Armageddon ...

The last war begins.  It will have 2 great battles.  The first battle begins at the second coming of Jesus Christ, as He returns to earth triumphantly to bring home those of us who have waited to see Him for so so long.  The second battle will occur more than a thousand years later, as there is one final assault of the city of heaven itself.  The 2 opposing sides were defined years ago.  The 2 opposing ideas outlined at the birth of evil into the universe.  Love-of-self versus love-of-others; it is this opposition that gives rise to conflict.  Love of self has produced evil, pain, and death.  It has proven what the opposite of God is, what the opposite of love is, what the opposite of life is.  Those who broke trust with God, and embraced the love of self, have become slaves to this sickness they chose.  They are now powerless under its insatiable grip.  The hunger that cannot be filled will not be filled, and so death must be its only outcome.  The war which began in heaven has moved to earth.  It will wage its next battle here on earth where evil is destined to lose, as it was always destined to lose.  The defeat of evil is known by all those in the supernatural realm, but it is refused to be accepted.  Instead pain and death will only be magnified and intensified before evil meets its end.  So Armageddon has arrived.

Unlike the Bruce Willis movie, where he and Ben Affleck can through sacrifice save a planet filled with the “innocent” and those in need, the time for sacrifice is ended.  There is no one left who can call themselves “innocent”.  There is no one left who might repent and seek to be saved.  There are only those bent on destruction, and those who have already put their trust in the salvation of Jesus Christ.  The former can think of nothing more, no greater cause, then to murder the latter.  The servants of Christ suffer from failing memories, and facts defined in a history of sin.  We know we have sinned and rack ourselves trying to remember one that might not have been sought for forgiveness, but can find none.  It makes no sense to us.  We know ourselves to be sinners, yet standing to wait upon His return, His work of perfection has been completed within us, and we can remember no unpardoned sin anymore.  The real fact of our former human imperfection causes us great misery as we seek a perfection that has already been provided to us.  We wrestle as Jacob wrestled, without need, without purpose, the victory having already been provided.  The fear of who we were causes us great trouble, but the reality of His salvation within us speaks only of peace, and the anticipation of His return.

The six previous plagues have all led up to this moment, to these events.  The last great war, World War 3, begins not as humans feared, as a rivalry between nations over “more” – but as a continuation of the war in heaven, between good and evil, between those who bare the mark of the third beast, and the Lord of Lords and King of Kings who dares to do, what He has always promised to do.  The great day of the Lord, of His return has come.  And the sequence of seven begins to see its fulfillment.  It occurs in the days of the seventh Laodicean church as found in the beginning of this book of Revelations of Jesus Christ that John has written.  The seventh seal is now opened.  The seventh trumpet is now sounding.  And the seventh plague must now fall.  It is the destruction of the seventh plague that will leave the evil ones of this world dead for the next thousand years.  The work of the seventh angel will be to descend and bind Satan in chains to the isolation and destruction of this abandoned earth for the next thousand years while the followers of Christ have gone home with Him, and will review the books of Judgment in heavenly courts to see why those they knew or loved are not there in paradise with them.  The sequence of seven, of wholeness, of perfection is reaching its zenith.

John describes the scenes of Armageddon.  He details what the first battle plan in the last great war looks like.  Satan, the dragon, and the Beasts he has raised in his alliance, have through the power of demons and the impersonation of every deity and religious icon, have gathered fallen mankind to war in a place called in the Hebrew tongue “Armageddon”.  They stand ready to greet and war against the return of our Lord, though they are unaware of who they fight for, and who they fight against.  So deep is the blindness of those who have accepted the Mark of the Beast, that they can no longer tell Satan from Christ on any level.  Confusion, chaos, the hallmarks of sin and disorder, are on display as at no other time in the history of our world.  Six plagues have already fallen exactly like the scriptures predicted.  Those who refused the Mark of the Third Beast remain untouched, and unaffected.  They are shielded from the wrath of our God, because it is only to be poured out upon evil.  Yet despite the clear word of God in these Revelations, despite the reality of what has transpired, evil does what evil always does – it refuses to accept reality and seeks to redefine it.  Still suffering from grevious sores, thirst, scorching heat, and regional darkness, what is left of mankind seeks to war, to kill, to exert power over others.

