Where In The Bible Will I Find:

The Church Being Invisible In The Wilderness?

The prophets prophesied that God would set up His kingdom, that it would never be destroyed, that it shall stand forever and that it would be an everlasting kingdom (Dan. 2:44; 7:14). As a divine institution the church, or kingdom of God, can be in existence and still not be visible.

The kingdom was established in the year 33 A.D. The New Testament was written and completed by the end of the first century. During this time the apostles foretold of a falling away, that some would depart from the truth (I Tim. 4:1). Jerusalem, the birthplace of the church, was within the Roman Empire, and was therefore politically subject to Roman law. The church passed through many persecutions and suffered much from the Roman rulers; in fact, the first great power against the church was pagan Rome.

Diocletian, the emperor, in the year 303 A.D. sought a complete annihilation of Christianity. Even though in the year 325 A.D. Constantine, the emperor, accepted Christianity, the devil, through paganism, continued to war against the church. Due to these persecutions and a falling away by some in the church, Catholicism was established, and the rise of the papacy took control as was foretold by the apostles (II Thess. 2:3-4).

John, the revelator, saw this in the form of a woman given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent (Rev. 12:14). Biblical wilderness, in this text, means a place of safety, as also used by David and Elijah (I Sam. 23:14-15; I Kings 19:4). The woman here refers to the true church in its apostolic purity. Hidden in the wilderness indicates that the Church would not appear as a visible body in congregational organization, but the truth would still remain. Christ as the head, could not be destroyed, and the New Testament, as its law, God would providentially preserve, and, although, hidden from public view, the institution would remain, and would be "nourished," that is, sustained.

Time, times, and a halftime, represents a period of time and must be understood symbolically - a day for a year - which means one thousand, two hundred and sixty years. Satan, through the "man of sin" as foretold by Paul (II Thess. 2:3), exercised almost universal control over the religious world from about the year 533 A.D. through the dark ages up to the Restoration period around 1800 A.D., which was about twelve hundred and sixty years.

Then again, the seed (Word of God) was sown into good and fertile ground (hearts desiring the truth), and it produced "Christians." The church, or kingdom, was then visible, in full view, for the church is made up with children of God, and as people were hearing His Word, believing and obeying it, they were being added by the Lord to His church (Acts 2:47) in the same manner as were the early Christians in the first century.