As prophecy unfolds over the next few years, what is ahead for the members of God’s Church? For decades, we have anticipated the coming together of the Beast power in Europe—coupled with the decline of British and American power and a growing crisis in the Middle East, centered on Jerusalem. Your Bible prophesied these events, and now we actually see them happening! Though watching these developments can be exciting, it can also be somewhat frightening, as we know that before Jesus Christ’s return these fulfilled prophecies will ultimately plunge the world into what the Bible calls the Great Tribulation—a time of trouble worse than any other in human history (Matthew 24:21). What do these future events portend for you and your loved ones? Will you have to go through horrors like the Holocaust?
When discussing end-time events, many Church members have for decades talked about going to a “place of safety.” Others have countered that God can protect us wherever we are. Does Scripture really speak of a “place of safety”? If so, who will go there? While some have seemed sure that they were going to Petra, others have been just as adamant that people will be protected in their own homes, or in different locations and through other possible scenarios.
Can we really know the answer to such questions? What does the Bible really teach on this topic? As we draw closer and closer to the end of this age and the horrifying events that Scripture tells us will occur in the years just ahead, understanding this subject becomes all the more important.
Note one of the most common objections raised by those who believe there is no specific place of safety. They say: “God can protect you right in your own home, He does not need to bring everyone to some particular place.” The answer to this is that of course God can protect us anywhere and in any way that He chooses. After all, He is God! The proper question is not “What can God do?” but rather “What does Scripture reveal that He will do?”
The Source of Deliverance
Is there anything wrong with wanting to escape the events of the Great Tribulation? Jesus Christ Himself gave the answer to that question just days before His crucifixion. Sitting on the Mount of Olives, talking to His disciples about the terrible events that would signal the end of this age and His return as King of kings, Jesus admonished them to pray and to remain ever alert and watchful. He told them that, by doing so, they might be accounted worthy to escape those things, and to stand before Him at His return (Luke 21:36). Clearly, Christ knew that His followers would desire to escape the terrible calamities to come—and He told them that it was possible to do so.
Through the ages, God has wanted His people to look to Him as their Deliverer. Ancient King David learned this lesson very deeply. Though anointed, while still a teenager, to be the future king of Israel, David spent most of his twenties as a wanted man with a price on his head. King Saul, motivated primarily by fear and jealousy, sought to hunt him down and kill him. What did David learn during those years of hiding and being hunted by enemies—and how are those lessons relevant for us today?
Scripture shows David’s feelings in the aftermath of these trials. “Then David spoke to the Lord the words of this song, on the day when the Lord had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. And he said: ‘The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer’” (2 Samuel 22:1–2). The essence of Bible teaching about an end-time place of safety for God’s people is that our real protection comes from God—not from any physical location. He is our Rock, our Fortress and our Deliverer—both now and during the future troubles.
Psalm 46 also provides a direct prophecy of end-time events and the protection available for God’s people. “God is our refuge and strength,” we are told, “a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea” (vv. 1–2). Notice the prophetic time setting of this Psalm. It is set in a time when the nations will rage and kingdoms will be moved and shaken (v. 6). This is the time when God will finally make wars cease on this earth (v. 9)—a time when God will have brought desolation by His judgment (v. 8). This poetic prophecy of the events leading to the coming of the Messiah emphasizes that God is our refuge, and that we need not be afraid even when surrounded by calamitous, earth-shaking events.
Clearly, Christ made plain that some would be accounted worthy to escape this most terrible time of trouble in mankind’s history (Luke 21:36; Matthew 24:21–22). He gave His disciples two key comparisons that can help us understand this subject. In Luke 17:26–27, Christ compared the time before His coming to the time of Noah. He made plain that in spite of Noah’s work of warning the world, people ignored the message and pursued their everyday activities. They were unaware their world would soon come crashing down. They went about their own business and pleasure right until Noah and his family entered into the ark—their place of safety. After Noah was delivered, judgment was poured out upon the world.
