Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of understanding the Armageddon campaign to interpret current signs among Gentile nations. He explains that the final battle is not merely a conflict between nations but a direct war against God, culminating in Jesus' return to Jerusalem as the Messianic King. Bickle outlines the political and military developments leading to this event, highlighting the gathering of nations in a geographic location called Armageddon, where they will face divine judgment. He stresses that the second coming of Christ is intertwined with a military conflict, ultimately leading to the establishment of His authority over the earth. The sermon serves as a call to recognize the gravity of these prophetic events and their implications for humanity.

Tonight, we're continuing on, on the subject of the signs of the times, but as I was preparing the signs related to the Gentile nations, uh, it, it's, uh, uh, big, I was thinking about how necessary it is to understand the Armageddon campaign in order to understand the signs that are happening right now among the Gentiles nations. Last week, we looked at what's happening among the nation of Israel. Some of the key signs that give us the awareness that we're drawing near to that day, the Armageddon campaign is one of the, uh, great significant events of the end times, and there's political developments that are happening right now that lead up and play into this. But we have to have a fundamental foundation of understanding of the Armageddon campaign to grasp those signs. So I'm going to take tonight, look at that. And, uh, on the notes, uh, those of you that have the notes, it's a six page handout, but the one on the, on the, uh, uh, internet's about a 12 page handout, it's about twice as long, but I didn't want to print all those out. I didn't know that how many would be interested in, in all the Bible verses. And, and so there's an extended version of this on the internet. If, as we go through this, you're interested in it because we have all the, a lot of the Bible verses in the last six or eight pages. I didn't include on the handout here because, uh, again, I wasn't sure how many people wanted them and it's just too much, uh, paper and work to, uh, to do that. So if you want these, go ahead and download them. I have a, a, uh, fairly, uh, extensive, not entirely con not, not a comprehensive in terms of every verse, but extensive, uh, list of scriptures related to this great battle that's coming. Let's look at our Roman numeral one introduction. That's what I just said. The political and military developments among the Gentiles are key signs of the times they lead up to the Armageddon campaign. So it's first, it's necessary to first understand the campaign to be able to grasp these, uh, significant prophetic significance of what's happening in this hour right now amongst the Gentile nations, paragraph B human history does not end with a nuclear war as, uh, is commonly, uh, communicated the drama of human history does not come to a close because the superpowers of the nations blow each other up. That's kind of the way the popular Hollywood themes, you know, Armageddon means one nation blows up a nation or the terrorists come or something like that. Scripture makes it clear that natural history ends with a great battle. It ends with a great battle, but the battle isn't between the East and the West communism, capitalism. It's the battle between evil nations and God. That might be a new idea, uh, to some of you, but the nations are going to gather together in unity to declare war on God, not just Israel on Jesus. They want, uh, seek to muster up all the human resources and all the demonic power to actually overthrow Jesus when he returns. That's what's on their mind. It is, uh, presumptuous and preposterous beyond anything we could imagine because we know Jesus, we think, how could anybody even for one moment imagine this could be doable, but that's what the battle, the, uh, Armageddon campaign is about is declaring war on God. Not just Israel. Israel is in the mix, but the battle, the final battle is actually against God himself, and they think that they can overthrow Jesus and his right to be king of the earth and they could defeat him somehow. Paragraph C, the high point of the second coming is Jesus's re-entry to the city of Jerusalem as the Messianic king. That's the key point. When he enters in the city of Jerusalem and is received as king, and, uh, he does this paragraph D, he does it in context to a military conflict, paragraph D, Jesus's second coming is in context to a three and a half year military con uh, conflict called the Armageddon campaign. And it ends at the battle of Jerusalem to establish his Jesus authority over the nations. So in revelation chapter 19, the well-known verse, Jesus is riding on a white horse. He comes to make war. The second coming is in context to a military conflict. He's not just coming to glorify the saints. That's on his mind. Uh, that's very big, uh, on his agenda and he's coming to win a battle. He's going to strike the nations. He's going to rule them with a rod of iron, with severity. That's what a rod of iron means, severity. He's going to be strong in his government against everything that opposes him. Paragraph F, the Armageddon campaign is often thought of as an isolated battle. It's called the battle of Armageddon. There is no such term in the Bible as the battle of Armageddon. Armageddon is a place, but it's not a battle. It's a geographic location. We'll look at it in a minute. Paragraph F again, the Armageddon campaign is often thought of as an isolated battle. That occurs just before the Lord returns. It is a campaign that lasts three and a half years and involves many different battles. It ends with the final battle, the most fierce battle. It's the bloodiest battle in all of human history. It's the battle of Jerusalem. And so when somebody talks about the final moments, I mean, uh, of the great conflict at the end, they're really talking about the battle for Jerusalem. You don't have to correct everybody every time they say it. Someone says, Oh, I think the battle of Armageddon is coming. You know, you don't say, well, technically that isn't really a biblical concept. You could just, you know what they mean. Paragraph G, Armageddon is a place. It's a place that God chose to gather all the nations. It's a military staging area. The military buildup from many nations is in this place called Armageddon. It's a, it's a location. And the reason God is gathering all the nations, because he wants to judge them. He wants to judge them for they've declared war on him and he has accepted the challenge. They actually declare war on God and he accepts it. And Jesus comes back to, uh, do his part of the war. Paragraph I, there are three reasons why all the nations come to war against God in Israel. There's three reasons why they're coming together to, uh, because