Battle of Armageddon

Isaiah chapter 14 verse 12 through 15. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground which did weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the height of the clouds. I will be like the most high. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit. Revelation 16, 12 through 16. And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates. And the water thereof was dried up in the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils working miracles which go forth unto the kings of the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them together unto the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief in the night. Blessed is he that watcheth, and hath his garments clean, lest he walk ashamed. And they see him ashamed. And he gathered them all together into a place called in the Hebrew Armageddon. The first account from Isaiah was the first conflict that ever took place in creation. The second will be the last. The first took place in heaven. The second will take place on earth. The original conflict between right and wrong took place around the throne of God. The second conflict will take place near Jerusalem, in the valley of Megiddo, with Jerusalem as the prize. And every conflict, and every sin, and every problem, and every divorce, and every disease, and every riot, and every difficulty that has taken place throughout the history of the world is but the ramifications the result, the result, the symptom, of the original proposition through which every war has been fought, and that is the cause behind every problem, and every skirmish, and every difficulty, from Isaiah's prophecy, yonder looking backward into heaven, until John's revelation of the battle of Armageddon. There is one question that must be solved. There is one proposition which must ultimately be determined. And every summit, and every riot, and every war, and there are forty of them going on in the world today, has behind it one one question, and only one question, and that is, who's going to be God in this world? God or Satan? Right along, when Satan first put those two words, I and will, back to back, he declared war on God. He said, I will rise above God. I will exalt my throne over God. Satan announced in heaven that he was declaring war on God, that the world and the heavens were going to be here. There was war in heaven. Unfortunately for them, it appears from the word of God that one -third of the heavenly host sided with Lucifer. There was war in heaven, the Bible says, and they were banished from heaven. Lucifer came to this earth, to continue the war against God. And he has one thing in his mind, and that is the ultimate overthrow of God for the control of this world. He came to Adam, because he knew that it was not through a plant. Not through an animal, but through a man. that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, was going to carry the battle of right and wrong back to him. And so he came to the federal head of the race, to Adam himself, and charges Adam with the temptation of sin. And the same original proposition took place in the original sin. Who's going to be God? Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God does know that in the day you eat thereof, ye shall be wise. God doesn't want you to be wise. God is withholding from your spiritual good. God is against you. You follow me, and we'll really fly. We'll be God. You'll be a God. You can be above God. And Adam and Eve sinned. And from that day until this, there has been within all of us the basic, intrinsic, inherent nature towards sin. There is something in all of us that says, please, God, I'd rather do it myself. I'll be God. I'll run my life. I'll run my own words. I'll do things my way. That is exactly what sin is. It is missing the mark. It's missing the point that life comes by giving oneself to God, not in attempting to overthrow God, in rebellion. Then one day, Satan learns that Jesus Christ has come from heaven, is about to be born in a virgin. And so he goes ahead of him. And he speaks through Herod. Remember that Satan always has people and kingdoms and empires through whom he can do his work. Now the Bible tells us that he caused all of the rooms to be filled. He spoke through Herod and said, now bring all the people into one place to be packed. That had never happened in the world's history. Because Jesus, Satan, six weeks before his birth, was in the body of his mother, there was no room for them in the end. Satan had seen to that. They had to ride 70 miles over mountain stones, mountain streets, and cobblestone pathways. Satan sought to that. He was born in an angel. Satan sought to that. By every rule of the book, Jesus Christ had been born sick or injured or crippled or dead. But he had a good doctor. And his name was the Holy Ghost. And he was overseeing him. Because Satan declared war on God, and God took him up on it in Genesis. And so Jesus Christ was born. And Satan, from that day until the Battle of Armageddon, has been pulling out all the stops. And increasingly, when the final showdown as to whose world this is going to be comes, there will be an increase of sin, an increase of lawlessness, an increase of rebellion. Now Satan, through the years, has worked through the Jews. Because God has been working through the Jews. The Jews are God's chosen people. Before the coming of Christ, the only way that Satan could get back at God was to attack God through his church, through his people. So he went to the Jews. He attacked God through the Jews. And the Bible tells us that the Jews have been persecuted. They have been the object of ridicule. They have been the object of slaughter and hatred from the the foundation of the world. The Babylonians. The Roman Empire. The Pharaohs. Alexander the Great. Down through the history of the world. Napoleon. Hitler. Have all hated the Jews. More work has been done against them than any national entity. More wars have been fought over them. More slaughter. More slaughter has been brought against them. Because the Jews are God's chosen people. And Satan, through human beings, through Christ, through the church, through God's people, has been doing all that he can to continue the fight against God. You see, God is holy and Satan is unholy. God is perfect and Satan is unrighteous. So Satan cannot directly oppose God. He must work through other mediums. And he has been doing that from the foundation of the world. The Jews have always been attacked. They've always been hated. because it is through them that the Messiah was going to come. And it is through the Jews and over the Jews and around the problem of the Jews that the ultimate conflict of the supremacy of this world is going to be raised. Vietnam is not important. Vietnam is not critical. Whichever way Vietnam goes is not critical to the control of the world. Look to it. Read your newspapers every day. The way the Jews go. The way Israel goes. The