What Happens at the Battle of Armageddon in Revelation?

Through the Bible with Les Feldick It's good to have everyone back with us again, and those of you joining us on television we appreciate so much the fact that you write and tell us. You feel like you're just part of the class in the studio, and that's just exactly what we want you to do as you study with us. Again we always like to appreciate the fact that everybody has their own Bible, because after all you go to a secular class and you don't get very far if you don't have your own textbook. That's all we want folks to do is learn how to study on their own, and of course we feel like we're making some headway. Over and over people are telling us that for the first time in their life they're starting to study, not just read, but to study the Word of God. So again we always like to welcome our television audience, and thank you for your letters and your prayers, your financial help, and we again just had a thrilling experience meeting people in Denver, and Albuquerque, and Phoenix, and next month we'll be traveling various other places, and it's always so enlightening to know that the response is pretty much the same everywhere. Now for those of you who may be wondering, we have all the past programs available on videotape, audiotapes, as well as the little printed books, and if you're interested in any of those things, you can drop us a note, or call us on the 800-800 number. This is a Bible study, and we don't like to use it making announcements, so let's go right back to where we left off at the end of the last program, where we had been chasing a whole set of references up through the Old Testament concerning what Paul says up here in verse 2 of I Thessalonians chapter 5, the Day of the Lord. Now if you remember, and as you reflect back on that last program, none of the verses that I looked up concerning the Day of the Lord came from Paul. Not a one. They were all Old Testament, and as I get into the New Testament with regard to this coming Day of Judgment, I'm not quite ready to drop that yet. I'm going to go back again from I Thessalonians and drop back to the last book of the Old Testament, a verse that we didn't have time in our last program, and so I'm just going to wind up that Day of the Lord in the first part of this half hour, because I think I can cover the references to the Day of Christ in far less time. Now in Zechariah chapter 14, here was my last reference that I wanted to use with regard to the Day of the Lord, the Day of Coming Judgment, the coming Day of the Wrath of God, when the grace of God will have been lifted, and His wrath and vexation will come in, not just on Israel, but upon the whole human race, from one end of the world to the other. Zechariah 14, and this is what we have now coined the term, the Battle of Armageddon. The city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half the city shall go forth into captivity, and the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Verse 3. Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations as when he fought in the day of battle. And then that great seven year period of the wrath, and vexation, and vengeance of God will end with the event of verse 4. And his feet shall stand in that day, that final day of judgment. They will stand upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east. Then you come on over to verse 9, and this is what follows. Verse 9. And the LORD shall be king over all the earth. Now let�s just move into Matthew 24, and we�ll see the Lord Jesus referenced to this same day of judgment, as He talks to the twelve in His earthly ministry. Now I�ve had questions come up more than once about Matthew 24, and I�ve just answered in one curt little statement. It�s all tribulation, and there�s nothing in Matthew 24 that applies to us in the church age. It�s all prophetic concerning this day of the Lord. And you can pick that up so clearly in verse 3. Matthew 24, and as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming in the end of the age? And Jesus answered and said, Take heed, that no man deceive you. Now when you�re warned to look out for deception, what does that mean? Hey it�s coming, there�s coming a vast deception, the likes of which the world has never seen. Now you see almost every despotic ruler comes in by deception. All you have to do is go back to the history pre world war II. How did Hitler gain control of the German people? By deception. He didn�t tell them right up front that he was going to be what he turned out to be. He sold the German people a bill of goods, and he deceived them, and they like dummies swallowed it. Then after the fact they say, Well we didn�t know. Well they should have, and that�s true of any despotic leader. They come in with flatteries, they come in with a lot of promises, and everybody likes to feed at the government troughs. I can remember a historian of the last century who wrote that America will remain the greatest nation on earth until the common ordinary everyday man suddenly finds out he can feed at the government trough, and we�re there. And when everybody gets the idea that