The Woman and the Beast

In the Book of Revelation (12v13ff), we read of a Woman's flight into the Wilderness, thus, . . . And when the dragon saw that he was cast down to the Earth, he went in pursuit of the Woman who had given birth to the male Child. But the Woman was supplied with the two wings of a giant eagle, so that she might fly from the presence of the serpent into the wilderness, to the retreat where she is to be kept safe and fed for a time, and times, and half a time (three and one-half years, or 1,260 days). Our Lord Jesus had His Experience when He was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. Satan tries to seduce Him to Sin, saying, "If You are the Lord Jehovah's Son, command these stones to be made [loaves of] bread" Lord Jesus summed up the outcome of the Test of the Wilderness Experience, replying, "It has been written, 'That Man shall not live and be upheld and sustained by bread alone, but by every Word that comes forth from the Mouth of the Lord Jehovah'" (Matthew 4v8-11; cf. Deuteronomy 8v1ff). In Revelation (17v1ff), however, Apostle John again describes a Woman in the Wilderness, thus . . . and I saw a Woman seated on a scarlet beast that was all covered with blasphemous names, and he had seven heads and ten horns. The Woman was robed in purple and scarlet and bedecked with gold, precious stones, and pearls, [and she was] holding in her hand a golden cup full of the accursed offences and the filth of her lewdness and vice. Did the Woman fail her Test of the Wilderness Experience? This book trawls through the Holy Scriptures and the Histories of our World to trace the paths of the Woman and the scarlet beast.