The Second Coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ
By Warren Paynter
(edited by
Gavin Paynter)
For a PDF download of this ministry’s notes click NOTES: The Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ
For
other ministry on “Bible prophecy” – Warren Paynter:
Topic |
Link |
Will |
|
Earth’s
darkest hour |
|
The
eternal home God has prepared for man |
|
The day
the church will disappear |
|
The
Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ |
|
The
Pre-tribulation Rapture of the church |
|
Revelation
- Part 1 |
|
Revelation
- Chap 1-11 |
|
Revelation
- Chap 1-22 |
|
Daniel’s
70 weeks |
For
other ministry on “Bible prophecy” – Gavin Paynter:
Topic |
Link |
Second Coming - Preterism, Historicism
and Futurism |
|
The millennium - Part 1 |
|
The millennium - Part 2 |
|
The millennium - Part 3 |
|
Profile of the antichrist |
|
Seven trumpets |
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The Eastern Gate |
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And there will be no more... |
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Will the world end in 2012? Is Obama the
antichrist? |
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Daniel 2 |
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The Rapture – Pre, mid or Post Tribulation |
|
The |
|
The |
|
7 trumpets |
For
other ministry on “Bible prophecy”:
Speaker |
Topic |
Link |
Ken Paynter |
The Fourth Watch (Second Coming) |
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|
The End Time - Part 2 |
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|
The End Times Part 3 |
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Sam Ennis |
The bridegroom |
|
John Ward |
The mystery of |
|
Harold Berry |
The Second Coming of Jesus - Selective,
Secret & Sudden |
Introduction
In the Old Testament there are many Scriptures
concerning the coming of the Lord, but in all of them, no distinction is made
between the First Coming and the Second Coming. To take just one example let us
look at Isaiah 61:1-2. In the synagogue at
However, in Isaiah that is not where the
passage ends. It ends like this, “and the day of vengeance of our God.” (Isa
61:2) Now this part of the prophecy of Isaiah is yet to be fulfilled at the
Second Coming of Christ.
Paul in writing to the Thessalonians says
concerning the Second Coming of Christ that he will be “revealed from heaven
with his mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do
not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.” (2
Thess 1:7-8)
This merging of the two comings is found right
throughout the OT Scriptures, and was the reason for the disciples’ perplexity,
for at the Mount of Olives they asked the Lord “Is it at this time you
are restoring the kingdom to
When we come to the New Testament we find that
the doctrine of the Second Coming is one of the most prominent themes in the
writings of those who were given the task of recording the New Testament. Out
of the 27 books of the New Testament only one major epistle, that of Galatians,
and three minor epistles, Philemon and John’s second and third epistles, make
no mention of the Second Coming.
In other words, 23 NT books record the fact
that Jesus is coming again. Not only that, but in several the Second Coming of
Christ is the major theme. Thus we find that both the Thessalonian epistles
were written expressly to correct mistaken ideas concerning the coming of Jesus
Christ. The Revelation is also concerned almost exclusively with the Second
Coming.
Turning to the synoptic gospels, all the
writers record the fact that the Lord spent much of his time during his last
week before his death, speaking to his followers concerning the events
connected with his Second Coming at the end of the age. Matthew takes two whole
chapters (24 and 25) to record in great detail what the Lord Jesus said about
his coming again. In Mark’s gospel we find the whole of chapter 13 is a record
of the coming again of the Lord, as is the twenty first chapter of the gospel
of Luke.
It has been said that 5 percent of the New
Testament is concerned with the Second Coming, or one out of every 20 verses.
In fact there are many more Scriptures which tell of his Second Coming than
there are Scriptures which told of the First Coming of the Lord.
While there is general consensus amongst
conservative Christians that the Second Coming of the Lord is in the future,
liberal interpreters try to prove that the Second Coming is already past. Thus,
they say, the coming of the Holy Spirit was the fulfillment of these
prophecies. Others contend that when a person dies, Christ comes for them, and
that this coming of the Lord for a person at death is the Second Coming.
Neither of these two attempts to explain away the Second Coming has any basis
in Scripture. Many others have contended that the Lord has already come, in
fact, with some the fixing of dates for his coming has almost become a pastime.
In the main there are 3 major teachings
concerning the Second Coming.
(1) The Post-Millennial school
This teaching was very much
propagated during the nineteenth century. The view held was that Christ could
not come until the church had converted the whole world. This is in
contradiction of the Scriptures which indicated that far from the church
converting the world before Christ’s return, there will be widespread departure
from the faith at the end time.
(2) The Amillennial school
Amillennialism denies that there
will ever be a literal Millennium, holding that Christ is now reigning in heaven,
that Satan is already bound, and that all the Scriptures which speak of the
restoration of
(3) The Premillennial school
That there is to be a
Millennium can be clearly understood from the OT. Much is written there
concerning the time when the Lord is “king of the earth”. (Zech 14:9)
In fact, such great detail is given
concerning the Millennium that it is puzzling as to why God should have
recorded it, were it not literally going to come to pass. Detractors are at
pains to point out that there is only one passage where the Millennium is
mentioned, namely Revelation 20:2-7. However we find the phrase “thousand
years” occurs six times and we are told the following facts in connection with
this thousand year period:-
a)
Satan
will be bound for 1000 years in the Abyss (v. 2).
b)
The
nations will not be deceived until the 1000 years are completed (v. 3).
c)
The
Tribulation martyrs live and reign with Christ for 1000 years (v. 4).
d)
The
wicked dead are not resurrected until after the 1000 years have passed (v. 5).
e)
All
who take part in the first resurrection will be priests of God and Christ and
will reign with him for 1000 years (v. 6).
f)
Satan
will be let loose from his prison after the 1000 years have passed (v. 7).
God gives a tremendous amount of
detail concerning a period in the history of man that is, supposedly, never
going to be.
There are 4 schools of thought as
far as the Premillennial teaching is concerned:
A. The Pre-Tribulation school, who believe that Christ
will come for his church at the time of the Rapture, which occurs before the 70th
week of Daniel’s prophecy, namely, the seven years of the Great Tribulation.
B. The Mid-Tribulation school, who believe
that the church will be raptured after three and a half years of the
Tribulation have passed.
C. The Post-Tribulation school, who believe
that the church does not by any means escape the Tribulation but is present
here upon the earth right up until the time of Armageddon.
