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But Satan accuses the brethren -- the church. "And they overcame him
by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony;. and they
loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore, rejoice ye heavens,
and you that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and
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of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath."
Satan is angry! He is stirred up! He's not asleep! He's trying to
lull you to sleep. But I'm trying to wake you up. I'll probably
offend a lot of you. But I'm doing this in love, the only way that I
know to wake you up. If I come with flatteries and say only nice
things, I'm not going to wake anybody up. So, I'm not going to pull
any punches.
Continuing �gain with the middle of verse 12: "Woe to the inhabiters
of the earth and of the sea, for the devil is come down unto you having
great wrath." This wrath of Satan is the Great Tribulation -- and it
is almost upon us now. It is not the wrath of God but the wrath of
Satan because he knows that he has but a short time. How does he know?
Because Jesus said, "When you see this gospel o·f the Kingdom being
preached around the world, then you know that the Kingdom of God is
near at hand and the time is here." Satan knows and believes that, but
a lot of you don't believe it. Satan knows the Bible better than you
do and he knows he has but a short time. But some of us are oblivious
to how short his time must be. I say wake up, Brethren! We've been
asleep. This church has been drifting off into a kind of spiritual
dreamland.
"And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted
the woman (referring to God's church) which brought forth a man-child.
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And to the woman /now here at verse 14 we're coming down to the time
just before the Great Tribulation/ were given two wings of a great
eagle that she might !.!Y_ into the wilderness..."
Let's pause to notice this:
around 554 A.D. and for 1260
she is to
"!.!l'.:.·"
The woman,
"two wings of a great eagle,
into her place."
back here in the 6th verse beginning in
years, the woman fled afoot. This time,
or in other words the church, was given
that she might fly into the wilderness,
Now where is the place? That's been a great contention. I used to
preach the possibility that it would be at Petra. Well, I don't know
that it will be at Petra, and I never said I knew it would be. But
others say, "Well, that's something we can get back at Herbert Armstrong.
Let's just say he was wrong about that." And so some very high in the
church were saying that that is a lot of rubbish and hodge-podge. I
say to you now I don't know whether it's Petra. I don't know where it
is or where it will be, but I know God knows. But I do know this much:
there are many indications that it is Petra and if it isn't Petra,
then the Bible gives us absolutely no indication of where it will be.
Now I'll stand my ground with that and any of you who want to can come
and face me with it. In any case, I've been to Petra and it's not a
very pleasant place to be.
Well, anyway, we're to be taken where we will be nourished for a time,
times, and half a time or three and a half years from the face of the
serpent. We will be protected from the Devil. But then, notice what
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