Transcript
Matthew chapter 24. We will begin once again with my continual perpetual overhead of the structure of the Olivet Discourse found in Matthew 24 and 25.
And not going over this in any great detail of course, but observe once again that we have divided the Olivet Discourse into two major units. The first unit is a unit of exposition or explanation which covers the events that will transpire during the course of the day of the Lord.
We have subdivided exposition into two units. We’ve already completed our coverage of the survey unit, 24:4 to 14, where our Lord runs quickly through the events of Daniel’s 70th week from beginning to end.
We are in the second section, about the middle part of the second section. And the second section of course comes back to the midpoint of Daniel’s 70th week and goes into some greater detail about the events of the last half, or the last three and a half years, of Daniel’s 70th week.
The final unit, as we’ve indicated before, is the unit that we’ve called application, where the question of when this will occur is raised. And then once the answer is given that we don’t know when it will occur, there are a series of parables to teach us how to respond, how to relate to the coming events.
Now open your Bibles, if you haven’t done so already, to Matthew 24. And in order to kind of get us back on track, let me call your attention again to the overhead we were looking at toward the end of the last period.
We are in the second subunit of the unit of exposition or explanation. And in the events of the future we have arrived at the midpoint of Daniel’s 70th week. And in Matthew 24:15, when the Lord speaks of the abomination of desolation, He is of course talking, as we indicated, about the desecration of the Jewish temple by the man of sin.
And you remember that we’ve looked at several passages in which the man of sin goes into the temple of God and claims to be God in blasphemy against God and all other forms of deity.
You will notice that, as we mentioned last week, once this desecration of the Jewish temple occurs, the believers of Jerusalem and Judea are urged to flee immediately.
Against the background of this, just to review it for any who might not have been here, during the first three and a half years of Daniel’s 70th week we believe that we have the witness of the two prophets who were raised up by God to proclaim the message of judgment and salvation.
And during their ministry, which is three and a half years long, we will have the conversion of probably hundreds of thousands of Jewish people, certainly at a minimum the 144,000 Jewish men who become the evangelists during the last half of the 70th week.
So by the time we reach the desecration point of the temple we may have good reason to think that there will be a very large number of believers in Jesus Christ situated in Jerusalem and in Judea.
And they are under instructions from the Olivet Discourse that as soon as they are aware of the abomination of desolation, as soon as they are aware of the desecration of the Jewish temple, they are to waste no time and they are to flee. And that is what is covered in verses 15 to 20 of the unit we were examining last time.
Then in verses 21 and 22 of Matthew 24 the Lord reminds people who will be living in that day that there will be a time of tribulation such as never was in the history of the entire world.
And one of the things that we were doing toward the end of the last hour was calling attention to the final series of judgments that are recorded in Revelation 16, the so-called bowl judgments. And we find them to be enormous catastrophes, enormous calamities unparalleled in human history.
And we can very well understand therefore what the Lord Jesus Christ is talking about when He says, “unless those days are shortened there should no flesh be saved.” So severe are these judgments that the continued existence of the human race is called into question and can only be preserved by means of the shortening of that time.
And of course God has already done the shortening in that He has limited the period of wrath to three and a half years.
Then there follows in verses 23 to 28 a section we didn’t really look at with any concentration last time, a warning from Jesus that this will be a period of intense religious deception.
Notice that He says in verse 23, “then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it.” They say he’s out in the desert, don’t go out there. They say he’s in the inner room, don’t believe that he’s there.
And then notice in verse 27, “for as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” Do not be deceived by those who say the Messiah is here and he’s in some special place, because He says the presence of the Messiah, the coming of the Messiah, will be as visible as lightning flashing from one end of the heaven to the other.
Notice that in verse 24, in speaking of this period of deception, He says, “for false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”
This focuses us upon a point which we mentioned last night but which I also want to explore a little bit more fully tonight. And that is that the period of time that is under consideration here, the last three and a half years of Daniel’s 70th week, is not only a period of unparalleled trouble for mankind. It is also a period of unparalleled satanic deception.
So that Satan is able to perform miracles during this period which exceed the miracles that He has performed in all of past history. And there will be a very strong power of delusion spreading out through the world all of the while that the judgments of God are falling upon men.
I’d like to explore this a little bit by turning to some other passages of Scripture that will elaborate it. So if you will keep your place in Matthew, turn if you will to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2.