D. The Partial Rapture school which teaches
that only spiritual Christians will be taken by the Lord at the Rapture. So
some Christians will be left behind.
1. The
time of his return
That there would be an indefinite period of
time between his going back to the presence of the father and his return, is
indicated in a number of Scriptures. We find the record of the Lord’s last
journey to
Thus the Lord clearly teaches that the
In the Gospel of John 14:2-3, “I go to prepare
a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again,
and receive you to myself.” In this passage we find the master departing,
preparing a place for his own, and then returning.
The epistles of Paul to the Thessalonians were
written to reassure them concerning the doctrine of the Second Coming. They had
been unsettled and it would appear that there had been some who had endeavoured
to deceive them concerning Christ’s coming. Paul then lists certain events
which must first take place before the Lord can come. (2 Thess 2:1-12)
The one thing which was totally unknown to the
Old Testament prophets and also the disciples was the purpose of God in forming
a new company of saints, distinct from
We know that this new company was to be called
the church, but we have hindsight. There was no indication as to how long it
would take for God to complete this body. We know that the church has been
something like 2000 years in its formation and it is still being built by the
Lord who said, “I will build my church.” (Matt 16:18)
One thing is certain however, and that is the
fact that the time is approaching when the last person to complete the church
will be saved. The last “living stone” will be built into that “spiritual
house” which is the church. (2 Pet 2:5)
God’s purpose concerning the church must first
be brought to completion before his plan for this world after the church age
can unfold further. The deliverer will only come out of
Conybeare
renders this “until the full body of the Gentiles shall have come in.”
The
RSV translates “until the full number of the Gentiles come in.”
The
Good News Bible: “until the complete number of Gentiles comes to God.”
That the long period of time intervening
between the First and Second Coming is drawing to a close cannot be doubted in
today’s world.
There are those who have taught that the Lord
offered the kingdom to
But the time is fast approaching when Christ
must return to fulfill the Scriptures concerning
While we will be able to know the coming of the
Lord is near, the exact time of his return cannot be pinpointed. In the gospels
where the Lord gives certain information as to the signs which will precede his
coming he states, “But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and
lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28)
We are warned to be in constant readiness as we
do not know when the Lord will come. So we read in Matthew 24:36, “But of that
day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the son, but the
father alone.” The parable of the ten virgins was told by the Lord to warn us
to be constantly on the alert for his coming. (Matt 25)
While the exact day and hour cannot be known
beforehand, there are many indications pointing to the fact that Christ’s
coming is very near. Perhaps the most important indication is the return of the
Jews to the
Now in past ages there have been many who
believed that they were living in the last days because in each age certain
signs of the last days and of the return of Christ seemed to be evident. But it
is only now that the Lord has gathered
With all the other signs of Christ’s return so
evident today, we need never doubt that there is very little time left. Paul’s
warning in 1 Thess 5:1-11 is clear. He says, “Now brothers, about times and
dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the Day of
the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”
A world that is unsuspecting will find that
that day will bring upon them sudden destruction. But a watchful expectant
church will be aware of what is transpiring in the world, and while we may not
know the very hour of the Lord’s return, we will certainly know that it is at
hand, even at the very doors.
2. The
promise of his return
We find that the Bible is not lacking in
promises concerning the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is natural that
this should be so, seeing the disappointment of those who were trusting that
the
Jesus made it clear that, while the
a) Jesus made it clear in John 14:1-7
that he was going away to prepare a place for those who belonged to him, but
that he would return personally to receive his followers. Thus he said, “I go
to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will
come again, and receive you unto myself.” Here we see that Jesus himself will
come for those who are his own. He does not send any other persons or creatures
but reserves for himself the right to come and fetch his church.
Many see in the Scriptures which
speak of the Lord sending his angels to gather together his elect from the four
corners of the earth, the gathering together of the dead in Christ as well as
those believers who are alive at his coming. (Matt 24:31; Mark 13:27) As it is
very clear that these Scriptures refer to an event which takes place after the
Great Tribulation (see Matt 24:29; Mk 13:24), if the saints who are resurrected
and raptured together with the living saints at Christ’s coming are the elect
referred to here, then the teaching that the church will go through the Great
Tribulation would indeed be correct.
That the elect of the above passages
cannot be the church saints of all ages is evident when we take a closer look
at other Scriptures.
b) Writing to the Thessalonians the
apostle Paul said, “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a
shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead
in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught
up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall
we ever be with the Lord.” (1 Thess 4:16-17)
Let us look at this passage in
detail.
1 The Lord himself shall descend from heaven.
Here the word translated himself
(autos) is emphatic. It means “he himself and none other.” Thus the Lord Jesus
Christ comes personally to receive his bride, the church.
2
With
the voice of the archangel.
This is better rendered “with a
voice of an archangel.” In other words “with an archangel’s voice.” Thus this
statement does not teach that Christ will be accompanied by an archangel but
that the sound of his voice, as he summons the dead in Christ from their
graves, and summons them together with the living saints to meet him in the
air, is like the voice of an archangel.
3
And
with the trump of God.
There are many trumpets referred to
in the Bible. In the book of the Revelation we find mention of seven trumpets.
It is wrong to confuse the seventh trumpet with the trumpet of God of 1 Thess
4:16. The Revelation is clear - the seventh trumpet is an angelic trumpet and
it is sounded by an angel. So John writes, “I saw the seven angels which stood
before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.” (Rev 8:2)
These seven trumpets are sounded in
heaven and they herald the wrath of God upon the earth. The trump of God is not
a trumpet of wrath but rather of grace and it is sounded by God himself in the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not by an angel. Just as the trumpet was
used to summon
4
To
meet the Lord in the air.
We shall not be caught up in the
clouds but rather we “shall be caught up in clouds (of believers) to a meeting
of the Lord in air.” Thus the Lord himself and none other is the one who will
“seize in clouds” those who have partaken in the first resurrection together
with the saints who are alive at his coming.
It would be to our advantage, at this stage, to
look at two objections to the Pretribulation Rapture.
It is said by some that the Pretribulation
Rapture teaches a first ‘Second Coming’ and a second ‘Second Coming’. Let us
look at the First Coming of Christ. We will find that there were two phases to
the First Coming of Christ. Before his death and resurrection the Lord appeared
to all men, ministering to them. He was seen by his enemies who opposed him and
finally handed him over to the civil authority (the Romans) so that he might be
put to death.