Armageddon is a place in Northern Israel. We'll look at that in a moment. There's three reasons. The first reason that they're coming to, uh, Israel to, to Northern Israel to make wars, because God is drawing them. This can confuse you if you're not clear about what's happening. God is drawing the nations, but at the same time, second, Satan is drawing the nations now they're drawing them for two different reasons, but the S the God by his spirit is drawing the evil nations to their own graveyard. Satan is using deception to grow, to draw them to Israel, to the, to Northern Israel in order to defeat Jesus. But there's a third reason that the scripture makes clear is that men are gathering because of their sinful motives of greed and anger and envy against Israel. It says in Ezekiel 35 that they're coming because they have envy and bitterness. They're angry. They're bitter. They're bitter towards the nation of Israel. They hate Israel, but it's not just that they're bitter. They have, they have, uh, uh, they want what Israel has economically. And as, uh, I've said over the years is that one of the great reasons for the Holocaust and Nazi Germany was, uh, greed, the Nazi, uh, infrastructure, the Nazi command structure. They wanted the money of the Jews they were killing. Most of them didn't hate the Jewish people. They wanted their money. They coveted their property. And of course, at the very top, it was a little different. It was very different than that. It was spiritual in terms of Adolf Hitler's motivation, but it was financial for the vast majority of the people who were involved in it. And the same sort of thing is going to happen again. Makes it clear in Ezekiel 38 that they're, they're coming to Israel. One of the reasons is for money. Ezekiel 38. You can, we, we have, uh, these verses in other places in the handout here. Paragraph L the second coming is in context to the battle of Jerusalem. The second coming is in context to the battle of Jerusalem involves the nation's, uh, gathered to fight Jesus on earth, not Jesus in the sky. What I mean by that is I've talked to people about this and they see Jesus coming back on, on a white horse. And somehow they picture people shooting cannons in the sky or, or nuclear weapons to kind of blow him up in the sky. That's the way it works. Jesus is actually on the earth. He's marching up to Jerusalem from the Southern, from Egypt. And then through Jordan, he's coming from the South. He's marching up to Jerusalem and he's killing his enemies. And the nations are hearing about this. Of course, they've seen him, his procession across the sky, but they believe he's defeatable. They believe he's a, he's a, uh, he has power, but he doesn't have more power than, uh, the antichrist and his, uh, and Satan who they deemed to be the true God. And so they're, they're wanting to kill this imposter or to defeat this imposter in the very same way that we have confidence we can defeat the antichrist. They just see it reverse. They, they see Jesus as the counterfeit who's coming to cause trouble and they believe he can be defeated. So they're gathering actually to, to go to war against him. So now that is a very clear biblical concept, but it's an, uh, it's an idea that's new to most people because the, the, the, the several verses that make it clear, there's two of them, uh, strong ones and he's, uh, revelation 19 or revolution 17, that says they're warring against Jesus. Along with Psalm two as well, they're, they're declaring war against Jesus. And we kind of scratch our head and say, well, they don't really mean Jesus. They really mean Israel. They mean they're warring against Jesus through warring against Israel. No, they're actually warring against Jesus and the way that we would take a stand against the antichrist, of course, we won't use military means, but the nations will use a military, uh, uh, uh, uh, equipment and arsenal to defeat and kill Jesus in the way that we would think of the antichrist dying. It's exactly reverse in their mind. Paragraph M the battle for Jerusalem will not be over in 15 minutes. Jesus doesn't come and wave his hand and it's over. He actually kills millions of people. I mean, the time it takes to actually kill them takes place. He marches up through the land. There's a 30 day process that he marches up from Egypt and, uh, from, from, from the beginning of the second coming procession to the very final moment when the antichrist is, uh, is consumed by the brightness of Jesus appearing and the word of his mouth. It's a 30 day period. It's a quite involved, a military campaign. And as you study the passages that I'm going to give you tonight, again, there you, you have the text in the handout you have, but you have them actually, we have them, uh, uh, written out on the internet so you can get the more full version of it, if you want. Paragraph O, top of page three, this is review we've gone over this many times, but it's, it'd be new to those that are new, uh, with us here, it might be new. Paragraph O, there are three types of people on the earth when Jesus appears in the sky at the rapture, three types of people on the earth when he appears in the sky at the rapture, the redeemed and that they're going to be raptured. The reprobate, those are the ones who took the mark of the beast. They're going to be killed and they won't be killed in an instant. They'll be killed over a period of time. And all the people who took the mark of the beast won't be killed in the, in the final, in the last 30 days, uh, uh, related to the battle of, uh, for Jerusalem or the battle of Jerusalem. Now the soldiers that are in the land will all be killed at that time, but there's billions, a couple of billion of them in the earth who took the mark of the beast, it will take time before they're all executed. And then there will be the resistors. They're the unsaved survivors of the great tribulation. They refuse to worship the antichrist, but they're not saved. Those are the ones that, that will, uh, many of them will be saved and then they will, uh, repopulate the earth and they will be the nations that are continuing and going forward after the second coming of Christ, paragraph, uh, P here, the second coming, and this is review again, uh, procession involves three stages, the second coming of Jesus has three stages and you can lay it out in different ways. If you want, these are just the way that I view it. I'm talking about the stages. You can make it four stages. If you, if you break it down different, but he, he comes in the sky first, there's a procession where he comes in. Every eye sees him. Every person on the earth sees him. He comes in the sky. That's the first thing that happens. I don't know how long that takes. It might take a couple of days. May takes maybe sooner, but it's not one moment. He covers the entire earth and every human being on the earth sees him. Takes a little bit of time. Then his next stage is he's on