The Position of Provision & Protection

Scripture: Revelation 12:6

Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

The year of 2009 has been marked as one of the most difficult years in the history of the United States. There were a record number of losses, from homes, to cars, to jobs, to health, and much more. Unfortunately, many people also lost their lives, unable to deal with the pressures that came along with the economic downfall of our society.

Even though there were many losses in 2009, there were also gains in the Kingdom of God; in that we gained a more closer walk with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Things that we did not understand, we learned to give to Him, trusting that He would take care of us. Yes, 2009 was a difficult year to say the least; but it was also an elevating year in our lives. We learned to depend on the God in whom we serve, in the position of provision and protection. 

Reflection:
Let us always remember that no matter how difficult the appearance of things seems, that God will continually provide and protect those that are His.

Prayer:
Father God, I thank you for taking care of me through one of the most difficult times of my life. I thank you for helping me to hold on to you regardless of all of the stresses of life, and the material things that I have lost. What you have allowed me to hold on to is You, and You are all that matters. Things that mattered at the beginning of this year, no longer matter. What matters is my relationship with you, and the love that you have for your creation. I thank you, and praise you for giving me your heart, and your love to express to others; in the form, in which you give it to me to express. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.

Strong's Concordance Definitions:
the woman: 1135

1) a woman of any age, whether a virgin, or married, or a widow
2) a wife
a) of a betrothed woman

fled: 5343
1) to flee away, seek safety by flight
2) metaph. to flee (to shun or avoid by flight) something abhorrent, esp. vices
3) to be saved by flight, to escape safely out of danger
4) poetically, to flee away, vanish

into the wilderness: 2048
1) solitary, lonely, desolate, uninhabited
a) used of places
1) a desert, wilderness
2) deserted places, lonely regions
3) an uncultivated region fit for pasturage
b) used of persons
1) deserted by others
2) deprived of the aid and protection of others, especially of friends, acquaintances, kindred
3) bereft
a) of a flock deserted by the shepherd
b) of a woman neglected by her husband, from whom the husband withholds himself

she had: 2192
1) to have, i.e. to hold
a) to have (hold) in the hand, in the sense of wearing, to have (hold) possession of the mind (refers to alarm, agitating emotions, etc.), to hold fast keep, to have or comprise or involve, to regard or consider or hold as
2) to have i.e. own, possess
a) external things such as pertain to property or riches or furniture or utensils or goods or food etc.
b) used of those joined to any one by the bonds of natural blood or marriage or friendship or duty or law etc, of attendance or companionship
3) to hold one's self or find one's self so and so, to be in such or such a condition
4) to hold one's self to a thing, to lay hold of a thing, to adhere or cling to
a) to be closely joined to a person or a thing

a place: 5117
1) place, any portion or space marked off, as it were from surrounding space
a) an inhabited place, as a city, village, district
b) a place (passage) in a book
2) metaph.
a) the condition or station held by one in any company or assembly
b) opportunity, power, occasion for acting

prepared: 2090
1) to make ready, prepare
a) to make the necessary preparations, get everything ready
2) metaph.
a) drawn from the oriental custom of sending on before kings on their journeys persons to level the roads and make them passable
b) to prepare the minds of men to give the Messiah a fit reception and secure his blessings

by God: 2316
1) a god or goddess, a general name of deities or divinities
2) the Godhead, trinity
a) God the Father, the first person in the trinity
b) Christ, the second person of the trinity
c) Holy Spirit, the third person in the trinity
3) spoken of the only and true God
a) refers to the things of God
b) his counsels, interests, things due to him
4) whatever can in any respect be likened unto God, or resemble him in any way
a) God's representative or viceregent
1) of magistrates and judges

she would be nourished: 5142
1) to nourish, support
2) feed
3) to give suck, to fatten
4) to bring up, nurture

for 1260 days: 2250
1) the day, used of the natural day, or the interval between sunrise and sunset, as distinguished from and contrasted with the night

a) in the daytime
b) metaph., "the day" is regarded as the time for abstaining from indulgence, vice, crime, because acts of the sort are perpetrated at night and in darkness
2) of the civil day, or the space of twenty four hours (thus including the night)
a) Eastern usage of this term differs from our western usage. Any part of a day is counted as a whole day, hence the expression "three days and three nights" does not mean literally three whole days, but at least one whole day plus part of two other days.
3) of the last day of this present age, the day Christ will return from heaven, raise the dead, hold the final judgment, and perfect his kingdom
4) used of time in general, i.e. the days of his life.