But after death and resurrection he appeared to
and ministered to selected individuals who were disciples of his. On one
occasion he appeared to “about five hundred brethren at once.” (1 Cor 15:6)
There is nothing unscriptural with the teaching of two phases as far as the
Second Coming is concerned, provided that we can substantiate it from the
Scriptures, which we can, indeed, do.
The New Testament plainly teaches a gathering
out of the righteous together with the righteous resurrected dead, and a
leaving behind of the wicked to experience the wrath of God. This gathering out
is accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. There is a subsequent
gathering out of the living wicked and a leaving behind of the living righteous
who will then inhabit the earth during the Millennium. This is performed by the
angels. Thus the elect of Matt 24:31 and Mark 13:27 are the saved of
Then the other objection is to the very concept
of the Rapture. We are told that this is not a Biblical concept. Nowhere in the
Bible will you find the word Rapture we are told. This might be true in the
English Bible but certainly not true of the Scriptures in Latin. In 1 Thess
4:17 we read that we will be “caught up” in clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
This word “caught up” is the Greek word “harpazo” which means to snatch or
catch away. It occurs 13 times in the NT (Matt 11:12; 13:19; John 6:15; 10:12,
28, 29; Acts 8:39; 23:10; 2 Cor 12:2, 4: 1 Thess 4:17; Jude 23; Rev 12:5.)
It is used of the catching away of Philip from
the Ethiopian eunuch, Paul being caught up to the third heaven, and the
man-child being caught up to the throne of God. The Latin word used to
translate “harpazo” is the word “rapto” which means to “carry away in haste” or
“to hurry away” or “to rob, plunder, drag along”. In middle English rapere
meant “to seize”.
It is hard in view of the above facts to
understand how the teaching concerning the Rapture can be deemed to be
unscriptural.
No need for angels
at the Rapture
When the Lord returns for his bride at the
beginning of the Great Tribulation, there is no need for the ministry of angels
to carry believers up to meet him in the air. Paul makes it clear that the
resurrection and the Rapture take place at one and the same time. He writes,
“The dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed.” (1 Cor 15:52)
Again, “the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them.” (1 Thess 4:16-17)
Now the Lord Jesus tells us something very
important about this event in Luke 20:34-36, “The sons of this age marry and
are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that
age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in
marriage; for they can die no more, for they are like angels, and are sons of
God, being sons of the resurrection.” The Greek word translated “like angels”
is the word “isangelos”. The prefix comes from the Greek word “isos” which
means “equal”. In English we speak of an isosceles triangle or a triangle with
two sides which are equal. The first part of the word isosceles is the Greek
word for equal. Thus Jesus said that, when the resurrection takes place, those
who are resurrected, and, we know from the epistles of Paul, those who are
alive at his coming, are so changed that they are now equal to angels being
sons of the resurrection.
The mystery not revealed by Jesus but by the
apostle Paul was the fact that believers living at the time of the resurrection
would not die but would be transformed without ever having to die. This fact
that at the sounding of the trump of God all the dead and living believers
become the equals of angels is the reason why angels are not involved at the
time of the Rapture. When that transformation takes place, in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, we will be able to do what angels can do. We will be able
to rise and to ascend into the heavens, thus defying the law of gravity,
something which we were unable to do before. Thus there is no need for the Lord
to send his angels out at the time of the Rapture. The moment we are changed we
will ascend by virtue of the fact that we are no longer earth-bound mortals,
but are now the equals of angels. Thus Christ comes alone to meet his church,
who are now in possession of glorified bodies.
Paul writes, “For our citizenship is in heaven,
from which also we eagerly wait for a saviour, the
Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into
conformity with the body of his glory, by the exertion of the power that he has
even to subject all things to himself.” (Phil 3:20-21)
Why does the Lord send forth his angels to
gather:-
1
His
elect
2
Believing
Gentiles
3
Unbelieving
Gentiles
It would appear that the reason for this
ministry of angels is due to two important facts.
a)
All
who are gathered by the angels are not in glorified bodies but are still in
mortal bodies.
b)
The
devastation of the earth has been so complete that there are no mechanical
means of transportation. Every highway, railway, airport and harbour is a ruin. There is a prophecy relating to
this end time in Isaiah 33:8, “look, their brave men cry aloud in the streets;
the envoys of peace weep bitterly. The highways are deserted, no travellers are on the roads. The treaty is broken, the
witnesses are despised, no one is respected.” So we read, “The Son of Man will
send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that
causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace …”
(Matt 13:41-42)
c)
At
the ascension we find the disciples gazing up into the heavens. Two men in
white clothing stood beside them and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand
looking up into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into
heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven.”
(Acts 1:11) If we look at the description of the coming of the Lord with the
armies of heaven as recorded in Rev 19, to do battle with the kings of the
earth at Armageddon, the contrast with the departure of the Lord from the
The reason is that the event spoken
of by the two men in white is a reference to Christ coming for his own, and not
in wrath.
He
ascended alone … he will return alone.
He
departed from believers only … he will return for believers only.
The
ungodly were unaware of his departure … they will be unaware of his return.
He
was not wearing the accoutrements of war … neither will he at his return for
his church.
By no stretch of our imagination can
we reconcile the events foretold by the men in white with the record of John in
Rev 19. Thus they clearly refer to two separate events. The promise made by
these two men to the disciples is very clear. It is that as the Lord left his
infant church so also he will return for it. No other purpose will come between
this reunion of the Lord with his blood-bought children.
Let us remember that every one of
the believers present that day at the
d)
In
Hebrews chapter nine we read of three appearings of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He
appeared on earth to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Heb 9:26)
He
now appears in heaven on our behalf as our great high priest and advocate. (Heb
9:24)
He
is going to appear again and the manner of this appearing is thus described,
“So Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall
appear a second time, not to bear sin, to those who eagerly wait for him, for
salvation.” (Heb 9:28)
Note what the writer says about this
appearing of the Lord.
It is to those who eagerly wait for
him. That is, it is an appearing to and on behalf of his waiting saints. The
NIV Bible reads thus, “He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to
bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”
We need to remember that the word
‘salvation’ is not always used in the limited sense of salvation from sin. It
can and does have other meanings as well. This salvation is from the coming
wrath of God upon all the ungodly. So we read in 1 Thess 1:10, “and to wait for
his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from
the coming wrath.”