the earth, marching up to Jerusalem. And then the third stage, he's actually, it's his procession into Jerusalem, being coronated as King received by the nation and they celebrate and worship and receive him as King. And he says, yes, and that's the third stage of the second coming. And the second coming is not just, he's coming to the earth. He's actually coming back to Jerusalem is where he's coming. Roman numeral two. Now we're going to look at some of the details around the understanding the Armageddon campaign. And then, then we're going to spend most of the time looking at the actual Bible verses themselves. The only passage in the Bible that uses the word Armageddon is here in Revelation 16, verse 16. Let's read it. We'll begin in verse 14. The demons are performing signs. They go out to the Kings of all the earth, to the whole world to gather them. So demon spirits are going out doing signs and wonders to gather. That's the point to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. That's what it's called. It's the battle of the great day, the day of God Almighty. That's the technical name of it. The battle of the great day, the great day of God. I refer to it as the battle of Jerusalem. It's the actual battle that takes place around the city and the geographic area. Well, these demons are going to gather them to the battle, verse 16, and they gather them together to a place. It's a geographic place. It's in Northern Israel. In Hebrew, the place is called Armageddon. Paragraph A, John called it the battle of the great day of God, because the day will be very great because God, God's great power is going to be displayed for all the world to see. That's why it's called the battle of the great day of God. It's God's great day in history. It's interesting that God has a great day in history. It's the final day. It's the final hour of natural history before the second coming. This is where the antichrist is going to be defeated. Paragraph B, the term Armageddon only appears in the Bible once. The phrase, the battle of Armageddon with the word battle in it is actually never used in the scripture. I've already said that. Armageddon is a place. It's the place that God chose to gather the Gentile nations together for war. Now, John informs us that Armageddon is a Hebrew name. It comes from two different words. The first is the word Har, which means mountain or a hill or a mount, or we call it the hill of Armageddon. And the second word is Megiddon, which speaks of the town of Megiddo. So Har-Megiddon, the mountain or the hill of the town of Megiddo, the hill of Megiddo is what Har-Megiddon means. The hill of Megiddo. You can read it more specifically in the rest of the paragraph there. So it's the hill of Megiddo or the mount of Megiddo is what Har-Megiddon means. Paragraph C, what is Megiddo? Top of page four. Megiddo was an Old Testament city in Northern Israel, about 60 miles north of Jerusalem. Megiddo is located within a famous valley. I mean, Megiddo exists today. It's located in a famous valley. And this valley has a vast open plain. It's a valley because there's a mountain ridges on each side of it. And this valley has a big, vast open plain. The valley is called, the Jewish name is called the Valley of Jezreel. You'll see that like in Hosea, you'll see it referred to the Valley of Jezreel. Hosea is a prophecy about the Valley of Jezreel at the end of the age. That's the, that's, uh, that's Armageddon. It's the hill of, uh, the hill of Megiddo. It's the Valley of Jezreel is that very place. So when you read Hosea one, it's talking about the Armageddon campaign. So it's a big Valley. So you can name it by its Valley, the Valley of Jezreel, or you can call it by its Greek name, Esdraelon. Look at your neighbor and say Esdraelon. It's the plain of, uh, of Esdraelon. It's the, it's a plain. It is approximately this plain or this Valley is approximately 15 miles wide and 20 miles long. It's 50. So it's, it's a quite large plain or Valley. It's a Valley because it's in between two mountain ranges and this Valley or this plain is the military staging area. It's where the nations are gathering in this 15 mile wide Valley or the plain of Esdraelon, the Valley of Jezreel 20 miles long, 15 miles wide. And, and the, the, uh, this whole geographic area is identified by this town, Megiddo and a, and a little Mount Mount, it's not a mountain. It's a hill actually. It's a very flat plane with a, with a, a town with a hill in it. And it's the hill of Megiddo. That's what Armageddon means. The hill of Megiddo, or it means this big plain or Valley. Interesting. And paragraph D at the, uh, uh, near the bottom it's Mount Carmel is real close to the city of Megiddo Mount, Mount Carmel. That's where Elijah took on the prophets of Baal. It's going to be a very similar replay by Mount Carmel. It's real close to there. And there's another town that's quite close to, to this Valley of Jezreel. And this town is called Nazareth. That's up in the hilly area. Jesus looked down from his hometown as a boy on the, on the, on the plains of Armageddon, if you will. He grew up in his backyard, seeing with his eye, he could see this area. Imagine whatever age he was when he came to fullness of understanding as to what was going on. And he knew that one day that that would be the geographic area that would, that would be the, the military buildup area where all the nations would gather in that area. And I just imagine it's he's 13 and 18 and 20 and 22 and 25, just sitting out there under a tree, talking to the father saying, father, father, this area, I know about this area. I know what the prophets say. I understand about this area. It's interesting. Paragraph E, John is speaking about a literal geographic location. The reason I'm saying this is because some people, it's common for people to make Armageddon's purely figurative. I've, I've heard it many times. Armageddon is figurative of, of that which is anti-God. Well, it's true. It is figurative, but it's, that's not what it's mostly used as here. I mean, certainly, uh, it, it, it symbolizes a great conflict with God, but it's a literal battle. So John named the place of it and even gave us the translation. So we would understand the geographic place and in context there in revelation 16, which is where it says Armageddon, it talks about a verse or two before the, the, the Euphrates river. And it talks about the, the hill of Megiddo and both of them are literal names of literal places. Neither of them are symbolic. The Euphrates river is really the Euphrates river and the, the Mount of Megiddo, the hill of Megiddo is literally the hill of Megiddo. That's really what it is. It's, it's, it's a hundred percent literal. It's geographic regions. So don't let somebody reduce this to symbolic of just the kind of the conflict in the spirit through the ages. No, it's a real geographic area that's going to have very powerful significance. Paragraph F I give you