coming conflict between God and Magog will be stayed in the hills around Jerusalem. The way Jerusalem goes is the way it's going to go. That's where the battle is. The ultimate conflict will be determined over Israel. Micah 4 .7 And I will make her the appalled. The Jews who hesitated, who failed to acknowledge Messiah. I will make them but a remnant scattered. And her that was cast off for a strong nation. And the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth even forever. Luke 1 .33 And he, Messiah, shall reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end. The ultimate control of the world will be determined by the dictatorship which takes place in Jerusalem. The king must sit in Jerusalem. The Messiah will control the world from Jerusalem. Luke says he shall reign on the throne of his father David. And of his kingdom there shall be no end. It is the temple where the king is going to reign. He will reign in Jerusalem. The ultimate battle for right or wrong will take place in Megiddo. The valley of slaughter. Napoleon called it the perfect battlefield. Many wars have been fought there. But the war, they call the first world war, the war to end all wars. We've now fought two wars to end all wars. But the Bible tells us that the wars who end all wars will be fought in the valley of Armageddon, in the hills of Megiddo, the valley of Jehoshaphat, around Jerusalem, with Jerusalem as a flag. And who sits on the throne in Jerusalem will rule the world. That's why the ultimate conflict will come about Jerusalem for the control of this world that has been boiling for thousands of years and numberless centuries. Jerusalem is the prize. The temple is the prize. And who rules that throne will rule the world. The only ultimate decisive war in the world will be fought there in Armageddon. Ezekiel 38, verse 18. Listen. And it shall come to pass at the same time when God shall come against the land of Israel, saith, thus saith the Lord God, that I will set my face against them. For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken. Surely in that day there shall be a great taking in the land of Israel, so that the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the heavens and the beasts of the field and all creeping things that creep upon the earth and all men that are upon the face of the earth shall take at my presence. And the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall fall to the ground. And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord God. Every man's sword shall be against his brother, and I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood. And I will rain upon him and upon his bands and upon the many people that are with him and overflowing rain and great hailstones, fire and brimstones. Thus will I magnify myself and sanctify myself and I will be known in the eyes of all nations and they shall know that I am the Lord. Ezekiel 39, 17 Thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God, speak unto every feathered fowl and to every beast of the field. Assemble yourselves and come and gather on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you even a great sacrifice in the mountains of Israel. And ye shall eat flesh and drink blood. Now this is God speaking to the animals, to the birds preparing for the Armageddon battle. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty. Ye shall drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams and lambs, of ghosts and bullets. And ye shall eat that till ye be full. And ye shall drink blood until ye be drunken, and of the sacrifice which I sacrificed for you. Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord God. And I will set my glory among the heathen. You see, the heathen are ultimately going to give glory to God. You may not acknowledge Christ freely here, but you will one day. The unconverted will ultimately glorify God, so that the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from this day forward. Joel 3 .2. I will also gather together all nations, and I will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, Armageddon. And he will plead with them there for my people and my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and have parted my land. Joel 3 .9. Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles, prepare for war. Wake up, ye mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near. Let them come up. Beat your plowshares under swords, and your pruning hooks under spears. And the weak shall say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathens. And gather yourselves unto the table round or about, neither cause the mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be weakened in the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there will I set to judge all nations. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come down, for the press is full. The bats overflow, for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shall shake. But the Lord will be the hope of his people, and strengthen the people of Israel. Zechariah 14, 1. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and the spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle. And the city shall be shaken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravaged, and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in the day of the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem, on the east and the midst, and in the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof, toward the east and toward the west. And there shall be a very great valley, and half the mountain shall be moved toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountain, for the valley of the mountain shall reach into Azar. Yea, ye shall flee as fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. And the Lord my God shall come, and all his saints with him. Now before Jesus Christ comes back, before the final unfolding of the eschatological events, which shall bring about the great battle of Armageddon, the ultimate conflict, the final showdown between right and wrong, when Satan originally declared himself at war with God yonder in heaven, before that can happen, things must be just right. The atmosphere of the world must be just right. And it will basically be characterized by two things, restlessness, and confusion, and false unity. Restlessness will build. Confusion will build. Tensions between nations, in churches, in government, in schools, in families. We have taken God out of the schools. We have taken God out of government. We are taking God out of our nation. We are taking God out of ourselves. And the resultant absence of authority is riot and rape and dope and disease and perversion and incest and problems and rebellion. Now the Bible says it's going to be like this, because God is going to give Satan a last little bit of power, and men are going to have the most clear -cut choice between whom they will serve the living Christ or