3. The
nations and his return
To begin this part of our study we will have to
go back to the Old Testament prophecies of Daniel.
In the second chapter of Daniel, we read about
the dream of the king of Babylon He dreams of an image with a head of gold,
breast and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron,
its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. (Dan 2:31-33)
Then in Dan 7:1-28 we read of a vision which
was given to Daniel in the first year of Belshazzar the king. First he sees a
lion with wings of an eagle, then he sees a bear, then a leopard with four
wings of a bird, and finally, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and
extremely strong. It was different from all the preceding beasts and had ten
horns upon its head with another little horn (an eleventh) coming up later.
The dream of Nebuchadnezzar and the vision of
the prophet Daniel are the same, except that, whereas the king sees a splendid
statue, the servant of the Lord sees rapacious wild animals. According to the
interpretation given to Daniel, these metals and beasts are identified as four
kingdoms which would dominate the earth from the time of the carrying away of
the Jews into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar until the return of Christ who would
destroy all Gentile power and establish the kingdom of God upon the earth.
Thus in the king’s dream we read, “and in the days
of those kings (represented by the ten toes and the ten horns of Daniel 2
and 7), the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed
and that kingdom will not be passed on to another people; it will crush and put
an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.” (Dan 2:44)
Let us look at these kingdoms:-
A. Head
of gold – the first beast …
B. Breast
of silver – second beast … Medes and the Persians
C. Thighs
of bronze – third beast …
D. Legs
of iron – fourth beast …
E. Feet of iron and clay … ten horns of fourth
beast … final form of these kingdoms at the coming of Christ
Each of these kingdoms was destroyed by its
successor.
Thus
The
Medo-Persians by the Greeks.
The
Greeks by the Romans
When we come to the history of
Thus the fourth kingdom was weakened and
divided. However, the so-called
I) The western European alliance
The European Union is seen by many as the power
which is the heir to Rome It came into being as the result of the Treaty of
Rome Thus the heartland of the old
According to Jean Monnet, the father of the
European Union (formerly called the European Common Market), the ultimate goal
is complete political union. When this is finally achieved, a person,
represented by the little horn of Dan 7:8 (the Antichrist), will assume power
over this
Napoleon said, “What does it matter whether two
nations are separated by rivers or mountains, or that they speak different
idioms?
Napoleon tried hard enough, but was not able to
succeed. Hitler tried to conquer and rule all
He is the one who will lead the armies of the
nations to the great battle of Armageddon: “And I saw the beast (Antichrist)
and the kings of the earth and their armies, assembled to make war against him
who sat upon the (white) horse, and against his army.” (Rev 19:19)
As we look at the European Union today, we see
very little evidence of unity. True, there is a parliament of
What will happen if there are more than ten
nations? We will have to await future events to be able to resolve these
questions. However, in the final analysis, there will be ten nations which will
give their power to the beast. (Rev 17:13)
A possibility is that certain member nations may yet combine with one
another. Another possibility is that some may yet withdraw from the EU. Only
time will tell what the future holds as far as the ten nations of the fourth
world power are concerned.
What I believe to be true is the fact that, as
long as there are two super powers such as the
II) The Russian confederation
If we look at the tenth chapter of the book of
Genesis, we will find a record of the descendants of Noah We will be
particularly concerned with Gen 10:2-5 where we find the family of Japheth, one
of Noah’s three sons. However, we will return to this passage later.
Let us look at the book of Ezekiel the prophet.
Much of the book deals with the restoration of the Jews to the
Gog and its allies
Gog of the
We read, “Son of Man, set your face toward Gog
of the
Let us look at Gog first. We read in
Ezek 38:14-15, “Therefore, prophesy, Son of Man, and say to Gog, ‘Thus says the
Lord God, “On that day when my people
Thus the prophet pinpoints the locality from
which Gog comes at the end-time as the remote parts of the north. It is
of interest to note that
Rosh. In some Bibles this word is translated
‘chief’. However, in the Septuagint it is translated ‘Rhos’, and in the Latin
it is translated ‘Russ’. Gesenius, the historian, regards it as
Meshesh and Tubal. Going back again to the table of the nations
in Gen 10:2 we find that Meshesh was one of the sons of Japheth We read, “The
sons of Japheth were Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tubal and Meshesh
and Tiras.” Not only were Magog and
Meshesh sons of Japheth, but so was Tubal and, from Ezekiel 38-39, we see a
very close association between Meshesh and Tubal who are always mentioned
together by Ezekiel.
Who were these people? It is thought that the
“Tibareni and Moschi” of the classical writers refer to the same people
(International Standard Bible Encyclopedia). The same Encyclopedia continues,
“Doubtless they appear in the annals of
There is a bit of difficulty here as to who
However, there has been just as great an effort
on the part of the Russians to gain support in
Put or Phut. As we have seen from the table of the nations,
here we have another of the sons of Ham. As Mizraim settled in
Gomer. As we have read in Gen 10:2, Gomer was one of
Japheth's seven sons. Gomer had three sons. We read in Gen 10:3, “And the sons
of Gomer were Ashkenaz and Riphath and Togarmah.” We know that Ashkenaz was the
founder of the Teutonic or Germanic peoples.
Togarmah. As we see above, he was a son of Gomer. Gomer
is identified by some as the Cimmerians, a people who lived in the
God draws
We read, “I will turn you about, and put hooks
into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army …” (Ezek 38:4)
“After many days you will be called to arms. In
future years you will invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people
were gathered from many nations … they had been brought out from the nations,
and now all of them live in safety.” (38:8 - NIV) God says of these invaders,
“are you the one of whom I spoke in former days through my servants the
prophets of
What will cause
Increasingly, the West is going to be alienated
from the Arabs and
There is a hardening in
Timed for the
latter days
This will not be the event referred to in Rev
20:8, where Gog is used by the devil after he is released from his prison in
the Abyss. For one thing, there will be no weapons after the Millennium. War
will have been outlawed for the thousand years of Christ’s reign upon earth.
(Micah 4:3-4)
Rather, it is at the end of this present age
that the invasion of
The purposes of Gog
1. Gog
musters its might to destroy
2. Gog will come into the land restored
from the sword. (38:8)
3. Gog will come like a storm, and be like
a cloud covering the land, and there will be many people with Gog
4. Gog will devise “an evil plan” to
invade the land of unwalled villages (something that was unknown at the time
that the prophet wrote), where the people were at rest and living securely,
with the purpose of capturing spoil and seizing plunder.