a, just list a couple of the battles. There's been great, many more than these. These are biblical battles that have been fought in that valley, the valley of Jezreel, the plain of Esdraelon. I give you a few of those battles there. Let's go to paragraph G. Just so, uh, this is kind of, uh, for those that are really, uh, going after this, the valley of Jezreel, if G confuses you, don't worry about it. But if the valley of Jezreel is prophetically named in Ezekiel 39 as the valley of Hammond Gog, so that it's, it's named by God prophetically this very valley, because Ezekiel 38 and 39 is one of the two most important chapters about the end times. Ezekiel 38 and 39. We're going to get to them one day on Saturday nights. They're really important. Ezekiel 38, 39 is talking about the Armageddon campaign is what it's all about. But the valley of Jezreel, instead of being called, uh, harm, uh, Armageddon, it's called the valley of Hammond Gog. It's the valley where the hordes of Gog, which is the Antichrist, where they gather and where they're going to, uh, it's where they gather and they're many are going to be killed there. And so it's just interesting to note that it has a prophetic name as well, Armageddon does H. The area is too small to host host millions of soldiers long-term, and there will be millions of soldiers that will, they will land there, get organized, and then, then, then they will spread out throughout the land. And even the nations around, I mean, the military buildup will not, it won't be. So they all stay there in that 15 by 20 mile area. That's the, or that's the place where they mobilize and they will be all over the middle East, this army. Well, it talks about here in revelation 14, I'm getting ahead of myself here a little bit because, uh, it, you know, the verses I'm, I'm sharing it here because it's giving the distance, but the real point of revelation 14 is the, uh, the carnage, the destruction of human life. It says that the wine press was trampled outside the city of Jerusalem by Jesus. The, a great battle is often referred to in quite a few verses, particularly a Joel, Joel chapter three, and we have this in the notes later on in Isaiah 36, Isaiah 34, and then revelation 19 and revelation 14, that's a five passages right there, I'll get to you again. Joel chapter three, Isaiah 63, Isaiah 34, revelation 14, revelation 19. You can get the specific texts, uh, in the notes, but those five passages, uh, talk about this great, uh, the, uh, the pinnacle of the Armageddon campaign, which is the battle of Jerusalem. They talk about it as a wine press. They talk about it. They describe it, those five passages and there's others as well, but those are the main ones talk about, uh, God put all of his enemies in a wine vat and a big wine, like a big tub, you know, like when, when the, uh, the harvest would come in, they'd put all the grapes in a big wine vat or a wine press. And the, in the ancient world, they would, you know, it'd be pretty, you know, it could be like 10 feet, uh, uh, in dia, in diameter and a bunch of people would get up and they would stomp on the grapes. That's how they would smash the grapes. They would, they would trap them and they had, you know, it was a, it was a festive occasion because the harvest just came in. They're trapping the grapes, the grapes getting all over them. And, and, uh, some places in the world still do that today. And the grapes come all over the person, uh, tramp, trampling them. And the, in the, in the, in the picture is this, in this agricultural society, which all understood this, the power of a, uh, of an adult to step on a grape, the grape has no power to resist that kind of weight. I mean, think about it. I don't, you know, does it wouldn't matter what's what, what, what the weight is. An adult that stomps on a grape, the grape does not have a chance. That was a very clear picture in everybody's mind in Israel. And God is telling the nations, I am putting you in a wine press, in a wine vat. I am bringing you to Israel to put you in a wine press. They go, oh, we don't believe it. The Lord makes it clear in his word. He says that my son will, will crush you, will trample you as effortlessly as a man would stamp, stomp on a grape. You have no power to resist me. And so that's the, the, the first thing is God's bringing them together into the wine press. He's calling them to Israel as a wine press. Secondly, they have no ability whatsoever to resist the power of Jesus is the one treading the grapes. He's the one smashing the grapes. So his, his, his, his victory is effortless to him. It cannot be resisted. It's completely futile that they will try. I mean, there's not a chance a grape could hold up under the pressure of an adult stomping on it. And the third point that is brought out on a number of occasions is as the grape juice splashes upon the garments of the people, uh, treading the wine press. So also the blood will, of, of, of those Jesus kills will splash up on his garments. That, that, that point is made a number of times in scripture. You think that's kind of a gruesome point. The Lord wants the nations to know with certainty. This is not figurative. Jesus is going to be up close in the battle next to them. And their blood will actually get on his garments and his clothing. Jesus is not, it's not a remote control. He's not waving his hand. He actually walks through the battlefield and the blood gets on him. That's at the second coming. Again, uh, some folks, this is new because they, I did the second coming. He appears in the sky. We all go up. We go away to heaven. We play harps on clouds forever. And that's it. That's just not the biblical. It's not the biblical picture of what's going to happen. He's, he's intimately involved in the battle, killing people in their blood squirts up on him. And that blood on him is actually a badge of honor. Because when he looks at his bride, when he looks at his redeemed, he says, I am deeply and intimately involved with the cause that I have given you. He says, I was not at a distant. I was not removed. I was stirred in my zeal. It says, Revelation 19 verse two, that zeal is in his spirit. Revelation 19 too. He's angry because, uh, they are killing his people. He's angry at them. He's enraged. He comes personally. He doesn't want to kill them at a distance. He wants to be involved in the battle in a real way. Again, that's a bit of a, to our kind of modern sensibilities. It's kind of like, Ooh, but Jesus is saying, don't, don't, uh, think so much about how odd it is. Do you think about how personal Jesus is taking this battle and how intimate and up close he will be when the battle takes place? Okay. Let's go to Roman numeral three, top of page five. The three major battlefields. You can just read that on your own. They're in the mountains. They're in the North or in the South. And, and they're also in other nations. There, there will be military, uh, uh, there'll be