2 Thessalonians chapter 2. And we want to start looking at verse 9. 2 Thessalonians 2:9. Remember we’ve already looked at the opening part which refers to the man of sin, 2 Thessalonians 2, or to the figure that we know as the beast from the book of Revelation.
And we are still speaking of him in verse 9.
The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
So this is an assertion that the coming of this end time figure will be accompanied by all forms of deceptive miraculous power. And that those who have previously heard and rejected the gospel will be deluded. God will allow them to be deceived by the intense and powerful deceptions that are spreading in those days.
It is on the basis of this passage that it has been said, and I think correctly, that those who are saved in the tribulation period, and there will be many of them as we learned from Revelation 7, will necessarily be people who have not previously heard the gospel.
Of which of course there are millions if not billions of people over the face of the earth. But one cannot say, all right, if I see these things happening I’ll get saved. When I was a little boy I sometimes kind of felt that way.
And I remember very clearly coming home to my house one day and very exceptionally neither of my parents were there. I virtually never came home from school and didn’t find one or the other of my parents there. The thought crossed my mind, my parents have been raptured and I’ve been left behind.
And the thought also crossed my mind, despite what the Scripture says here, I’m going to get saved. However neither of those things had happened and my parents came home and I did later get saved. But no matter how much I might have, if the rapture had occurred and if I had previously rejected the gospel, it wouldn’t have mattered if I was determined to get saved because the delusion would overtake me.
So this is a very solemn passage and it seems to me that it should galvanize our efforts to reach people that we know have already heard the gospel. Because we do not know when this period of time will begin. We don’t know when the Lord will come.
And the people who have hitherto rejected the gospel will not have any hope extended to them as far as I can tell from this passage of the Scriptures. So this should give us motivation to reach the people that we’ve been trying to reach and to pray that God will open their hearts while there is still opportunity for them to trust in Christ.
Now this passage establishes the principle that this is a time of intense religious deception.
Now I’m going to turn you to what I consider one of the most surprising prophetic passages in the entire New Testament. If you were surprised by anything up to here I think I can almost guarantee you’ll be surprised by this one.
So will you turn to Revelation chapter 17. Before I read the text, the problem that we have faced here in this passage is that the plain meaning of the text seems so unusual that we are tempted to avoid what the text is obviously saying. This is not a difficult passage to interpret but the results of its interpretation are certainly surprising.
Revelation 17:7. We’re going to begin reading at verse 7. However let me remind you that in the opening verses of the chapter what we see is a savage beast with seven heads and ten horns and sitting on top of this beast is a woman, a harlot, an immoral woman.
And her title is given in verse 5, “Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.” So the vision is the vision of this wild animal and also the vision of the woman who rides atop the wild animal.
Now in verse 7 the angel is offering an explanation of this vision to the apostle John. And we’ll begin to read at that point.
But the angel said to me, ‘Why did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition.’
And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.
There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time.
The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition.
The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast.
Let’s pause here. The city which is represented by this woman is the city of Rome. We quite naturally will understand the seven kings as seven Roman rulers.
By the way this passage is the most useful passage in the book of Revelation to date the book of Revelation which we can now date in the period 68 to 69 much earlier than even conservatives have dated it in the past.
At this point in Roman history there had already been five emperors. Augustus the first Roman emperor, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius. So the first five Roman emperors are those. Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero.
Following the death of Nero in 68 there was a transition period in which there were three emperors within a period of a year or two. The first of these was Galba, the second was Otho and the third was Vitellius.
Now since we only have in the sequence that is structured here two more after the first five we can say that the emperor who currently was was Galba and the emperor who was to follow him and who was only to have a short reign was Otho since Otho followed Galba and had a very brief period in which he ruled.
Now that is the sequence and what the text is suggesting here is that at any point past Otho the beast can appear. You follow me? We’re not trying to exhaust the Roman emperors which went on for hundreds of years. We’re only concerned with a series of seven. Five that have lived and died, one who is currently reigning and one who is still to come but whose reign will be short.
After which the man of sin can appear or the beast can appear. From this emerges what I think is the most astounding feature of biblical prophecy about the man of sin. And that is that the man of sin will represent the spirit of a revived Roman emperor.