5. Gog will lead a great army, consisting
of many peoples, out of the remote parts of the north.
6. Gog would come against those whom God
calls “my people
How God will respond to Gog's invasion of
Israel
1. God will “summon” Gog to the
2. “I shall bring you against my land”
says God, “in order that the nations may know me when I shall be sanctified
through you before their eyes, O Gog” (Ezek 38:16) While we cannot pinpoint the
time of Gog’s destruction, God says that through it the nations will “know me”
and “I shall be sanctified through them”. This would seem to indicate that this
event will come before the Rapture of the church and the beginning of the Great
Tribulation. It is not possible for anyone to be dogmatic as to precisely when
God will draw Gog into
3.
When
Gog comes against the
4.
A
great earthquake will occur. “In my zeal and in my blazing anger I declare that
on that day there will surely be a great earthquake in the
5.
God
will cause confusion in the armies of Gog, so that they will kill one another.
(38:21)
6.
God’s
judgements are:-
a.
Pestilence
(plague) and bloodshed
b.
Torrential
rains
c.
Hailstorms
d.
Fire
e.
Brimstone
(sulphur) (Ezekiel 38:21-22)
7.
This
destruction will take place “upon the mountains of
8.
God
will give the vast hordes of Gog’s dead to the predatory birds and beasts of
the field as food. (Ezek 39:4, 17-20)
9.
The
10.
The
nations will know that I am the Lord.
It is not to be wondered at that, as
the world heads for the greatest crisis it has ever known, that immediately
before that crisis begins, God should reveal himself in such an unequivocal
manner, so that all men might be without excuse when, failing to act upon this
revelation of God’s power and might by accepting Christ as Saviour, they enter
into the awful period of the Great Tribulation. That it is God who has brought
to naught the armies of Gog will be evident to all who dwell upon the earth.
11.
God
sees this as already accomplished.
“Behold, it is coming and it shall
be done,” declares the Lord God. “That is the day of which I have spoken.”
(Ezek 39:8)
Thus this event, described by the
prophet so long ago, will come to pass in all its awful reality.
What about the
inhabitants of
As we read these passages of Scripture, it
appears as if
The burial place of
Gog
All the vast host of Gog will be buried in the
land. In the KJV we read that God will “leave but the sixth part of thee
(Gog).” (Ezek 39:2) It would appear, however, that this is an addition, perhaps
by some person who felt sorry for Gog in his utter annihilation. There is,
indeed, no evidence that there are any survivors at all.
To bury such a vast multitude would require
much land, even if the burial takes place in communal graves. Land is very
valuable in
How long will it
take to bury Gog's horde?
It will take the Jews seven months to bury the
host of Gog so as to cleanse the land. “All the people (of
The spiritual
effect upon Israel
We will look at this in greater detail when we
look at
III) The
We need to look at the
We read, “
The two sons of Raamah son of
By speaking of the merchants of Tarshish and
the young lions thereof, the prophet, according to many is referring to the
trading nations of the world. It is rather too obscure a Scripture to be
applied to
IV) The kings of the east
It is a statement made by many people that “the
Bible says that the yellow races will rule the world.” A careful reading of the
Bible will reveal no such statement at all. But what the Bible does say is
that, when the Battle of Armageddon is about to take place, the river
4. The
signs of his return
The Lord made it very clear that there would be
nobody who would know the day and hour of his return. “But of that day and hour
knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my father only.” (Matt 24:36;
Mark 13:32)
Again, Jesus reminds his disciples, “watch
therefore: for you know not what hour your Lord cometh … therefore be ye also
ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh.” (Matt
24:42-44)
While the Lord made it clear that the precise
day of his return could not be known, he did answer his disciples when they
asked him, “Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of
thy coming?” (Matt 24:3) Jesus answered the disciples’ questions and gave them
many signs that the end of the age could be recognised by those who were living
at the time.
His warning
Before going into details about the end-time
signs, the Lord sounds a warning to his servants to beware of those who would
seek to deceive them. “And Jesus answered and said unto them, take heed that no
man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall
deceive many.” (Matt 24:4-5; Mark 13:5-6; Luke 21:8)
When we look at these deceivers, one thing
keeps on drawing our attention and that is how many of these false christs have
set dates for the return of the Lord. There can be no doubt that they would not
contradict the Lord if their calling was genuine. Not all have gone to the
extreme of claiming to be Christ himself but I can remember a man who claimed
that he was Christ, and continued to make the claim, until one of his followers
killed him with a bomb. No doubt there will be others who will come and make
such claims, before the Lord comes back.
Turmoil, strife and war
“You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but
see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen but the end is yet
to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.” (Matt
24:6-7)
In the Revelation we see Christ command a red
horse to come forth. “And power was given to him that sat thereupon to take
peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was
given to him a great sword.” (Rev 6:4) Many place this red horse and its rider
in the time of the Great Tribulation, yet that which comes upon the earth when
it is called to come forth speaks of warfare which Christ said would come
before the final end drama. In fact, as we shall see in a later study, it is
only under the sixth seal that we see the resurrected and raptured saints in
heaven.
In the 20th century we have seen
wars as never before. Two world wars have been fought in which vast numbers
have perished. The Second World War ended with the use of atomic bombs against
Famine
The spectre of famine is hanging over the world
today. It has been said that the optimum human population for this world is
about one thousand million people. After that, the ecology begins to suffer.
Animal species begin to experience pressure from humans and resources are used
faster than they can be replenished.
Today we have more than four thousand million
people on this small planet of ours. Deserts are encroaching upon farmland.
Water supplies are being stretched to the limit. Only the
We read in Rev 6:5, “when the lamb opened the
third seal, I heard the third living creature say, ‘come’. I looked, and there
before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his
hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures,
saying, a litre of wheat for a day’s wages, and three litres of barley for a
day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine.”