So John describes the futility of evil and the start of its demise in chapter 16 of Revelations, beginning in verse 17 saying … “And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.”  This plague begins with a declaration, a definitive utterance of simplicity and finality – it is done.  Before the enemy has time to engage a single member of his troops to war, the destiny of this battle has been announced from heaven itself, from the temple, from the throne – it is done.  This will not be a contest.  This will not be an exercise that can lead to victory for the forces aligned with evil – there will be only one victor, and He is returning from the throne room of heaven to what is left of this world.  The words those who follow Christ have so longed waited to hear have been said.  There is to be time no more.  Decisions were made well ahead of this declaration, fates were sealed well ahead of this.  This is not an arbitrary end to mercy and redemption offered by our God.  It is a recognition, that no mercy is being sought.  There are none left who are undecided, or in want of salvation.  There are only those who have been saved already, and those who wish never to be saved.  So the words it is done, reflect the reality of our world.

John continues in verse 18 saying … “And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.”  The passages we studied earlier in chapter 11 describing the blowing of the seventh trumpet are repeated here again.  There were voices, thunders, lightnings, and a great earthquake.  Perhaps only on that day will we know what the voices of the thunders are stating.  But this is to be no secret affair.  This is not a silent approach, where the enemy would not detect His coming.  Instead it is a very noisy affair.  In case you were able to sleep through the sights and sounds of the storm, the very ground will shake you from your slumber.  No one will be able to miss the end of all things.  No one will sleep through the end of the world, the final battle, the Armageddon of wars. 

John continues in verse 19 saying … “And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. [verse 20] And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.”  Here John identifies three separate entities that are impacted discreetly by the return of our Lord.  First John identifies a “great city” which is divided into three parts.  Perhaps this refers to Jerusalem given the idea that the final battle is believed to be centered in the Middle East.  Or perhaps this refers to Rome, as the Vatican is centered there and is one of the locations of the three Beasts the dragon has created in his alliance to compel the conscience of men.  The cities of the nation’s falling then may refer to the seats of the dragon where Christ was never a part of any religion still maintained.  And finally Babylon is called into remembrance before God.  While most would like to ascribe this image of Babylon to a religious entity, it has been better identified with a governmental one, namely with the United States, where the Mark of the Third Beast began.  When examining the United States as its fulfillment, the following passage carries even more meaning – that every island is fled away, and the mountains were not found.  If we are the Babylon here referred to, we have the geography to make this passage meaningful.

John continues in verse 21 saying … “And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.”  Only now is the final destruction reaped upon the earth, and even now it causes none to come to repentance but rather to deepen in their blasphemy.  The last plague is to be one of hail.  Each stone is to weigh nearly one hundred pounds.  Imagine grapefruit sized hail of an incredible density, or basketball sized hail, where each stone, each drop or rain made ice, weighs nearly one hundred pounds.  Falling from an altitude of great height, perhaps mixed with fire and from a clear sky as in the days of Pharaoh of old.  The level of destruction this final plague is to reap is to be universal as well.  No one on the side of evil is to survive it.  The righteous ones, and those who sleep in Christ will have already been called forth to greet Him in the sky.  They are to leave behind this world of pain and sin.  They need not see or witness the destruction this plague will cause.  The suffering of mankind steeped in evil is to sleep for the next thousand years.

No cities would survive hail of this size and weight.  No cars, or buildings, or life will survive it.  The words “it is done” were not to be taken lightly.  Our world is to be left barren, our infrastructure completely obliterated.  All that will remain for the next thousand years will be the desolation of water turned to blood, earth scorched by the sun until all is barren, an earthquake that re-writes the geography, and a surface pounded by 100 pound rocks of hail.  It will be to this “bottomless pit” that Satan is to be bound.  He is to be locked into isolation to contemplate what his evil has wrought.  The nations will not survive these events, allowing him a further audience for his lies and deceptions.  Instead the work of the seventh plague is universal desolation, and the finality of the end of evil for next millennia. 

The last great World War 3, code name Armageddon has begun, and the first battle has ended without contest as was foretold.  What John will reveal next in the aftermath, is an epilogue of sorts, a post script on the fate of a church who would not be true, and a nation who would not either.  There were a few more Revelations yet to be revealed …