Christ drew a second parallel, describing Lot and his family being delivered from Sodom (vv. 28–29). Again, the population at large was oblivious to God’s intervention in world affairs and continued to pursue their own business and pleasure until God poured out His judgment.
The first common thread through these accounts is that the world was oblivious to God’s impending intervention and judgment. The second is that God delivered those faithful to Him, and took them to a place where they would be protected. The third is that after the deliverance of His faithful ones, God poured His judgment upon a God-rejecting and corrupt society.
Now look closely at Luke 17:30–37. Do these verses describe the time of Christ’s actual return, or do they describe God’s people going to a place of safety? Comparing these verses to Christ’s words in Matthew 24:17–22, we see that Luke is describing a time when God’s people will flee for their lives before the onset of the Tribulation—not the moment of the resurrection. No one has to be warned, at the moment of the resurrection, to avoid going back and getting personal property out of his house! This will, however, be a temptation when we are being faced with leaving our homes and going to another physical location. This is the importance of the reminder to remember Lot’s wife—she was unable to turn her back on her “world” and not look back. Her attachment was too great.
Taken to a Place
Revelation 12 describes the interaction between Satan and the Church of God. The true Church had its beginnings with the Church in the Wilderness (mentioned 12 times in the Old Testament as the Congregation of YHVH or the Congregation of Elohim), and continued as the New Testament Church of God. Pictured as a woman, the Old Testament Church is described as bringing forth the Messiah. Satan sought to destroy Christ, but was unsuccessful in his attempt to devour Him immediately following His birth, though he stirred up Herod as his instrument in an effort to accomplish this. Ultimately, the Messiah was caught up to God’s throne, and awaits His return to this earth. Following Christ’s ascension to Heaven, described in verse 5, the story shifts back to the woman, symbolizing the true Church. We next read of the Church fleeing into the wilderness, away from the populated areas of the Roman Empire, where she was fed of God during the medieval period.
Beginning in Revelation 12:7, we enter the end-time sequence of events. A final war in heaven results in Satan’s expulsion. Knowing that he has only a short time left (v. 12), he launches the final end-time persecution of the true Church, which results in the Great Tribulation. In Revelation 12:14, we learn that the woman—the Church—is then “given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.” Clearly, the Church is taken to a place where God will supernaturally nourish and protect it during the final three-and-a-half year period before Christ’s return.
This ties in with Revelation 3:10, in which Christ promises the Church at Philadelphia that He would protect it from the “hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world.” By contrast, in Revelation 3:16 He warns the Church at Laodicea that He would spew it out of His mouth. This is the “remnant” (KJV) or “rest of her offspring” against whom Satan makes war in Revelation 12:17. This remnant is part of the true Church, because it keeps the commandments and has Christ’s testimony, but it is tepid and lukewarm, not zealous and on fire. As a result, Christ will spew these individuals directly into the Tribulation to wake them up and bring them to repentance!
The Bible shows a clear contrast between two groups of God’s people in the end-time. To one group, Christ says “keep the word of my patience” (Revelation 3:10, KJV) and go through open doors (v. 8) to preach the gospel. The other group is self-absorbed and lukewarm in its approach toward God and His ways. This distinction determines whom God will nourish in “her place in the wilderness” while others will be confronted with the Great Tribulation.
The prophet Zephaniah, whose name means “The Hidden of the Eternal,” spoke of the end-time and described those whom God will hide. “Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth, who have upheld His justice. Seek righteousness, seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger” (Zephaniah 2:3). Some, therefore, will be the hidden of the Lord.
Psalm 91 describes that those who will dwell in “the secret place of the most High” will be protected, only seeing the calamities that are occurring. The disease epidemics and frightening warfare stalking the world during the end-time will not be allowed to devour those whom God is protecting. Having made the Eternal God their refuge and fortress through faith, these dedicated servants of God will receive His protection during this hellish time.