Pestilence
Wherever we find war and famine we will find
pestilence. More people died as the result of the Spanish flu after the First
World War, than were killed on the battlefields. Thus pestilences will sweep
the world before the end comes. Many, weakened as a result of famine, will
succumb to pestilence. When the fourth horseman comes forth, he is the
harbinger of evil for “they were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill
by sword, famine and pestilence, and by the wild beasts of the earth.” (Rev
6:8)
Earthquakes
The Bible says that there will be “earthquakes
in many places.” (Matt 24:7)
It has been noted that earthquakes are on the
increase worldwide. Some will say, “But there have always been earthquakes.”
This is true, yet they are going to become much more numerous and, as we read
in the Revelation, they will continue to occur right through the time of the Great
Tribulation, and the intensity will increase until, finally, “there came … a
great earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on
earth, so tremendous was the quake. The great city (
We will pause here to see what Matthew has to
say about all that Christ said thus far. He wrote, “All these (false christs,
wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes) are the beginning of birth pains.”
(Matt 24:8)
There is much more to come before the end is at
hand, many other signs which the Lord will give to indicate that it is the
end-time but these are the beginning of sorrows. Some of these signs have
already begun to be fulfilled, others await fulfilment. They
can, however, burst upon the earth with a startling suddenness as heralds of
his coming.
Persecution
That the church has been appointed to suffer is
very evident from the Scriptures. Jesus said, “Blessed are they that are
persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt
5:10 & Matt 5:11-12)
On his return from his first missionary
journey, Paul confirmed the souls of the disciples and “exhorting them to
continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the
We need to distinguish the sources of
Tribulation:-
1. We have the Tribulation which is the result
of the wrath of man, and it is directed against those who follow the Lord Jesus
Christ. This kind of Tribulation is the lot of all believers. Thus when Peter
and John were beaten for preaching Jesus, “they departed from the presence of
the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his
name.” (Acts 5:41)
2. There is also the Tribulation which is the
result of the wrath of God. This is the lot of the wicked and the church will
not experience this kind of Tribulation. Paul writes, “for after all it is only
just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief
to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus shall be
revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out
retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the
gospel of our Lord Jesus.” (2 Thess 1:6-7) The Greek word translated affliction
above is translated ‘tribulation’ in the KJV.
Thus, we see that the saints must endure
tribulation or affliction for the Lord’s sake in this gospel age, but the ungodly
will be recompensed with tribulation after the resurrection and Rapture.
This present time will end with the persecution
of those who are trusting in the Lord. We are aware of the fact that the church
is experiencing much Tribulation in many lands. It is not impossible that we
will yet have to experience the same hatred of the ungodly before the Lord
comes back. Indeed, this is what the gospel writers say about this time.
Matthew speaks of hatred and betrayal. (Matt 24:9-10)
False prophets
Matthew warns that one of the signs of the
Lord’s return is that there will be false prophets who will arise and who will
“deceive many”. (Matt 24:11) We are always inclined to regard these false
prophets as the cults that have arisen in these last days. But we also need to
be aware of wolves who come in sheep’s clothing. (Matt 7:15)
Thus there will be those who will bring in
error into the very midst of the true church. We have had to contend with many
who seek to direct our attention away from the cross to doctrines which “tickle
the ears” of men. In 1 Tim 4:1 we read, “Now the spirit explicitly says that in
later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful
spirits and doctrines of demons.” Again in 2 Tim 1-5, we read, “In the last days
difficult times will come … men will be … lovers of pleasure rather than lovers
of God.” Continuing in the same epistle, Paul writes, “For the time will come
when they will not endure sound doctrine …” (2 Tim 4:3-4)
Love of many waxes cold
The result of the abounding error will be that
iniquity shall abound. (Matt 24:12) Here we see an increase of lawlessness, for
that is what the Greek word means. This is precisely what the apostle Paul
tells the Thessalonians. He writes, “For the mystery of lawlessness is already
at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.
And then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the
breath of his mouth and will bring to an end by the appearance of his coming.”
(2 Thess 2:7-8)
It is only to be expected that the coming of
the lawless one (the Antichrist) should be preceded by an increase of
lawlessness. There is still a restraint, but there is no doubt that lawlessness
is on the increase, and it will continue to increase until the one who
restrains is taken out of the way. There can be little doubt that God, in the
person of the Holy Spirit, is the one who restrains the vileness of men. God
says of Abimelech, who had taken Sarah “I also withheld thee from sinning
against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.” (Gen 20:6) Matthew
says, “And because lawlessness is increased, the love of many will grow cold.
But the one who endures to the end, it is he who shall be saved.” (Matt
24:12-13)
Gospel preached
One of the signs of the end time is the way in
which the gospel has been preached all over the world. There has never been a
time when so many have had the opportunity of hearing the glad tidings. The
Bible is still the most read book. Scriptures are produced in whole or in
portions in almost all the languages and dialects of the world. Where there are
still people who do not have the Scriptures, there are those Christians who are
labouring ceaselessly to provide them with the word of God in their own
languages.
Radio and television have played a part in the
spread of the word of God. Many radio stations broadcast day and night to the
world the news that Jesus saves. With the use of satellites, the time may be at
hand when the gospel will be available all over the world through this medium.
One thing is certain, man has never had such an opportunity to hear the gospel
as he has had today.
Particularly in the third world the masses are
hearing and believing. Christianity is growing rapidly in these nations but is
suffering an eclipse in the godless and materialistic west which was once the
bastion of the Christian faith.
Increased knowledge and travel
Daniel writes, “Conceal these words and seal up
the book until the end time; many will go back and forth, and knowledge will
increase.” (Dan 12:4)
Many see in this Scripture the tremendous
explosion of knowledge which has taken place over the last hundred years. The
globe has shrunk with the advent of travel by means of the giant airliners of
our present day. It was not so long ago that men were travelling by horse drawn
vehicles. In fact, it was still in the 19th century when men said
that people would die of suffocation if they travelled too fast. Only a
generation ago it was held that the atom was the smallest particle of matter in
the universe. All that has changed. What man has done in effect has been to
make the judgement of God at the time of the
The return of
Many of the signs we have already mentioned
have been seen in part in earlier ages, thus the true church has always
cherished the hope that, in that particular time of history, the Lord would
return.
The one great sign which has never been seen
before has been the return of the Jews to the
The fig tree is the symbol of the Jewish people
and we are living in the days when, like the fig tree,
It is because
The modern state of
About the budding of the fig tree Jesus said,
“This generation shall not pass until all these things be fulfilled.” (Matt
24:34) Of the Greek word “genea” which is translated generation here, Vine says
it is used of “the whole multitude of men living at the same time.”
