Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
Enormous and powerful military forces will be arrayed for the final showdown near the end of the seven year tribulation period, Zech.12:2-9. Satan will energize the Antichrist as well as the kings of the north, south, east and west. He will unleash his hoards of demonic forces upon mankind in an all out attempt to annihilate all the Jews, and why specifically the Jews? After all, they are but a speck on the map. They are a tiny population compared to all the nations of the world. Why specifically the Jews? It is just for oil? Some think so, but I believe along with others that Satan selects the Jews out because God made unconditional promises to them, and if no Jews survive the tribulation period and are alive to go into Christ’s millennial kingdom then God would have broken his promises to their forefathers.
God’s promises to Abraham and his people Israel was not a spiritual kingdom in heaven as some theologians suppose, but rather promises of physical significance and relate specifically to earthly blessings. It is true that any believer in Jesus Christ, from any era of time, will one day be in heaven, however God made earthly unconditional promises to the descendants of Israel. They are promised to be the head of the nations where all nations will come through them for blessings, Zech.14:16-19. They are promised a great name and a great land, Ezek.47:13-48:35, and a Great King, Jesus Christ, Ps.2. If these promises are not kept God’s word is broken.
This supposed blemish on the part of God’s character would give Satan grounds for his own dismissal and his fallen angels dismissal of all charges God holds against him.
You see, Satan believes he was justified in demanding worship from the angels because his pride lead him to believe he was equal to God and that God was unfair in condemning him for this. This angelic conflict has been raging for thousands of years and it will not end until the end of time. At that point Satan will be forever banished in the lake of fire.
Relative peace and prosperity will exist for Israel in the first half of the tribulation period and all the while the Antichrist will be amassing great popularity. Four great power spheres will struggle for world domination in the first half.
1) King of the North, Dan.11:40, Ezek.38:2;39:1 from the land of Gog.
2) King of the South, Dan.11:25,40-43 The Pan-Arabic nations
3) Kings of the east, Kings of the rising sun, Rev.16:12; Dan.11:44 vast Asian hordes.
4) King of the West always refers to the Antichrist and his ten nation confederation.
Religion will use the last king, the Antichrist, to enact its demands on civilizations in the first half. Economist will entrust him with globalizing the world economy, and nations will bend beneath his persuasion to join hand in hand with others of his favor.
A great vacuum will engulf the entire world when all the believers are out of the way.
The influence of godly homes and schools and business men and women along with godly military leaders and national leaders will be absent in the Pentagon and in the halls of congress. Drug enforcement will disappear, and all sorts of vile practices will be legalized. Christian doctors and lawyers and teachers and homemakers as well as godly blue collar workers will be gone. The Divine Restrainer, the Holy Spirit, will not suppress the sin and evil intents of earth’s inhabitants, II Thess.2:7-12.
God will start judging the earth with his trumpet judgments as heavenly disturbances and ecological disasters are sent down to bring about repentance and salvation to those willing to accept the Gospel. For the unrepentant sinner these judgments will accelerate lost man’s need for a leader.
Nations will begin jockeying for world prominence and power, and Satan will direct the leaders of those nations to one nation and one people which he will postulate as the chief trouble maker on the entire earth, that one is Jerusalem and all Jews. Satan’s propaganda machine will spin every problem the world has on the Jews and their God, and any one who supports them and accepts Jesus Christ as Savior.
There is already great anti-Semitism in the world, but do not confuse the anti-Semitism we see today with what will be demonstrated during the tribulation period, particularly the second half of the trib. Nothing stands between the Lord’s return for his church but the Lord himself. Often men will see what is happening in the middle east and say, the Lord’s return is near. The Lord’s return is near even if nothing is happening in the Middle East. You see, God’s word inspires our motivations to be faithful at all times, and to be looking for his imminent return in the Rapture. We are not supposed to wait on some Middle Eastern disaster to start getting ready for the Lord’s return.
Well, disaster will strike the world when our Lord comes back in his second coming.
14:17-18 More judgment is on the way as we see another angel, allos aggelos, an angel of same significance will come out of the temple which is in heaven. This temple is God’s throne room in heaven, and this angel also had a sharp sickle.
This angel is coming to harvest the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe as verse 18 concludes. This is of course in distinction to the Vine of heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ. Some folks are the fruit of this earth’s vine, a vine engrossed with a way of life that is purely opposed to accepting Christ as Savior, and some folks are products of heaven’s vine, the Lord Jesus Christ. Which are you a product of?
This angel is accompanied by yet another angel, one who came out from the altar.
The altar depicts the place where the prayers of the saints have been sent up to heaven.
The angel who had power over fire is sent to respond to the cries of those martyred in the faith. The fire represents God’s judgment. From Rev.8:3-5 we saw the alter where the angel took the golden censer and put much incense on it and he took the censer and put fire in it to burn the incense before the throne of God. This incense represents the prayers of those suffering saints. God is going to answer their prayer by finishing off their persecutors.
This angel avenger takes the lives of those who have martyred the saints.
v.19 As the persecutors of God’s people are gathered in death, they are cast as it were in the great winepress of the wrath of God. God is furious with the lost. Regardless of the amount of participation each lost person contributed to the murder of the saints, all were equally cast into the God’s winepress of wrath. Joel 3:9-17 read..
v.19-20 Out of these deaths will flow blood for approximately 200 miles, through the valley of Megiddo. The distance noted here represents the area of the Plain of Esdraelon, also known in the Bible as the Plain of Jezreel. Here waters flow into the Jordan River and on down to the Salt Sea. Ezek.39:12 tells us it will take seven months to bury the dead from this final battle. These deaths are a large part of those who die at the crossroads of the battle of Armageddon. Great armies will ascend upon each other in several battles leading to this final showdown in Palestine.We will pick this subject up in more detail in chapter sixteen. I know for many this seems unreal, but trust God’s word. This coming battle is not unreal. I trust each one here is born again and as such you will not face the sorrows to come to those left behind.