the government owes them everything they want, then our great democracy comes to an end. Well Jesus is warning then that there�s coming a day of tremendous deception, spiritually, materially, and economically. The biggest deceiver that the world has ever seen is coming. And then he goes on and lists in the succeeding verses, verse 6. You shall hear of wars, rumors of wars. Verse 7. Nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom. Then verse 8. Famines, hestilences, earthquakes in diverse places. That doesn�t sound like utopia to me, this is judgment, and this is all in accord with all those verses we read in our last lesson coming out of the Old Testament. And then he goes on to say, so far as Israel is concerned, they shall deliver you up to be afflicted. It�s going to be the greatest persecution that Israel has ever experienced. The Holocaust is going to look like a Sunday school picnic compared to this final 3 and a half years of the tribulation for the Jew. They will deliver you up to be afflicted, they�ll kill you, and you�ll be hated of all nations. Then he goes on to say, many shall be offended, and betray one another, and hate one another. In other words, parents will be reported on by their children, and children will be told on by their parents. So there�s going to be no one that anybody can trust. Verse 11. Ephesians 2. Many false prophets shall rise, and deceive many. Then he comes over into the period from verse 15 on down, but the verse I want you to look at in particular is verse 21. Ephesians 2. Where Jesus Himself now, in full accord with all these promises concerning the day of the Lord that we looked at in the Old Testament, says, Ephesians 2. For when this day of the Lord comes, then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, which took you all the way back to Adam. Nothing in those 4,000 years could compare with this day of judgment that�s coming on the planet. And then he says, from His point in time future, there would never be anything to compare. And that�s why I made the statement that the Holocaust by comparison will be rather tame. Now it was awful, and I�m not one of those who deny the Holocaust. It was awful. I remember the first time we went to the Mediterranean, and we were on the island of Rhodes. We met a dear little old Jewish lady who still had the tattooed numbers on her arm, and she shared just some of the horrors of what it was to be in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. So don�t ever believe these people who are trying to deny that there was a Holocaust. But the Lord Himself says that even that will not compare with those final 3,500 years. And that�s reading on in verse 21. Ephesians 2. For when this day of judgment comes, then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, nor ever shall be, until that tremendous day of the Lord begins. Well I think now we can go back to the Book of Revelation and look at just a few of the verses back there that again are in full accord with all these verses we�ve been looking at with regard to the Day of the Lord. Now I�m just going to pick out a few here and there. Let�s go first to chapter 16, where we just have a glimpse of all the various plagues that will be coming on the planet, one right after the other, leading up to Christ�s Second Coming. Now you see none of these things are attendant with the Rapture of the Church, and none of this is all in concert with the Second Coming, and this tremendous 7 year period that we call the Day of the Lord. Now we can just jump in at verse 2. Ephesians 2. The first plague, or as it�s called, the first bowl, or if you have a King James it�s called a vial, but it�s really a bowl judgment. It�s going to be poured out like the contents from a soup bowl, and there fell noisome and grievous sores upon men who had the mark of the beast, and worshipped his image. Verse 3. Ephesians 2. The next one pours out his bowl upon the sea, the oceans, and it becomes as the blood of a dead man, and everything in it dies. And so on through all these bowl judgments, one is almost worse than the one ahead of it. Now let�s bring it all the way down to verse 17, the final bowl judgment, which I attach to the battle of Armageddon. I attach the seventh bowl judgment with those massed armies, packed into the valleys of Israel, probably in tents, and other than that almost no protection to the elements. But they�re going to be packed in, as I�ve said back in my Revelation studies, like sardines in the can, contrary to all good military strategy, because the Sovereign God is ordering it. And they�re going to pack those millions and millions of Gentile troops into Israel. And then verse 17, Ephesians 2. The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and there came a voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done, finished, it�s the end. Verse 18. Ephesians 2. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings, and a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake. Verse 19. The city of Jerusalem was divided into three parts, the cities of the nations fell, all the great population centers of the world were suddenly disintegrated, and Babylon which I call in the Book of Revelation, that composite of all the nations of the world, this great economic system that we�re seeing today, tied together with the internet, tied together with the technology that had to come in order for these end events to happen. And so this Babylon, that great Babylon, that composite of the nations of the world who are in confusion, it came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath, not his love, not his grace, now it�s nothing but wrath. Verse 20. Ephesians 2. Every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. In other words God�s going to totally renovate the surface of the planet, just like He did in Noah�s flood with water, He�s going to renovate it this time with other natural phenomena like earthquakes, and volcanoes, and what have you. And then verse 21. Ephesians 2. Imagine these millions of young men out there on the plains of Israel, packed in, and what is their doom? And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone the weight of a talent, or a hundred pounds. Now we know what a 5 pound hail stone can do, but this is 100 pound chunks of ice, and so they will be literally crushed and ground, and there again is that reference to the wine vat. And they�re going to be crushed, and then of course in chapter 14 verse 20, this will be the end result. And when these millions of the armies of the world are crushed with this 100 pound hail, and melting probably in the heat of an Israeli summer, now I can�t prove that from Scripture, but nevertheless we know that the biggest portion of the year in Israel is pretty hot. And as these hail stones strike these millions of troops gathered in the valleys of Israel, now you can look at how even the book of Revelation pictures it. Another angel came out from the altar, who had power over fire, and he cried a loud cry to him who had the sharpsicle, saying, �Thrust in thy sharpsicle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe.� Now that�s of course a symbolism of the Antichrist literally putting out the command to all the remaining armies of the world to come to Israel, to the Middle East. We've got to settle the Jewish problem once and for all, because more than one great despot has thought that that was the source of the world�s problem. So I think he�s going to put out the command to send your armies, send your troops, send everything you�ve got, so that we can finally get rid of this little nation of Israel. Now always stop and think that when the world is dealing in situations like this under God�s of sovereignty, the most intelligent can do things ridiculous. Now we know it�s utterly ridiculous for millions upon millions of troops to come to the Middle East to get rid of a little nation of only 10 or 15 million. But I always remind people, when the high priests and the Romans consorted to go and arrest Jesus down there in the Garden of Gethsemane, timid and compassionate as He was, how many foot soldiers did they send to arrest Him? Anybody know? Well if I�m not mistaken it was 600. I mean it�s ridiculous. It wasn�t 600, it was 100, I didn�t look this up, I didn�t intend to use this. But see this is the ridiculousness of men�s actions, that we say, �Well common sense says they won�t do that.� Well I know that, but they�re not going to use common sense. They�re going to just by the work of God, they�re going to be packed into those valleys of Israel like grapes into the wine vat. That�s the analogy. Now then reading on in Revelation 14, so the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth. Now that�s just simply God�s way of bringing the armies of the world to the valleys of Israel. So the angel gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine press of the wrath of God. So God�s going to bring these millions of troops under idiotic commands of their generals to encamp in these valleys. Now if you�ve been to Israel and you stand up on Mount Carmel, you can see the valley of Israel and you�re laying out there as flat as a table top. You get along the Mediterranean and you�ve got the valley of Shuron, just as flat as a table top. You�ve got the valley of Hula, and the valley of Jordan. These are all flat areas, and so as these troops are just packed in there, then comes this final bowl judgment, the 100 pound hail, which becomes God�s way of treading His wine vat. Got the picture? Symbolism yes, but it�s a literal truth. Now then what�s the result? Verse 20. Ephesians 2. And the wine press, these valleys full of men, was trodden outside the city, and blood came out of the wine press, even to the horse�s bridles, and for the space of a thousand six hundred furlongs, that river of melting ice and blood will find its way out of the valleys of Israel, and head down to the south, all by the wrath of a sovereign God. Now then in Revelation we come over to chapter 19, and the final event of the wrath of God is the Second Coming. That will end this 7 years of tribulation. Revelation 19, verse 11. This is the Second Coming, and I hope you remember our lesson last taping on the Rapture. None of this is part of the Rapture. The Rapture is