Indepth Biblical Commentary: (Jamieson, Fausset, Brown, 2009).

6. woman fled--Mary's flight with Jesus into Egypt is a type of this.

where she hath--So C reads. But A and B add "there."

a place--that portion of the heathen world which has received Christianity professedly, namely, mainly the fourth kingdom, having its seat in the modern Babylon, Rome, implying that all the heathen world would not be Christianized in the present order of things. prepared of God--literally, "from God." Not by human caprice or fear, but by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, the woman, the Church, fled into the wilderness (Jamieson, etal 2009).

they should feed her--Greek, "nourish her." Indefinite for, "she should be fed." The heathen world, the wilderness, could not nourish the Church, but only afford her an outward shelter. Here, as in Dan 4:26 , and elsewhere, the third person plural refers to the heavenly powers who minister from God nourishment to the Church. As Israel had its time of first bridal love, on its first going out of Egypt into the wilderness, so the Christian Church's wilderness-time of first love was the apostolic age, when it was separate from the Egypt of this world, having no city here, but seeking one to come; having only a place in the wilderness prepared of God ( Rev 12:6, 14 ). The harlot takes the world city as her own, even as Cain was the first builder of a city, whereas the believing patriarchs lived in tents (Jamieson, etal 2009).

Then apostate Israel was the harlot and the young Christian Church the woman; but soon spiritual fornication crept in, and the Church in the seventeenth chapter is no longer the woman, but the harlot, the great Babylon, which, however, has in it hidden the true people of God ( Rev 18:4 ). The deeper the Church penetrated into heathendom, the more she herself became heathenish. Instead of overcoming, she was overcome by the world [AUBERLEN]. Thus, the woman is "the one inseparable Church of the Old and New Testament" [HENGSTENBERG], the stock of the Christian Church being Israel (Christ and His apostles being Jews), on which the Gentile believers have been grafted, and into which Israel, on her conversion, shall be grafted, as into her own olive tree. During the whole Church-historic period, or "times of the Gentiles," wherein "Jerusalem is trodden down of the Gentiles," there is no believing Jewish Church, and therefore, only the Christian Church can be "the woman" (Jamieson, etal 2009).

At the same time there is meant, secondarily, the preservation of the Jews during this Church-historic period, in order that Israel, who was once "the woman," and of whom the man-child was born, may become so again at the close of the Gentile times, and stand at the head of the two elections, literal Israel, and spiritual Israel, the Church elected from Jews and Gentiles without distinction. Eze 20:35, 36 , "I will bring you into the wilderness of the people (Hebrew, 'peoples'), and there will I plead with you . . . like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of Egypt" (compare Notes, see on JF & B for Eze 20:35, 36): not a wilderness literally and locally, but spiritually a state of discipline and trial among the Gentile "peoples," during the long Gentile times, and one finally consummated in the last time of unparalleled trouble under Antichrist, in which the sealed remnant ( Rev 7:1-8 ) who constitute "the woman," are nevertheless preserved "from the face of the serpent" ( Rev 12:14 ) (Jamieson, etal 2009).

thousand two hundred and threescore days--anticipatory of Rev 12:14 , where the persecution which caused her to flee is mentioned in its place: Rev 13:11-18 gives the details of the persecution. It is most unlikely that the transition should be made from the birth of Christ to the last Antichrist, without notice of the long intervening Church-historical period. Probably the 1260 days, or periods, representing this long interval, are RECAPITULATED on a shorter scale analogically during the last Antichrist's short reign. They are equivalent to three and a half years, which, as half of the divine number seven, symbolize the seeming victory of the world over the Church. As they include the whole Gentile times of Jerusalem's being trodden of the Gentiles, they must be much longer than 1260 years; for, above several centuries more than 1260 years have elapsed since Jerusalem fell (Jamieson, etal 2009).

References:
Blue Letter Bible. "Revelation of Jesus Christ 12 - (NASB - New American Standard Bible)." Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 29 Dec 2009.  http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Rev&c=12&t=NASB

Higgins, S. (2009). The Positon of Provision & Protection. Devotions for Thought. Http://www.devotionsforthought.blogspot.com, Http://www.higginspublishing.com

Jamieson, Robert; A.R. Fausset; and David Brown. The Revelation of St. John the Dkivine "Commentary on Revelation 12." . Blue Letter Bible. 19 Feb 2000. 2009. 29 Dec 2009. 
http:// www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?
AuthorID=7&contentID=3108&commInfo=6&topic=Revelation&ar=Rev_12_6