Let me talk about this a little bit. We’ve already seen, and perhaps I should put this back on the overhead for you, we’ve already seen that according to the prophecy of Daniel the man of sin appears in the first half week as the king of the north.
And the career that is traced by Daniel brings us as we saw on the first evening to the middle of the week. You remember that the king of the north is attacking Egypt, that he invades Egypt, that he conquers Egypt.
And after conquering Egypt he gets news out of the northeast that troubles him. He’s very angry at the news and he retraces his steps with his forces and he encamps as we have suggested based on Daniel in the upper Kidron Valley.
And that was between the two seas, the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, more or less facing the Temple Mount which was at the northeast corner of the city of Jerusalem.
Up to this point he is a king of the north and his dominion in the world is limited now to his northern kingdom and to the regions that he has just conquered in the process of invading Egypt.
Apparently however something happens to him between the time he camps outside of Jerusalem and the exact midpoint of the week.
Now I’d like you to turn back for just a moment to chapter 13. Keep your place in 17. In speaking of the false prophet in verse 14 we’re told,
and he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.
In one of the visions of the beast we have one of his heads wounded as to death. For some reason the man of sin, the king of the north, is apparently attacked right at this point here.
And that would be the best conjecture that we could make, an attempt at assassination. We just don’t know exactly the modus operandi of the attempt but in any case he is an individual who has received a mortal wound and contrary to all expectations recovers from it.
Now I want to suggest that it is at this point that a satanic miracle occurs. Because not only does the king of the north revive but now a spirit or soul if you want to put it this way, let’s talk of the term in the terms of a spirit, a spirit of a dead emperor, one of the first five emperors of the Roman Empire who is currently in Hades or in the bottomless pit, is brought out of the abode of the damned and enters the body of the king of the north.
And at that point the way I would put it is the king of the north becomes the beast.
Now let’s think a little bit in terms of this. We are already prepared by some forms of secular thought to think in terms of reincarnation are we not? There are a lot of people in America who believe in reincarnation.
We also know that the devil is capable through His demons of possessing human bodies. And for that matter we have a very remarkable case of demon possession in the story of the maniac of Gadara.
Because when we first meet this maniac he seems to be a unified personality but as the story unfolds and the maniac is about to be exorcised of his demon we make the discovery that isn’t just one demon in there. Remember how many? It was two thousand.
The maniac of Gadara is inhabited by two thousand demons whose personalities apparently have merged by virtue of occupying the same body. And if you look at the gospel of Mark you’ll find that in the opening verses of the story the “I” pronoun is used and as the story proceeds it’s “we” and finally they’re cast out of the man altogether and they inhabit the bodies of a herd of swine two thousand strong.
And the swine run over the cliff and down into the waters and are drowned. All I am trying to say by means of this story from the Bible is that the devil knows the technique by which spirits may merge with one another inside a single human body.
I have no concept of how it’s done but nevertheless it’s clear from the Scriptures that it can be done. What apparently happens here is that the spirit of the king of the north is merged with the spirit of the Roman emperor who has now come out of the abode of the lost.
And what is created is a brand new personality with we may easily imagine enormously heightened powers.
Now this may be passed off as a kind of reincarnation. For example the king of the north has been wounded. He’s not expected to live. He not only recovers but now he’s recovered his memory. I’m thinking of one of the perspectives from which this could be viewed in that time.
He’s recovered his memory and he now knows that in a previous life he was a Roman emperor. And he can demonstrate this to the world because he can remember all sorts of things and point out all sorts of things that no one who did not have the knowledge of this particular Roman emperor would have any hope of doing.
And he convinces the world therefore that he is a man who has awakened to his true self. He has now psychic powers and powers of recollection that human beings normally do not have.
After this amazing fusion between the spirit of the Roman emperor and the spirit of the king of the north this man is able to get up and go into the streets of Jerusalem and he cuts down the two witnesses who have prophesied in the name of Jehovah and who have been invincible for three and a half years.
He cuts them down showing dramatically the power he now possesses. He walks into the temple and he sits down presumably in the holy of holies and he says I am God.
Now again this will probably take on a kind of a new age cast. And the message of the man of sin may be something like this. I am a man who’s reached his full potential for divinity. I now can recollect my past and I can join it with my present and I have these powers which you can see me demonstrating in the killing of these two witnesses.
