The Woman in the Wilderness

“And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.”

Revelation 16:16

Most prophecy students in our generation having been influenced by futurist writers, look to Jerusalem for the climatic battle of Armageddon. Futurism teaches that the book of Revelation is to be interpreted literally. They take the verse in Rev. 16:16 to be the literal place that the battle of Armageddon will be fought… Mt. Meggido and the plain below it.

However, for 500 years, from Wycliffe to Spurgeon protestants interpreted the book of Daniel and Revelation figuratively. The Puritan’s scoffed at the Jesuit counter interpretation. They thought the idea of interpreting the book of Revelation literally to be absurd.

Consistent with the protestant historicist interpretation, they did not interpret this verse as a literal place. Frequently, they interpreted it as pointing to the battle in Judges 5. Here Israel was surrounded by an army equipped with superior military equipment….iron chariots. A seemingly hopeless situation.

Revelation chapter 12 reveals that Armageddon will happen far from literal Jerusalem in the figurative wilderness. This chapter tells the story of the woman, Israel, from Pentecost to Armageddon. She is persecuted by the dragon. The story has three chapters.

In the first chapter, the dragon through the Roman empire drives the woman into the wilderness of Europe and high in the Swiss Alps. The Waldensians, Vaudois and witnesses in England were God’s remnant through the dark ages.

In the third and final chapter, soon to unfold, the dragon will persecute the ‘remnant of her seed’. This time however the woman doesn’t flee. She can’t. There are no more wildernesses in which to hide. She has to fight.

Chapter 12 reveals that Israel through the Church era moved from Jerusalem to the wilderness of America and it is in this wilderness that her final trial will come.

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