies that speak of the daily sacrifice beginning and so on and so on. The only way that could happen and then come to the point in Daniel 12, 11, where it says, and from the time the daily sacrifice is taken away and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be one thousand two hundred and ninety days left until Christ comes back. Actually, sixty one thousand two hundred sixty three. Thirty days from mopping up, cleaning up, getting things ready for the thousand year reign, judging people and stuff like that stuff. It's wrong word to put in there. But anyway, it's original Greek. That's it stuff. So from the time the daily sacrifice is taken away. OK, that tells you that he's going to get them all the way to the point where they can have a daily sacrifice. They can have a temple and then it will be taken away. Daniel says, because of the abomination of desolation, Jesus spoke of that and the abomination of desolation is when the Antichrist walks into the temple that he helped them build. He worked his way into the center of the life of Israel. Then he worked his way into the hearts of every Israelite. So once he's worked his way into the heart of their life and their nation, he's going to work his way right into the center of the temple, go in the holy of holies and pronounce that he is God and demand that they worship him. Anyone that does not worship him will then be executed or have to flee. So why would the Antichrist protect them for three and a half years only to bring about a greater evil than they've ever known before in their lives? And don't you think that the devil doesn't do that in your life? The Antichrist will be the most winsome character the world has ever seen. The devil will at times bring people into your life that are the most winsome individuals you've ever seen. They will help you. They will protect you. Why would they do that? Because Satan is setting you up to bring about a greater evil than you ever know. You know something? I thank God that though he works that way, there is a solution. You know what the solution is that God can enable his people to survive for the long haul. And here it is. If you will stand for Jesus, he will stand for you. That's the solution. If you will stand for Jesus, he will stand for you. What is the solution to the devil? Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and his grace. The grace of God. The grace of God. If you will stand for Jesus, he will stand for you. Remember the burning bush that burned but was not consumed. That's you. Just like Israel. Because of God. Isaiah 43 to says when you pass through the waters, God says I will be with you and through the rivers they shall not overflow you. And when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned. Neither shall the flame scorch you. Is God just making nice promises? Why don't you ask Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? The flame did not burn them and only burned up their bonds. The ropes they were tied with, they went inbound and they came out loose. Would he ever allow the rivers to overflow us? Why don't you ask Moses and the children of Israel? They went through the Red Sea and when God came to that moment where he wanted to judge Pharaoh at that exact moment, the Red Sea closed up on Pharaoh and the enemies of Israel were drowned behind them. And God did it. Not that biggest enemy they'd ever had to that point was suddenly gone. And God did it. Not them encouraging. So you will survive for the long haul for the same reasons Israel is surviving for the long haul. And that's because the Lord, your God is going to take you all the way there safely. His eye is on the sparrow and he's watching over me. Survive for the long haul. Also secured in persecutions. That's why they're going to make it to where God is taking them. Satan now seeks to destroy believing Israel. So as I said, there can be no millennial kingdom, no reign of Christ. The second coming of Christ will mean nothing because Satan will be there to defeat him in his mind. That's his plan. Revelation 12, 13. When the dragon saw he'd been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. Persecuted means to chase, to hunt with a destructive purpose. But verse 14, we read that God has secured a place of protection for his people. The place he will give them the wings of a great eagle. We do not know exactly what that is, but when you read of how God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, as you read about it in the Old Testament, they record that it was as if God brought them out on eagles wings. That is a symbol, an analogy in the Bible for God bringing speedy deliverance, speedy deliverance. Those that wait upon the Lord, they shall run and not be weary. They will walk and not faint. They will mount up on the wings of eagles. So you find that all over the Bible. We could chase that around, but this is very familiar terminology. Don't forget, Israel is at the center of the book of Revelation. Israel is going to be around when it's all happening. This is going to become crystal clear to those that give their hearts to the Lord and it's going to give them the encouragement they will need to stand through all of this. This, then, is swift deliverance as the Antichrist Satan through the Antichrist will turn when they refuse to worship him in their temple. He will then persecute them to such an extent they will have to flee to the wilderness and God will give them the wings of eagles to get away. When we studied the two witnesses, I told you that I felt from my studies it was Moses and Elijah. They were with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. Who better think about this? Who better than Moses? While the Antichrist is doing his thing, taking the praises as Messiah from the Israelis, who better than Moses to suddenly show up outside the temple? So you want to know about the law? Come over here. Let's