his majesty the devil before the end comes. And the only ultimate question that is being built up to is who's going to be God, right or wrong, God of the devil? Whose world is this after all? Do you think that dirty moving? Do you think that ram pants, no prediction? Do you think that God slanted? Do you think that schools and homes and nations without the Lord? Do you think that blasphemous rebellion against God, that perversion and immorality for all to see on the screen, do you think that's going to prevail? Do you think that God who made this world by and for the power of his son is going to turn it over to the devil, and the devil will win? Not on your life. Don't you believe it? Not through yet. God will prevail. Israel shall know a king. Luke 21 20. Now here are the beginning of some concrete signs of the coming. When is the world going to get so restless, so filled, and the Bible says that righteousness will increase simultaneously as evil increases, before the last great battle, here are the signs. This is the way it will be just before the end. When you see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then you know that the desolation thereof is near. You watch your papers every day. I predict that within 36 months at the most, the total attention of the world will turn from Vietnam to Jerusalem. That's where it's getting ready to happen. Then let them know which are in Judea that they flee to the mountains, and let them which are in the mountains of it depart, and let not them that are in the countries enter their into, for these be days of vengeance, that all things may be written and fulfilled. But woe to them that are with tongues, and woe to them that give suck in those days, for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people, and they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden under the foot of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be filled. And there will be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those saints which are coming on earth, for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. The Bible says tension will build. The sea is roaring. I challenge you to find one area of society, economy, religion, the home, that is not in stress and tension. Paul Harvey said yesterday, Friday, it seems that there are no sanctities of the soul. Nothing is said back. Nothing is the same. Things in distress and tension. Ladies and gentlemen, these are the major signs of the coming of Christ. From 1st and 2nd Timothy, from Matthew 24, from the Old Testament, and from Luke. Riches will increase. Knowledge will increase. Travel will increase. Frustration will increase. Dread of war will increase. Read Matthew 24 when you go home. Verse 7. Famine, disease, pestilence, and fear of them will increase. Our society in the last two years has become upset with two things. Ecology and peace. Concern for the war. Concern for famine. Concern for disease. Concern for poverty. Concern for the waste of our nature and our natural resources. pestilence, disease, earthquake, famine, darkness, falling away, apostasy, moral decay, earthquake. How many times do you read of mine disasters, mine cave in, underground shifting of the sand, lawlessness, stopper. One guy came up to me, a supposed intellectual, and said, I just don't buy a thing you say. I believe none of it. I put my arm around him and said, thank God for you, brother. You are a sign that Christ's coming is near. When the stoppers come, the Bible says the king is coming soon. Lawlessness, read Romans, homosexuality, the Jews returning to Palestine, world evangelism, peace conferences. Listen again. When men shall cry peace and safety, then cometh sudden disruption. Read your Bible. The Bible says that one of the last signs of the coming of Christ will be a wall obsessed with peace. Peace conferences everywhere. In the last 12 months, two fingers raised. Every country, every nation, peace, peace. We're obsessed with peace. The Indians signed for peace, the broken cross, on motorcycles, in businesses, in cars, on school books. The world is obsessed with peace. The Bible says when that day comes, then come a sudden destruction. You see, you're not going to go around, you're not going to get peace. By riding around on a motorcycle, wagging your tongue and raising your fingers, saying peace, peace, peace, and riding peace in Vietnam on bridges, and peace in Vietnam on posts, and peace in Vietnam on buildings. There'll be no peace till Christ comes and destroys unrighteousness. There'll be peace. Because this old world and all of its acute affluence and pseudo -intellectualism has never figured out yet that the problems of the world are the problems of lust and greed and selfishness and sin of the human heart. And only when Christ changes hearts will there be peace. You're wasting your time. You're wasting your influence. You're wasting your money. If you want to work for peace, quit painting signs and waving two ridiculous fingers and go out and start running men to Christ in your home. You'll have peace. You'll do absolutely nothing to contribute to world peace until you start getting Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God in the hearts of men. The Bible says another sign of the coming of Christ is signs in the moon and the sun. I don't know what that means, but I suggest to you two possibilities. One, an obsession with Zodiac, the Zodiac way and astrology. It's really captivating, it's happening. Wanting to know rather than looking in the word of God and the Holy Spirit of God, what's going to happen, signs in the stars, signs in the moon, signs in the heavens. We've gone nuts over astrology. And I think most people that have gone nuts over astrology are nuts. You want to know what's going to happen, my friend? You get on your knees and open the word of God and ask the Spirit of God to tell you and you'll get some good answers. Would you have believed five years ago, even five years ago, that the American flag would be flying today on the moon? That there are literally uncounted hundreds of tons of trash circling in space. Satellites. Signs in the sun of the moon. The stars. Another sign of the coming of Christ. Listen again. Increase of concern for ecology, homosexuality, perversion, immorality, falling away, knowledge, riches, travel, frustration, fear of war, apostasy, moral decay, earthquake, scoffers, lawlessness, the Jews returning to Israel, world evangelism, desire for peace, obsessions with peace conferences, liars, truth breakers, disobedient, godless disrespect of parents, traitors, heavy, high -minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, busyness, and false security. Tell me one of them that does not characterize the world in which you live. The Bible says when all of this frustration comes, look up. Your redemption draws nigh. Now what's going to happen then? Well, one of these days, God is going to...

Isaiah 14:12–15 Ezekiel 38:18