And every human being who follows in my train can also realize their potential. I am God but I am also God in the sense that there is divinity in all of us and once we reach the height of our powers you too can be like me.
Now again this is a somewhat imaginative reconstruction of how it might be presented. I’m sure it will be presented with outstanding sophistication and with all sorts of delusionary ideas which the devil is weaving.
But what I’m trying to get over to you is that this period of time is like no other period of time in human history. And the devil is allowed to do things which He’s never been allowed to do in all of human history.
And the deceptions will be enormous and overpowering. And what we’ve seen already as we looked at Revelation 13 is the whole world worships the beast and they worship the dragon which is Satan who gives power to the beast.
And they say who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him? This is a stunning miracle that Satan delivers and the result is a world trapped in this lie and deception.
Now where does this lead? Well as we saw last night it leads us increasingly toward Armageddon.
And before we go into that I think it would be an appropriate thing for me to do to pause just now and get questions over the segment that we’ve just covered. So let’s pause for any questions you may have.
Yes I assume on the basis of the passage in Thessalonians that those who are converted under the two witnesses and under the witness of the 144,000 are people who have not previously been confronted with the gospel or at least not in an understandable way so that they have had no opportunity to accept or reject it.
And what this suggests, I was talking about this issue one time to a young life group quite a few years ago and a little Oriental girl came up to me afterwards and she said have you ever noticed she said that the general movement of Christianity seems to have been from east to west.
And she was pointing out the fact that of course it started in Palestine and then eventually Europe became the center of gravity. After that America has become the center of gravity. Europe is in a post-Christian era. America is rapidly approaching a post-Christian era.
And she postulated that the next great wave would go to the Far East. And already of course there are many conversions in the Far East but we’re talking about the billions in China, the billions and millions in India and in all of those places.
It has also been pointed out you remember that there is a registration period here during the last three and a half years and those who accept this registration will not get saved.
It is likely that in the more highly developed and technological nations that the registration process will be more rapid and then in the third world nations it’ll be less rapid. So it would not be surprising that many many many of the converts of the great tribulation period will be from the third world where the registration process of the beast is less rapid and more difficult.
That was her suggestion for whatever it’s worth. I think it’s interesting but in any case what we want to say here is that if a person prior to the rapture has already rejected the gospel they will be trapped in this tremendous delusion that we’re talking about from the scriptures.
Arch? Yes what I would say about Revelation 18 is that it is clearly the destruction of a city. And in fact everybody bemoans the destruction of this city because of the tremendous commercial enterprises that are wrapped up in the city.
And what I think happens here is that the city of Rome is destroyed during this period. By the way will you indulge me this? I think I want to read the remainder of chapter 17 because that addresses this issue.
Let would you look back at Revelation 17 and verse 14. Remember that the preceding verses have said that the ten horns or ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet but they receive power as kings with the beast because they agree to give their power and authority to the beast.
Okay let’s read verse 14.
These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with him are called, chosen, and faithful.
Then he said to me,
The waters on which you saw the harlot sit are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill his purpose, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast until the words of God are fulfilled. And the woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.
So what this reveals is that the destruction of this city, namely Rome, is the doing of the ten kings. For some reason that is not explained here the ten kings hate that city.
Now please understand it in the reconstruction that I’m giving you of prophecy we have the man of sin stationed here in his tents in the upper Kidron Valley. We have no indication whatsoever from any portion of Revelation that this man ever goes to Rome.
In any case we have a clear indication here that the ten kings who give their power and authority to him decide to destroy Rome. If you read chapter 18 closely it is possible, please notice that I said it is possible, to read this as a situation in which a city has been wiped out by a nuclear explosion.
Because one of the things that is emphasized by everybody who is watching this is that in one hour quickly this destruction has come. And then they stand a long way off for fear of the smoke of her burning.
This is exactly the response that would be made if a city had been nuked. The great mushroom cloud would be going up. The city would be devastated and nobody would want to get close to it.
So for whatever reason it seems to me that chapters 17 and 18 which of course are a unit in the book of Revelation present the destruction of the city of Rome by the ten kings.
And needless to say of course the harlot has sometimes been identified with the Roman Catholic church. I don’t think that that identification is valid in terms of direct connection. But assuming that the Vatican still exists at this period of time if Rome is wiped out so will be the Vatican.
So the destruction that occurs here will catch up in it everything that Rome contains. This is another surprising feature of this prophecy.