Thus what the Lord Jesus says is that the
generation which is alive when the signs which have been mentioned begin, will
not pass away until all things are fulfilled. Our datum point need not thus be
the unification of
But of one thing we can be sure, and that is
that what the Lord has said, not one thing will remain unfulfilled for he said,
“heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” (Matt
24:35) When the Russian confederacy attacks
Signs in the heavens
Here we come to signs which have not yet been
seen, but, according to the Scriptures, they must yet come before the Lord
returns. Let it be said here that the Bible makes it clear that cosmic
disturbances are not only signs of the near return of the Lord, but that these
astral calamities continue right through the Great Tribulation and terminate
it.
Let us look at what Luke has to say in his
gospel about these astral signs. He writes, “… and there will be terrors and
great signs from heaven … and there will be signs in sun and moon and stars,
and upon earth dismay among nations, inperplexity at the roaring of the sea and
waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are
coming upon the world for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.” (Luke
21:11, 25-26)
The Living Bible renders the last part of the
above as follows, “the courage of many people will falter because of the
fearful fate they see coming upon the earth, for the stability of the very
heavens will be broken up.” Also the Good News Bible, “… for the powers in
space will be driven from their courses.”
Very soon there will be a major upheaval in our
solar system. The earth itself will be threatened by some astral body which
will cause devastation upon the earth. This threat is not going to come and go
in a short period of time. Rather it is going to continue for a number of years
before, finally, at the coming of the Lord, it will cease.
Speaking of this present gospel era, and
quoting from the book of the prophet Joel, the apostle Peter had this to say on
the day of Pentecost, “I will perform miracles in the sky above and wonders on
the earth below. There will be blood, fire, and thick smoke; the sun will be
darkened, and the moon will turn red as blood, before the great and glorious
Day of the Lord comes.” (Acts 2:19-20)
There is only one other place in the Bible
where we read of the moon turning red as blood and that is in Rev 6:12, “And I
saw the lamb break open the sixth seal. There was a violent earthquake, and the
sun became black like coarse black cloth, and the moon turned completely red
like blood. The stars fell down to the earth, like unripe figs falling from the
tree when a strong wind shakes it. The sky disappeared like a scroll being
rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place.”
What will happen is something like this. Some
wandering star or comet is going to interact with one or some of the planets in
our solar system. This is going to cause either the wandering star or the
disturbed planet (perhaps mars) to begin to threaten the earth, and this threat
is going to continue over a long period of time. It will, however, begin before
the Great Tribulation.
Initially, the earth will be plagued by
earthquakes caused by the wandering star. There will also be tidal waves (Luke
21:25-26) which will cause panic upon the earth. The earth will be under
constant threat from this astral visitor. Probably it will intersect from time
to time with the earth’s orbit. Meteorites will fall upon the earth. Mountains
and islands will be moved from their place. The Old Testament also speaks of
these astral upheavals at the time of the Day of the Lord. In Isaiah 13:13 we
read, “I will bring disaster upon the earth and punish all wicked people for
their sins. I will humble everyone who is proud and punish everyone who is
arrogant and cruel. Those who survive will be scarcer than gold. I will make
the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place on that day
when I, the Lord, show my anger.”
An even more detailed description of what is to
happen to the earth when these signs in the heavens begin, is given in Isa
24:1-23. We read in the Good News Bible, “the Lord is going to devastate the
earth and leave it desolate. He will twist the earth’s surface and scatter its
people.” (Verse 1) Then it continues in verses 18-23, “when the windows of
heaven above are opened and earth’s foundations shake, the earth is utterly
shattered, it is convulsed and reels wildly. The earth reels to and fro like a
drunken man and sways like a watchman’s shelter …” (
It has been seen that, at the beginning of the
Day of the Lord, the sun becomes black and the full moon becomes blood-red.
This is only the beginning of such phenomena. When the fourth angel sounds his
trumpet in Rev 8:12 we read, “And a third of the sun was struck, a third of the
moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of
the day was without light, and also a third of the night.”
Perhaps the worst comes towards the end of the
Great Tribulation. We read in Rev 16:8, “the fourth angel poured out his bowl
on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. They were
seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God …” this is what Isaiah
says in Isaiah 24:6, “… therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched,
and few men are left.” If God shakes the earth out of its place (Isa 13:13),
this could mean that the earth would move closer to the sun, which would then
scorch men as we have read in Rev 16. Isaiah also speaks of the Lord shaking
the earth in Isa 2:19.
Joel is one of the most interesting writers of
the Old Testament when it comes to these astral phenomena. He writes in Joel
2:10, “the earth shall quake before them; and the heavens shall tremble: the
sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.”
Joel then speaks of the sun being turned into darkness and the moon into blood
(Joel 2:31), a Scripture quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost, and a
Scripture which we have already looked at. Then, right at the end, with the
multitudes in the valley of decision (Armageddon?), he writes, “The sun and the
moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.” (Joel 3:15)
Jesus himself told the disciples in his final
discourse about the end, “immediately after the Tribulation of those days,
shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars
(meteorites?) Shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be
shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven …” (Matt
24:29-30; Mark 13:24-26)
It is just after this that Christ sends forth
his angels to gather his elect. This gathering is not the gathering of the
resurrected dead in Christ and transformed believers who are alive at his
coming. That took place before the sun turned into darkness and the full-moon
became blood-red, a very different event. What is apparent then is this: that
shortly before the Rapture there will be disturbances in the solar system.
These disturbances will be caused by some as yet unknown factor, but probably a
comet or a wandering star. These disturbances, once they have commenced, will
continue for a long time. At times men will be very aware of these phenomena as
they will result in very unpleasant consequences for the inhabitants of the
earth. They will only cease after the Great Tribulation, showing that they are
not mere chance happenings, rather that they are due to very definite intervention
in the order of things by God himself. Sinners know that and this is why they
will curse God.
5. Two
stages to his return
Amongst the Premillennialists there are four
differing schools of interpretation.
1
The
Pretribulation teaching
2
The
Mid-Tribulation teaching
3
The
Post-Tribulation teaching
4
The
partial-Rapture teaching
The partial-Rapture teaching is not relevant to
this study so we will not discuss it, but will look at the other three.