Scripture makes clear that God promises His zealous end-time people protection from the Tribulation. But why have so many in the Church over the years thought that the place where God will protect His people might be Petra? Does the Bible mention this noted location and, if so, what does it reveal?
In three specific references, the Bible seems to associate Petra with God’s end-time place of protection for His people, but these scriptures are all somewhat vague and can be understood in more than one way. If these verses do not refer to Petra, though, it would seem that God really has not given us any indication of the location where He will nourish His people during the final three-and-a-half year period.
“Let the wilderness and its cities lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits, let the inhabitants of Sela sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory to the Lord, and declare His praise in the coastlands. The Lord shall go forth like a mighty man; He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out, yes, shout aloud; He shall prevail against His enemies” (Isaiah 42:11–13). This verse describes the time when the Messiah will come in power and subdue the nations. It mentions the inhabitants of Sela singing and praising God at that time. Sela, as marginal references in many Bibles show, is the Hebrew name for the location better known today by its Greek name, Petra. Who are these end-time inhabitants of Petra who will be rejoicing at Christ’s coming?
Isaiah 33 also focuses on the events surrounding Christ’s second coming. Note verse 10: “‘Now I will rise,’ says the Lord; ‘now I will be exalted, now I will lift Myself up.’” During that troubled time when the sinners will be afraid (v. 14), those who walk righteously “will dwell on high; his place of defense will be the fortress of rocks [Hebrew Selah, or Petra in the Greek]; Bread will be given him, His water will be sure. Your eyes will see the King in His beauty…” (vv. 16–17). Is this a reference to the location of God’s end-time faithful?
Another reference is in Isaiah 16. Here God tells the Moabites, who rule the area of Sela or Petra (v. 1), to shield His outcasts. “Let My outcasts dwell with you, O Moab; be a shelter to them from the face of the spoiler. For the extortioner is at an end, devastation ceases, the oppressors are consumed out of the land. In mercy the throne will be established; and One will sit on it in truth, in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking justice and hastening righteousness” (vv. 4–5). The events described in these verses refer to the time immediately preceding Christ’s return. Who are the ones that God describes as “My outcasts” in this passage? Is it a reference to His end-time faithful?
Who Will Have God’s Protection?
While Scripture clearly shows that God will protect His faithful and zealous people from the onslaught of the Great Tribulation, it does not make plain all of the details about which we often wonder. Most of us would prefer that there were clear, unambiguous references to the location and the details pertaining to this place where God’s people will be nourished and protected from Satan’s wrath. Why has God not chosen to make the physical details more clear?
There is a vital reason. Because we are physical creatures, it is much easier for us to become excited over the physical rather than the spiritual. We must all understand that none of us will be able to deliver ourselves from the end-time calamities that will come to pass. God is our Rock, our Refuge and our Deliverer. He wants us to get our minds on Him and to learn to depend on Him, not simply on those things that we can see.
In Malachi 3:16–17, God inspired His prophet to record: “Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them; so a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on His name. ‘They shall be Mine,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.’”
God is taking note of those who really reverence Him; they are wrapped up in doing the will of God and in finishing His Work, just as Jesus Christ was (cf. John 4:34). God takes note of their conversations encouraging one another, and He is writing a book of remembrance. When this world is on the verge of plunging into the most hellish time in human history, God will spare those whose names He has recorded.
While the details of how and where God will protect His people are fascinating, we must all keep in mind that in the ultimate sense our protection does not come from any place—it comes from God. If we remain alert and watchful, continuing to pray and walk with God, we can be accounted worthy to escape the things that will come to pass. Those who will go through the Tribulation are those whom God has not been able to stir up and bring to repentance in any lesser way.
We need not be frightened of the times to come. Rather, we can put our confidence in God, learning to trust Him and serve Him with our whole hearts. Then we can truly say that God is our refuge, and our high tower—He is our Rock!