Yes Dave? I believe that I first encountered this in W. R. Newell. One of the nice things about W. R. Newell’s book on Revelation which of course is fairly old is that he takes most of it at face value and lets the text speak for itself.
And I think that’s all that’s really necessary to do here. That the text sort of speaks for itself and it really is telling us that a lost soul is allowed to escape his prison for a brief period of time to play his final role as an agent of Satan during these last three and a half years.
Combining that with the prophecy of Daniel we draw the conclusion that in all probability this will be a merging of two personalities because the king of the north is identified in words by Daniel in the same way that Paul identifies the man of sin.
So the king of the north is not just wiped out and replaced. So what probably goes on here is a merging of personalities.
Yes and up until this point, up until the point when he receives a mortal wound of some kind, the scriptures don’t give us any indication of how that will happen. But you understand that here’s an apostate probably from the standpoint of Muslims an apostate Arab, a recent conqueror of Egypt, a man who is now on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
He probably has plenty of enemies. So a would-be assassin from the Muslim world or from Egypt or from Israel, who knows? The actual fulfillment will give us the details. We don’t need to know this.
All we need to know is that his recovery from this mortal wound is part of the grounds on which the false prophet sets up the system of worship at the center of which this man is standing.
All of this is, I have to admit to you, if it were not in the Bible I couldn’t invent it. And you know this is why I’m emphasizing for instance the passage in Thessalonians with all power and signs and lying wonders, with all unrighteous deceit.
This is Satan’s great moment of magnificent deception. I’m sure this man will not, the Bible presents these men, the false prophet and the beast and the man of sin, as wild animals. They won’t look like that to the world.
I’m sure the man of sin will look like probably an individual who has reached the pinnacle to which it is possible for man to aspire. That he has divinity. That he’s in contact with the spirit world and he has a spirit by the name of Lucifer who has been maligned through the centuries as if he were evil who really is gracious and loving toward mankind and can be worshiped for his beauty.
And then he has this false prophet. We call him a false prophet. Here is a man with new religious insights who finds a way of integrating the world religions into a single religious observance.
And the unity that has so long escaped mankind at the religious and philosophical level is at last achieved under by the brilliance of this religious leader who works as the agent of this magnificent person who unites the world both politically and economically.
I mean this is going to be fabulous.
Jim? Yeah I think that’s right. Yeah one of the things if you’ve noticed and we’ve tried to stress it as we go along in a number of places the book of Revelation emphasizes that in the face of these tremendous and enormous calamities the world is completely unrepentant.
They blasphemed the God of heaven who had power over these plagues. Yeah but you see the world does not see this as a conflict between the Creator God and some lesser divinity. Undoubtedly the deception of Lucifer will pull Jehovah down to some kind of a demigod who has significant power.
But of course Lucifer and the beast and the false prophet will promote the idea that we can handle it. And that’s where the battle of Armageddon comes in.
Let’s get back to that and let me complete the presentation for tonight and then we’ll have further questions. Okay what we’ve seen so far, the desecration of the Jewish temple by this newly enhanced persona, this magnificent man who now can claim to be God.
Under the direction of the false prophet the worship of this man is instituted because the world is in turmoil as a result of all of these calamities that have happened in the first three and a half years including the death of a third of the world’s population not to mention the devastating ecological disasters that have taken place.
We can just imagine how the economic and social and political life of the world has been riven to shreds. And the world will need a leader and it will have its leader.
And religiously meanwhile as we’ve noted the believers in Jerusalem and Judea have fled in response to our Lord’s command. The 144,000 go beyond that and fan out over the world in an effort to evangelize the world.
And all of the while this is going on there is the registration and the persecution. Now we looked at Revelation 16 last night but turn there just briefly again if you will. Do you notice in this era coming down here the dotted line that means the guy who designed this overhead is not quite sure where these judgments began.
It is conceivable that the series of judgments indicated under the bowls might begin earlier than this. The one thing we do know from Revelation 16 is that the first judgment falls on those who have received the mark of the beast.
So these judgments beginning with the first belong to the last half of the 70th week. We’ve already seen that these judgments are enormous and they are devastating so that in the course of these judgments among other things the oceans of the world are contaminated and every living thing in the ocean dies.