troops dispatched from the, from the Valley of Jezreel all over the Middle East area. They won't just be, uh, in the nation of Israel, but there'll be all over the land. There will be millions and millions of soldiers in, in the nation of Israel and through the Middle East area. Millions of them. Okay. Let's look at Roman numeral four, the Armageddon campaign in scripture. And this is, this isn't all of them, but this is a lot of the major ones. It's really quite something to read these. I mean, just getting these ready for today. It just, you know, it's very stirring. Psalm 45 paragraph eight. You'll be able to see the text up on the, uh, if you can open your Bible and read along, we'll look up at, uh, look at it at the PowerPoint. Psalm 45. Most of you know that Psalm 45 is the Psalm about the beauty of God, about the beauty of, of the coming King. Psalm 45 verse two begins with thou art fair. Thou are more beautiful than all the sons of men. This is how it starts. Well, the Psalmist actually starts and says, my heart overflows with a good theme. I mean, Psalm 45 is a, it's a real regular in our, in our, uh, community here. Psalm 45, the Psalmist says, my heart overflows with a good theme. I will address my verses concerning the King. So the theme is about the coming King. He, and the Psalmist is overflowing and it starts out. Thou art fair. Thou are more beautiful than the sons of men. Thou art blessed and your lips, et cetera, et cetera. And then it goes on and describes the beauty of Jesus at the battle for Jerusalem in the context of the Armageddon campaign. Psalm 45 is about Jesus's beauty. When he's killing his enemies in the nations, he goes out. Let's, let's look at the verse, verse three, gird your sword upon your thigh. Now the your is Jesus. He's got a real sword. He's girding it. He's pulling it out. He's drawing his sword. Oh, mighty one with your glory and your majesty and in your majesty ride prosperously. He's actually riding on a white horse on the earth. This is, this is literal. Verse five, your arrows are sharp and they strike the hearts of the King's enemies. These are real arrows. These are real enemies. It's the antichrist nation, uh, uh, buildup of military forces, the nations. It says the peoples will fall under you. The peoples is the same, uh, uh, ideas as the nations of the earth. Whenever you find the peoples in end time prophecy, almost always you could put the word the nations. And obviously by it's, it's obvious it's the Gentile nations. It's not, that's what he's talking about. The Gentiles, us, but the guys that say no to Jesus, the Gentile nations of the earth, 210 Gentile nations, they will fall under Jesus's power under his, his, uh, military force. Then it goes on to talk to Jesus, your throne. Oh, God is talking about Jesus. He's coming in context to receive a throne and he's called God and your throne of God forever. You, you have, uh, loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God has anointed you with gladness. Isn't it interesting that Jesus's beauty from verse two, his sword in verse three, his throne in verse six and his gladness in verse seven, all come together in the same place. His gladness and his beauty will be seen in the, in the, in the, uh, Armageddon campaign as he brings it to a conclusion. Now we think of the verse automatically in song, um, in song of Solomon chapter three, verse 11, that the day of his wedding is the day of the gladness of his heart. That's a verse that we sing a lot is the day of his wedding is the day of the gladness of his heart. The day of his wedding is this day, the day of the gladness of his heart. Is it just that he receives his bride? Of course, that's the ultimate. He is destroying the enemy that has persecuted his bride. That's called the day of the gladness of his heart. So next time you sing song of Solomon chapter three, verse 11, you know, I just challenge you to throw a little Armageddon twist in there. You're sure to get a few eyes raised in the chairs of what this shifts our paradigm because the beauty of God and his gladness is seen in context to the Armageddon campaign. Paragraph B, Jesus will trample the unrighteous like grapes in a large wine press. The wine of human blood will fill the land. It won't just stain his garments. The wine will actually fill the land. The wine of his, of the blood of his enemies will fill the land. And we'll look at that in revelation. Well, we already did a revelation 14 verse 20. The blood will flow for 200 miles, 1600 furlongs, which is 200 miles. We'll look at that verse again. I just mentioned it a minute ago, but we'll look at it again in a minute. So you can see with your eyes. It says in Isaiah 63, verse one, who is this coming up? Who is, who is this who comes from Edom? It's Jesus. That's who he's talking about. Edom is, is, is modern day Jordan today. Jesus is walking up or he's, you know, on the horse part of the time. Maybe he's on the horse the whole time, whatever. He's marching up from the South after the second coming on his way to Jerusalem. And the question is being asked all over the world. Who is this man coming up from Eden? He's coming up to Jerusalem. Who is he? And why are his garments dyed? Why are his garments red? We're going to find out in a minute. His garments are stained red. That, that, that's what it means by his garments are dyed. He's coming up from Basra. That's the capital of Edom. It's the capital city. It's, it's, again, it's modern day Jordan. It was the ancient capital, Basra. This one is glorious in his apparel. His clothing is, is glorious. And he's traveling. And the interesting thing is his glory, his apparel is so glorious, but he doesn't mind getting blood on his very expensive garments. I mean, how many of you know that his garments are like really major cool garments? His apparel is glorious. We have never seen garments, but you would naturally think if you have garments that expensive, that rare, that, that glorious, you wouldn't want blood on them. But the blood on the garments is actually a declaration of his intimate involvement and his zeal for his bride and for his people. Now, Jesus speaks, he breaks out and speaks. He goes, I, that's Jesus speaking. I speak in righteousness. I am mighty to save. It is me, the one who is mighty to save. He's going to save the nation of Israel. So he's going to save. He's going to save them from the people he's killing. He's going to save them from the antichrist armies. So here's the next question. First, the question is, who are you? The next question in verse two, and this is being asked all abroad. Why is your, why are your, why is your glorious apparel red? And why are your garments like somebody who's been treading in the wine press? In other words, you look like somebody that's been stomping grapes in the wine vat, in the wine press. Why does it look like you've been stomping grapes? And it says, his answer is, because I have been. He says in