just a trumpet of the Lord sounding, and Christ comes down and brings the soul and spirit of the departed believers, and they�re reunited with their resurrected body there in the air, and we�re translated, and we all go up with the Lord in the glory. Never even touching the planet, no judgment associated with it, no catastrophes, no disasters, but oh at this one, that�s all it is. Now verse 11. The final event of these 7 years is, I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse. I do not think that Christ is going to come riding through the air on a white horse, but the symbolism which Revelation, Daniel and Ezekiel use extensively, is His coming in power and victory, which of course all despotic emperors did when they would come into a conquered city. They loved to ride on a white steed just to show that they were victorious. So the symbolism is giving that same effect, that Christ is coming now as a conquering emperor, which of course the ancients were only too well aware of. So He comes according to symbolism on this white horse, but He that sat upon Him was called Faithful, and True, and in Righteousness. Remember what I said in the last program? This isn�t an unfair God, this isn�t an unjust God, these millions of tribulation people have had the same opportunity for salvation that you and I have had, but what have they done with it? They�ve walked it underfoot, and they�ve had absolutely no concern about the things of God. So whenever someone says, �Well how can a God of love be so cruel?� I say, �Look, God spent all of His cruelty for the human race on His Son.� Christ suffered like you and I can never imagine for the whole human race, so that God could offer salvation to everyone, rich or poor, black or white, oriental or western, He could offer that salvation free for nothing to anyone who would believe it. And then we say, He hasn�t got the right to judge those who walk that underfoot? You better think again. He has every right in the world, He�s just, He�s fair, in Righteousness, not in hatefulness, not in bitterness, but in Righteousness He does judge and make war. Then verse 12. Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2. Verse 12. And on his head were many crowns, and he had a name written, that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And then the armies which were in heaven, which I have to feel are you and I as members of the Body of Christ. The army does not necessarily mean it�s a system of warfare with weapons, it�s organization. And Paul makes it so plain that all the saints are in a tremendous organization. The Body of Christ is an organism with organization. And so all these people in distinct places of organization who were in heaven, followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And we find over in verse 8 that that�s the clothing of the saints, that white linen. And then out of his mouth goes a sharp sword. Now he�s not holding a big Roman sword in his teeth, not even a little dagger. But the sword of the Lord is His Word. He speaks the Word, and the hail falls. He speaks the Word, and these armies of the nations disappear. He speaks the Word, and all the birds and the vultures come and devour the residue. So the sword of the Lord which is the Word, he smites the nations in his wrath, and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. Stark language isn�t it? And then people like to just smirk and say, �I thought he was a God of love.� He is a God of grace today. The vilest sinner, we had the most tremendous testimony in Albuquerque wasn�t it? Just blew us away. I don�t know if I�ve got time to share even the highlight. He had gone through a lot of bitter experiences. He had come to the place that he cursed God at every chance. Cursed Him. Went home and found every Bible and tore the sheets out, threw them in the fire, and cursed God with every handful that went in the fire. A few days later he caught our program, and this is what�s so amazing. A few minutes into our program he heard me speak of the grace of God, and God opened his heart, and that young man, probably around 40 years old, was saved there on his living room floor. He said, �I cried out, �God I know I�m a sinner.� Now that�s what God�s mercy can do. Oh he cursed God, he hated God, but where sin abounds, God�s grace abounds more. That�s today, but here this is the wrath of God, and he treads it alone. And then verse 16 says it all. Why can he do it? Because he has on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, �King of Kings, Lord of Lords.� He�s sovereign, he�s in total control of everything, and his wrath will fall because of his sovereignty. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick. Through the Bible is a partner supported ministry. If this program has been a help to your study of the scriptures and you�d like to see others enjoy the teaching, your support would be greatly appreciated. Write to us at Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Tinta, OK 74552 or call 1-800-369-7856. Remember all programs are available in printed form, audio cassette and videotape. 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