As noted earlier, Revelation chapter 12 starts us at the birth of Christ. Then it follows the woman, God’s church, through her time of trouble and persecution. This period lasted 1260 years, from AD 538 to 1798 when the Pope was taken captive.
Because of the persecution that the true church was receiving from the Catholic “Christianized paganism” church, it had to flee into the wilderness. At this time the true Christians fled to the farthest reaches of Europe. Using the Roman roads for her swift flight on “eagle’s wings” she fled to Ireland, Scotland, Africa and Asia. There she was able to continue her practice of the true, Bible-Sabbath keeping faith.
But verse 15 tells us that the serpent was not pleased with this. He wants to control everyone. He hates the voluntary worship that the true Christians give Jesus. He wants to force everyone to worship him. Therefore he “spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent.”
Since Europe was not very populated at this time, the bride of Christ was able to live in relative peace. So in order to flood her out, the devil, through the Catholic Church, encouraged people to have more children. What this did was introduce a population big bang. “The Church discouraged childlessness more than adultery, for so she could disarm dissent with multiplication.” The age of Napoleon: Durant.
When we study the Old Testament we find that wickedness became its greatest when “men began to increase in number on the earth…”. Genesis 6:1. The more people, the more sin. Then God had to destroy the world and wash it clean in a symbolic baptism. That is what the devil was attempting to do. He wanted to increase the world’s population in order to get man to become desperately wicked. He also wanted to overrun the church of God. And that is what happened.
There came a time when there was no place left for the woman to flee to. All Europe became flooded with people. Wickedness became so great that God had to again allow disasters to wipe out large portions of the populations. We have wars, famines and plagues taking place during this time. They helped to suppress the population explosion brought about by the moral decline of the Catholic Church.
When the woman had no place to flee, the Bible tells us in verse 16 that “the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.”
In the 1600’s the Lord opened up the earth, North America, and swallowed the river. America and the New World acted like a pressure release valve. As the woman was persecuted in Europe, and had no place else to go, she learned of a new land. Fleeing the persecution that was now destroying the church of God, she came to America. In America she could worship God with freedom and in peace.