verse three, I have, I've done that. I've trodden the wine press. For I have trodden them in my anger. I am so angry at them. I trampled them like grapes in my fury. Beloved, this is the beautiful Jesus. Their blood, he solves the dilemma, is sprinkled on my garments. That's why my garments, his real heavenly garments, really are going to have blood on them. I have stained all my robes. So it wasn't a little bit, he stained all of them. Look at the word all there. Why is he doing this? Verse four, for the day of vengeance is in his heart. The day of vengeance is in his heart. That's a phrase that is mentioned on a number of occasions in the prophets. Let's look at the next one, Isaiah 34. Of course, you have to read these on your own, but I'm just kind of like tipping you off just to these passages if they're new to you. Because my real desire is to awaken a hunger in you for this subject, to make you aware of it. Verse one, let the earth hear and all that is in it. Verse two, for the indignation of the Lord is against all nations. His fury is against all their armies. He has utterly destroyed them. He has given them over to the slaughter. This is talking about the, on his way to Jerusalem. They're slain will be thrown out. Now this is mentioned several times in the scripture too. The stench is mentioned, shall rise from their corpses. You find that in Joel chapter two, verse 20. It says that the stench of the Northern army in the land of Israel is so terrible this is not figurative. The mountains shall be melted with their blood. There'll be such a flow of blood on the hills that it will actually disrupt some of the soil. I mean, not the whole mountain is melted to nothing, but it actually affects the topsoil. Verse six, well, verse four says the host of heaven is talking about the stars. Verse six, the sword of the Lord is filled with blood. That's the sword of Jesus. It's not a figurative sword. That's God, the father in heaven, just kind of nobody sees it. He is actually his blood. His sword is filled with blood, which means that he has used his sword in battle for the Lord as a sacrifice in Basra. Remember Basra is the city of Edom, of ancient Edom, the ancient capital. It's a great slaughter in the land of Eden. That's modern day Jordan. Edom and Moab are modern day Jordan. This is gonna happen literally in the region of modern day Jordan. This is gonna be a real event that takes place over some days. I mean, the whole process is 30 days. He might be marching up through Jordan for a day or two or three or four or five, who knows? It's more than five minutes. It's a couple of days, it's some days. He could be there a little bit longer. He's in no hurry. Meaning his goal is to get it over in five minutes. He wants this thing to make its impact on world history in the future because even on into the millennial kingdom, what he did in those 30 days will be in the corporate memory of the human race. What he does on this day will impact us even in eternity. He is making a memory. He is impacting history. He is shifting the genetic code of human history. He really is shifting things by this 30-day period. He does more in 30 days to impact the mindset of the human race forever in this 30-day period. The land is soaked with blood. It is the day of the Lord's vengeance. There it is again, verse eight. It's the day of the Lord's vengeance. Okay, let's go down to Isaiah 24. I'm gonna, I got a verse in Isaiah 66 I'm gonna skip. Let's go to Isaiah 24. The Lord makes the earth empty, verse one. This is talking about the final days related to the second coming. The Lord makes it waste. The Lord distorts its surface. That's through the seven bowls of wrath. The Revelation 16, the seven bowls, he distorts the surface. He scatters the inhabitants. The land will be entirely emptied. It will be utterly plundered. The haughty people of the earth will languish. The earth will be defiled under its inhabitants because they break God's laws. Therefore, the earth, the curse has devoured it. In other words, the inhabitants of the earth are living in such gross sin that the earth, the curse of their sin is hurting the earth. It's hurting the earth. And those who live in it, those who dwell in it are desolate. Now look at this. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned and only few men are left. It's millions, but compared to billions, the percentage is small. Beloved, there's a day coming where this passage will come to pass that few men are left on the earth. There's another passage in Isaiah where it says that, in Isaiah chapter two, it says that men will be as rare as, I mean, will be as rare as gold is. It's the gold of Orpha, which is a rare, rare gold. That's in Isaiah chapter two that the men are rare like gold. In other words, there's gonna be, there's still gonna be millions and even tens of millions. But beloved, compared to six billion that we have and possibly up to six and a half billion now, they say, possibly there'll be seven, eight, nine billion people when this whole process begins. And it will get down to tens of millions. And it's because of God's judgments that are on the earth and the transition into the age to come. Okay, let's go to paragraph C. John's version of Armageddon is seen in Revelation 19. Here, John develops the military theme of the Armageddon campaign. It's the ones that we saw in the previous verses. In Isaiah 63, what we just read, and Psalm 45, which is the Psalm about God's beauty. We know this passage well, so I'll just look at it briefly. Verse 11, Revelation 19, verse 11. Behold a white horse, we already looked at this, him who set upon, it's called faithful and true. He judges and makes war. He's coming at the second coming to make war. His eyes are like a flame of fire. Beloved, that's the zeal in his eyes at the Armageddon campaign. The eyes of fire are the zeal in his eyes when he's coming for his bride at the battle for Jerusalem. On his head are many crowns. He's clothed with the robe, and the robe is dipped in blood. There's blood on his robe, which is a reference to Isaiah 63. The armies of heaven are with him, verse 14. Verse 15, out of his mouth goes a sharp sword. With it, he should strike the nations. And the word of his mouth being a sharp sword is one of the key phrases that appears several times in this Bible. And the other phrase that's like it, it's called the rod of his mouth. That's mentioned three or four times too, that he will break the nations by the rod of his mouth, or he'll strike the nations by the sword of his mouth. Well, which is it, a rod or is it a sword? And what it's saying is this, is that by his command, by the word of his command, all of his people are mobilized and dispatched and deployed. And it's the word of his mouth that looses the swords of his army. They wait when he says, now the sword or the rod goes forth. And there are times where his very word, like he spoke in Genesis 1, his word is creative. His