talk about the law. You think you know the law? Come over here. Let's talk about the law. God gave me the law. How brilliant of God so that he will be out there with Elijah and teaching the people. And then as the Antichrist sets up the abomination of desolation and says, worship me, Moses is going to be out there outside going. I told you so. And this is what I said. And it makes perfect sense to you now, doesn't it? And they're all going to go, yes. And they're going to come to Christ as their Messiah. And then the Antichrist will begin to persecute them to such an extent they will have to flee to the wilderness. And God is going to enable them to get out there very quickly. Now, the wilderness, that doesn't tell us where they're going. But the Jews referred to the wilderness as that that land that was east of Jordan, east of the Dead Sea. That would be Ammon, Moab and Edom. Jesus told them in that time, if you're in the field, take off. You're on the rooftop. Take off as fast as you can. Matthew 24, 16, Jesus said, let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. If they go west, they will hit the ocean. If they go south, they will hit the flat Negev desert. The only place they can go to flee is east. And that is down past Jericho, across Jordan, down on the other side, the side of the Dead Sea. And that is where the mountains are. So it has to be that area. Many scholars feel that the place they're going to hide is the rock city of Petra. I watched a documentary on last night. You go through the desert and it's hidden. It was discovered in the 1800s by a Swiss explorer who was disguised as a nomad. And he found it led there by some nomads. You walk through this very narrow entrance to the mountains that opens up to this huge city. It's huge. I would encourage you to rent the video documentary on Petra. It'll blow your mind. A lot of people think that's where Israel will go and God will protect them. They're very easy to protect the place and big enough for them to hide. And Christians have been hiding Bibles and food and everything else in there for years. So is it set up? You say, but you said it out loud in the message. So now the devil knows, you know, he can even know they are in there. The Antichrist can even know they are in there. It's a whole different issue for God to let them in. So what happens is they flee there. He tries to get them. They escape when he fails. We read in the Bible that God nourishes them there in verse 14 and they are secured then in the persecution. The last thing sustained against the floods. So verse 15 of Revelation 12, the serpent spewed water out of his mouth, like a flood serpent. It's a symbol for the devil. He's not a serpent. This water coming out of his mouth is symbolic as well, like a flood after the woman that she might, he might cause her to be carried away by the flood is most likely a huge army goes after them down to wherever they are hiding. This is really good. Huge army goes after them down where they are hiding. But in verse 16, look what happens. Who is the God of all creation? The beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God. The word became flesh and dwelt among us by him or all things created. Jesus Christ is the creator and he's in command of the earth. Verse 16 says the earth helped the woman and opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood in which the dragon had spewed out of its mouth. So I don't know. It's kind of far fetched. Is it? Why don't you read the Old Testament? When God got really upset with some of the real idolatrous pagans in the Old Testament, as in number 1628, Moses stood before the people and they'd been rebelling and some of the leaders were drawing them to serve pagan idols. And Moses said, if you all die a natural death, God is not with me. But if a new thing happens, number 1630 and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them and they all go alive down in the pit, you will understand these men have rejected the Lord. And it came to pass when he finished speaking all these words, the ground split apart under them, right under them. And it came to pass number 1632. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them with their household and all the men with Korah and all their goods. So here they are, thousands of them. And all of a sudden God opens the earth. They go right down into it. And then he slams it back shut and the leaven is gone and the people are protected. He's going to do something very similar again. This is the same God saying yesterday, today and forever. There's distractions throughout your life. And in the end, who reigns supreme in your heart? God, who will protect me for the long haul? He will sustain me and protect me against the persecutions and he will enable me to stand against the floods of life. And I want to tell you something. He has. I've been through things. I did not think God would ever allow a human being to go through. And he allowed me to go through them. And I'm still here. And I love him more now than I did before. Because if you stand for Jesus, he'll stand for you. Let's pray, shall we? Lord, we thank you so much that you are so good and so faithful. You are the beginning of this great life of faith. And you will see us through supplying the faith and the protection all the way through to heaven. Thank you, God, that salvation is all of grace. From beginning on into eternity. Lord, we do love you. Pour out your Holy Spirit into our hearts and fill us afresh and anew and strengthen us and give us your joy that we might go forward. We know that there are hard times ahead, but there are also blessings. You are a blessed God and it's your nature to bless. May we expect to be blessed, even in the darkest hours, to know that your light will shine brighter than ever and your love will flow deeper than ever. For we ask it, expecting a blessing. In Jesus' name. Amen.