The sources of fresh water are contaminated and turned to blood. The ozone layer perhaps has virtually disappeared or nearly disappeared and men are scorched with fire. The Euphrates river is dried up.
And now I want to focus you again on Revelation 16:13.
And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame. And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon.
It is clear that as these judgments are running their course the world is in desperate shape. But they have a leader. And what is the leader going to do about this? Well the leader issues a worldwide summons to all the kings of the earth to assemble their armies and to fight with God.
Now turn over to chapter 19 and verse 11.
Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called the Word of God.
We instantly recognize this as our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 14.
And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
Now notice verse 17.
Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, ‘Come and gather together for the supper of the great God, that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great.’
Now notice verse 19.
And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army.
What the beast has said is in effect the person called Jesus Christ, an agent of this divinity Jehovah of Israel, has promised to invade the world and he is going to land on the Mount of Olives according to the ancient Hebrew scriptures.
However I am camped at the foot of the Mount of Olives and I summon the nations of all the world to send their armies down so that we can fight him when he comes.
Remember we read Psalm 2 at the end of our session last night. Why do the heathen rage and the kings imagine a vain thing? They take counsel with each other and say against the Lord and against His anointed.
And they say let’s cast their cords from us. Let’s break their bands asunder. The world is united in one determined resolution. We are going to break the power of Jehovah and His anointed. We’re going to break their bands. We are going to resist them. We are going to defeat them when he lands. We’ll wipe them out. Something like that.
So here they are. The king of kings coming with His armies. The beast coming with his armies. And this is the great final battle, the battle of Armageddon.
Verse 20.
Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh.
Now turn back to Zechariah chapter 14. What we have in Revelation 19 is a swift summary of what happens in this great final battle. We are fortunate however to have the prophecy of Zechariah who describes what happens at the battle of Armageddon in somewhat more detail.
Please follow along as I read this starting in Zechariah 14 verse 1.
Behold, the day of the Lord is coming. Notice the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations. Do you see this? I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. The city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
So the invading armies as they sweep their way down from the valley of Armageddon and as they sweep through Jerusalem they ravish the city.
Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, this is of course the Lord Jesus Christ prophesied here, who comes and with human feet stands on the Mount of Olives which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley. Half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south. Then you shall flee through my mountain valley, for the mountain valley shall reach to Azal. Yes, you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the saints with you.
Notice how that dovetails with Revelation.
It shall come to pass in that day that there will be no light, the lights will diminish. It shall be one day which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night. But at evening time it shall happen that it will be light. And in that day it shall be that living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and half of them toward the western sea. In both summer and winter it shall occur. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth. In that day it shall be, the Lord is one, and His name one.
Now skip down to verse 12.
And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike the people who fought against Jerusalem. Notice how they are defeated. This is grim to say the least. Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, and their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths. It shall come to pass in that day that a great panic from the Lord will be among them. Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor, and raise his hand against his neighbor’s hand. Judah also will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations shall be gathered together, gold and silver and apparel in great abundance. Such also shall be the plague on the horse and the mule, on the camel and the donkey, and on all the cattle that will be in those camps. So shall this plague be.
This is mankind’s ultimate and foolish rebellion against its Creator. Earth goes to war with heaven and earth is summarily and tragically defeated.
The beast and the false prophet are captured alive and cast immediately into Gehenna and the rest of the armies are killed in the way that is described in this passage.
The man of sin in a sense epitomizes the career of sin. He is a microcosm of sin. Remember that we noticed in Revelation 13 that power was given to him to make war. And there are three times that the man of sin makes war in the book of Revelation.
First of all he makes war against the two witnesses we are told in Revelation 11 and overcomes them. Then he makes war with the saints and overcomes them. And then he makes war with the one who sits upon the horse and is decisively defeated.
But that’s the characteristic of sin. I start out with a little sin and hey I get away with it. And I go on to something a little bit bigger and hey I get away with it. And then I go on to something bigger. And somewhere down the line the judgment of God falls and my sinfulness is judged.
What this man does is to represent in his own persona the nature and character of sin. And this last three and a half years is the climax of man’s sinful history and the climax of man’s ongoing rebellion against his maker and creator.
And when that climax is over the Lord Jesus Christ is the king of the entire world. These are staggering and dumbfounding events.
Tomorrow night as we conclude the discussion we will be talking about how we should prepare for those events.
Thank you very much. Let’s close in prayer.