word is creative and his very, the word of his mouth, the brightness of his appearance is what consumes the Antichrist, is the brightness of his appearance. The word of his mouth, he will speak and do it, and have direct power being released by when he speaks. But the word of his mouth and the rod of his mouth is also, he gives the word of command as the captain and the host, his armies go forth with the sword that's military and the rod is political. It's the civil laws. It's the punishment that is released on the society when they break laws. It's the rod. It's the court system, so to speak. And they are all dispatched by his word. Everybody waits until he gives the word. And once the word is given, the rod goes forth in the civil arena and the sword goes forth in the military arena. And his entire company of his people are totally obedient and loyal to what the word of his mouth is. So it's not like you see the posters and there's a sword, they kind of picture a sword coming out of his mouth. It's not that a sword, a physical sword comes out of his mouth. But when he speaks, the sword is released in the hands of his soldiers, his warriors. And when he speaks, it has power directly, even without the agency of anybody helping him to affect destruction on his enemies. He speaks and slays some of them. But don't limit it all to that because there's real blood flowing that gets on him. It's not just he speaks and they die of a heart attack. He speaks at them and releases, he mobilizes his army. So with the sword of his mouth or with the rod of his mouth, he strikes nations. He'll rule them with the rod of iron. Remember the iron has to do with the civil laws and the sword has to do with military might. Now here it says again, he treads the wine press. There he is. He's borrowing this imagery from Isaiah 34 and Isaiah 63 which we already looked at. He gathered the nations because he was gathering them into the wine vat. They did not know that. They thought they were coming to Israel to get rid of him. He was drawing them to Israel to crush them. And I can just imagine the political, I mean the PR, the public's relations dilemma that the Antichrist is going to have when he's telling all the nations, this man is takeable. We can take him. He's defeatable. We can take him. Let's go. And then the prophets of God are speaking, no, you're going to the wine press. You're going to your own death. There's going to be a real public relations problem which is true. Are we going to defeat this man, this supernatural man who is an imposter is what they'll say. He's coming on a white horse in a cloud but the Antichrist will remind them, hey, I had a head wound and I came back from the dead. He never did that. So he will say. And there'll be many signs the Antichrist will have. He says, we can defeat this man. And then, but we as God's forerunners, I'm talking about millions worldwide, millions of forerunner messengers. We have been saying all along, it's a wine press. It's a wine press. You're going there to be crushed like grapes. You have no more chance to withstand this than a grape does to withstand the stomping of an adult man. Verse 17, John said, I saw an angel and the angel said to the birds, hey, birds, come on, gather together for supper. You're going to eat the flesh of kings and captains and mighty men. Verse 19, I saw the beast. That's the Antichrist. I saw the kings of the earth. I saw their armies. They were gathered together to make war against him. See, that's, they're going not just to make war against Jews or Israel. He's going to, they're going to kill Jesus is what they're trying to do. Again, we just, this is insane to us. Do you know who he is? No, we think he's an imposter. We don't know who he is. Then the beast was captured, the false prophet. They were cast into the lake of fire and the rest of the soldiers that were in the land. That's verse 21 is the rest. They didn't mean all the people of the earth because there's, you know, there's a couple billion people who have taken the mark of the beast. I mean, no one knows the real number, but it's a large number. But the rest that were killed are the people that are in the, you know, the military buildup, the soldiers and the military personnel. Those that are in the land, they'll be killed by the sword, which proceeds from the mouth of him or the sword that he dispatches by the word of his, by his word. Okay, let's go to paragraph F. We'll just look at a few more. I mean, it's more than a, what you can take in one night. John's describing this final battle of natural history. When all this paragraph F and all the land of Israel becomes a blood soaked battlefield. Beloved, the whole land will become a blood soaked battlefield. And I don't mean every square inch of the land. That that's what, not what I mean, but I mean, north, south, east, and west, that every, every region of the land will have the marks of this battle. It says in verse 19 of Revelation 14, the angel gathered the vine of the earth and threw it into the great wine press. The wine press is right there in the land of Israel. The wine press is the, is the people that are coming to war against him. It's, it's, it's the nation of Israel is a big wine vat. Verse 20, the wine press was, was trampled. It was trampled by Jesus. It wasn't trampled in the city of Jerusalem, but just outside the city of Jerusalem, in the valley of Jehoshaphat is what it says in Joel, just, just down the road. It's a couple miles outside of Jerusalem. He's stopping. That's where the most intense battle will be. That's why it says that he, the wine press was trampled by him because that is the most intense place of blood, of blood flow. The blood came out of that wine press, that geographic region. I mean, in some ways, the wine press is the whole land, but the wine press in the most focused way is right there in the vat, in the, in the valley of Jehoshaphat. That's down by Jerusalem. That's not the valley of Jezreel, which is Armageddon up north. This is the valley of Jezreel. I mean, the valley of Jehoshaphat down in the south. And I have that laid out in the, in the, in the notes here. And the blood went out of the wine press up to a horse's bridle, about four feet. And it went for 1600 furlongs. If you have the NIV, it calls 1600 stadia. A stadia and a furlong is the same, is the same distance. It's right at 200 miles. Now the nation of Israel is only 160 miles. The 200 miles is the length from up north in, in, in Megiddo, up where the Armageddon campaign began, up north in Megiddo in the valley of Jezreel. And it goes all the way down south. I mean, to the south to Basra, down into, to the area of Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula right now. It's a 200 mile area where the blood flows. Paragraph G, this is the passage from Joel. It's the same language as, as the wine press. It says here in Joel chapter three, I will gather all nations. I will bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. That's just outside Jerusalem. I have that laid out there a bit. God says, I'm going to gather all the nations. Notice in this emphasis is not the devil gathering and Revelation 16 is the devil gathering. But here the prophet Joel says, God is gathering. Well, both of them are gathering and men are coming on their own as well because of greed and envy and hatred. I will gather all nations. I will bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. This is not the valley of Jezreel. That's up north. Valley of Jehoshaphat is down south. That's right outside of Jerusalem. I will enter into judgment within there. Verse 12, let's give a few verses. Let the nations come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat. Let the nations come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat. For there, I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. Put in the sickle, verse 13. The harvest, that means the harvest of iniquity is ripe. That's what he's saying. The harvest of sin is ripe. The wine press is full. That means the people, the enemy armies are all there. They are not afraid to take him on. Jesus, this is where he's marching up from the south. They're coming down from the north. That's where the two front lines meet each other, right there in the valley of Jehoshaphat outside Jerusalem. But the wine press is full. That means the blood of the enemies is flowing like no time in history. There'll be more people killed in that battle than any other time in history. Verse 14, multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. This valley of Jehoshaphat, the fate of all the nations, not just their fate right then, but the fate of the future of the world is all in that valley. So it's so dramatic. Let's go to paragraph I. Zechariah, we're skipping some of them. That one, again, there's too much to cover in one night, but Zechariah prophesies of the battle of Jerusalem. Verse three, for the Lord, that's obviously Jesus. He is gonna go forth in battle. He's gonna fight against all these nations as he fights in the day of battle. In that day, his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives and the Mount of Olives will split. And the Jews that are trapped against the mountain and surrounded by the enemy, the mountain's gonna split. Instead of the Red Sea splitting, this mountain is gonna split and they're gonna escape through it. We'll talk about that more at another day. It's like, what? Why would they have to escape? I mean, Jesus is there, but he's, I don't fully get this, but they escape with panic. It says they escape like they're fleeing, like in the days of the earthquake with Uzziah. I mean, when Jesus comes, like Moses split the Red Sea, Jesus comes and he splits the mountain. They go, thanks. They run through and they go, who was that man on the white horse? I don't, you know, I'd be running to Jesus, not running away from the, I don't fully get it. Because, you know, everything isn't fully, not everyone's fully aware of what's exactly happening yet. The city of Jerusalem has not received him officially as their Messiah yet. This is still just a little bit before that. Let's go on down to verse 12. Verse, Zechariah 14, verse 12. It says, this shall be the plague, which the Lord shall strike all the people. These are all the soldiers who fought against Jerusalem. This is literal. God's gonna strike them with a plague. Their flesh will dissolve while they stand on their feet. Their eyes will dissolve in their sockets and their tongues will dissolve in their mouths. Verse 14, Judah will be fighting at Jerusalem, which means it's the region around Jerusalem. Judah is the area around. They're gonna be all, you know, all for one and one for all. They're all there together. You know, it's not like they say, Jerusalem, that's your problem. We're all in the same together. The wealth of all the nations are gonna be gathered together. Here's what's interesting. I don't fully get this. The gold and the silver, but clothing will be in great abundance. How did that make Zechariah's list? Clothing, gold and silver and shirts. What? There, this is significant. To make it in the description, there has to do, obviously, clothing will be a real issue. I'm gonna leave that for Stuart to figure out. He figures out all this stuff. Him and Dave Slyker, they can sort all this stuff out. Clothing will be in great, gold and silver and shirts. What? And the plague, verse 15, is also gonna hit. The plague's gonna hit the horses, the mules, the camels, the donkeys, and the cattle. This plague is real. It's not figurative. This is really gonna happen in real time and space. Paragraph J, Daniel talks about it. We'll skip that part. Paragraph K, David talks about it. We'll end with just looking at a couple passages of David, just real brief. And K, we'll end with this. Again, you can get all the text off the internet if you want a whole copy of this. Here's what it says in K. It says in Psalm 110, the famous psalm. Psalm 110 is the enthronement psalm. It's the psalm where God the Father promises that Jesus will be king over everything. We all know the passage well. It says, the father said to the son, sit at my right hand till I make my enemies your footstool. Then look at verse five. The Lord is at your right hand, Jesus. And Jesus will execute kings in the day of his wrath. That's the battle of Jerusalem. And Jesus will judge among nations. And look what Jesus is gonna do in verse six. He's gonna fill the places with dead bodies and he will execute the heads of many countries. What? The blood flow is beyond anything we can imagine. Jesus is gonna fill the places with dead bodies and execute the head of many nations. I just gotta tell the story. Some of you know what I'm gonna say here. You know, when we first began to sing, do worship with the word, we put Psalm 45 about, you know, thou art fairer than the sons of men. And Psalm 2 and Psalm 10, we put 110 altogether. Poor Greg Stone, he's the first one to do it. You know, we had this new outline. And so we, you know, thou art more beautiful than sons of men. He did great. And then the next one got through Psalm 110. Then it was his turn to do this verse and he had never read it through. I assume by the look on his face, maybe he did. Maybe, you know, because it was the very last verse. It was the final worship cycle. And he goes, he started singing with that beautiful voice. And he will execute kings and he will fill the places with dead bodies. And he looked at me and he went, he went, oh my goodness. And then, you know, poor Misty had to antiphonalize it and develop it into something. She had a twinkle in her eye though. She had a different look than Greg did. It was that day we started naming her Moses of Bethany instead of Mary of Bethany. Well, there's a few more passages about David. You could just read them on your own. We'll just end with that. How's that? Let's stand.