Why has God brought all the armies of the world to the Middle East?
God has brought them to be trampled in judgment, like grapes in a winepress. He will crush the armies with the final plague of hundred-pound hailstones; the melting hail will then create a river of blood flowing as deep as horses’ bridles.
Les teaches that just as vineyard keepers put all their grapes into the vats and had someone trample them, so God has brought all the armies of the world to the Middle East. The trampling comes through the final plague of hailstones. Picture millions of troops in tents; a hundred-pound hailstone would do nothing but squash them, even as grapes in the vat. The winepress is trodden outside the city, in the valleys north of Jerusalem. Blood comes out of the winepress to the horse’s bridles, a river three to four feet deep, extending 1,600 furlongs, about 180 miles, the distance down to the Red Sea. As the hail that crushed millions melts in Middle Eastern heat, a literal river of blood flows as deep as the horse’s bridles.