Pretribulationists
believe that the resurrection of the dead and the transformation of those
believers who are alive at that time, will take place before the Great
Tribulation which will last for seven years.
Mid-Tribulationists
believe that the Lord will come for his people after three and a half years of
the Tribulation has elapsed.
Post-Tribulationists
believe that the above are deluded in looking for two Second Comings. The Lord
comes once right at the end of the Great Tribulation. The Lord preserves his
own down here throughout whatever happens in the future.
There can be no doubt whatsoever that only one
of the above teachings can be correct. We must be careful not to be dogmatic,
but to examine the Scriptures to see that our faith rests on a firm foundation.
Being a firm believer in the first of these teachings, it will be necessary to
state the grounds for such faith.
We have covered some of this ground already in
our study which we will recapitulate later. Let us start with the fact that the
coming of the Lord for the church cannot be determined insofar as its time is
concerned.
We can never determine the day of the Rapture.
It is an event which will come upon man unexpectedly. Matt 24:36 says, “No one
knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but
only the father.” Jesus then uses the example of the flood saying, “they knew
nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.”
(Matt 24:39) See Luke 17:26 where the Lord uses
Again, after speaking of a house being broken
into he says, “So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at
an hour when you do not expect him.” (Matt 24:44) Jesus then tells his
disciples about the ten virgins. (Matt 25:1-13) It is a parable which enjoins
watchfulness for the Lord ends by saying, “therefore keep watch, because you do
not know the day or the hour.”
In both Luke and Matthew we find the Lord
saying, “For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which
flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other.” (Luke 17:24; Matt
24:27) As unexpected as that first flash of lightning is, so unexpected is the
day when the Lord returns. Believers will know that his coming is nigh, even at
the very doors (Matt 24:33) when they see the signs of his return but the very
day of that return must ever be unexpected.
Writing to the Thessalonians, Paul says, “Now,
brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know
very well that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” (1
Thess 5:1-2) Paul then makes it clear that the wicked will be taken by
surprise, but not those who believe. Why? Because we know the day? No. It is
because the believer is in a constant state of watchfulness for the coming of
the Lord. When we read the book of Revelation we find a warning concerning the
unexpectedness of the Lord’s return. We read in Rev 16:15, “Behold, I come as a
thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk
naked, and they see his shame.”
A) One day the very day of Armageddon
will be known
While no one will ever know when the
resurrection and Rapture will take place until it has taken place, we find that
the nations will know, after it has taken place, the very day when Christ will
come with the armies of heaven to destroy sinners from the earth.
Let us assume that the resurrection and Rapture
takes place on March 31st 1993. According to the Pretribulation
teaching the Antichrist will receive absolute authority 1260 days or 42 months
after the Rapture, and Armageddon will take place exactly 1260 or 42 months
after he receives absolute authority. This makes for Armageddon to take place 2
520 days or 84 months or seven years (of 360 days each), after the Rapture.
Now, the 1260th day from
March 1st 1993 is 12th August 1996.
(made up of 1993 … 306 days;
1994 … 365 days;
1995 … 365 days;
1996 … 224 days.
Total … 1260 days.)
The 1260th day from the
12th August 1996 is January 23rd 2000 A.D.
(made up of 1996 … 142 days;
1997 … 365 days;
1998 … 365 days;
1999 … 365 days;
2000 … 23 days.
Total … 1260 days.)
So, according to our example we see:-
Rapture 1st
March 1993 A.D.
Midweek 12th
August 1996 A.D.
Armageddon 23rd January 2000 A.D.
Now, does the Scripture indicate that such a
determination of the date of Armageddon takes place once the Rapture is past?
Let us look at some Scriptures which confirm
that it does. During the first half of this seven year period (Daniel’s
seventieth week see Dan 9:24-27) the two witnesses will minister and they will
prophesy for 1260 days (Rev 11:3).
Until they have finished their testimony the
beast or Antichrist cannot harm them. However, when they have finished their
testimony the beast will kill them. (Rev 11:7) He does this as soon as he
receives his power and his throne and great authority from the dragon or Satan.
(Rev 13:2)
Thus we see that the following is true of that
seven year period:-
First
1260 days (42 months) … two witnesses have absolute power.
Second
1260 days (42 months) … Antichrist has absolute power.
Using the day that he receives this absolute
power and kills the two witnesses as a starting point, the Antichrist knows that
he has exactly 1260 days. Thus he will be able to calculate the very day of
Armageddon. When his time has expired to the very day, the Lord Jesus Christ
will come with the armies of heaven. So exactly 1260 days later the heavens
open and Christ comes riding upon a white horse. (Rev 19:11)
Now the Bible tells us that John “saw the beast
and the kings of the earth assembled to make war against him who sat
upon the horse, and against his army.” (Rev 19:19) It is clear from this that
the Antichrist (beast) knows the very day on which the Lord will come to wage
war against him and the kings of the earth, for they are assembled from all
over the world for that very day.
This is also made very clear in Rev 16:12-16
where we see the three unclean spirits like frogs “go out to the kings of the
whole world, (Greek … ‘oikoumene’ … inhabited earth) to gather them
together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty … and they gathered
them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Har-Magedon.”
What do we see here? We see these unclean
spirits gathering men together to a specific place and for a specific day to
war against the Lamb.
They
know the place Har-Magedon
They
know the day … 2 520 day exactly
after the resurrection
And the Rapture? Using our example then of the
Rapture taking place on the 1st March 1993, as the 23rd
January 2000 A.D. draws near, the summons will go out by means of these spirits
so that they will be in the great valley in Israel where the battle of
Armageddon is to take place. They will all be there for the very day which has
been determined, in our example, the 23rd January 2000 A.D. God even
causes the river Euphrates to dry up so as to make a way for the kings from the
sun-rising. (Rev 16:12)
(A reminder that it is
not our intention to set dates, the above dates are just an arbitrary example
to illustrate our point.)
So while the day on which the Lord comes into
the air to receive those dead who have been resurrected, and those living
believers who are transformed at his coming, is unknown and totally unexpected
being likened to the coming of a thief in the night, we can see that, at
Armageddon, the whole assembled armies of the nations are waiting for the very
day on which they know he will come to wage war on them.
B) The two gatherings
Jesus spoke of his coming after the Great
Tribulation when he said that “immediately after the Tribulation of those days”
the sun would be darkened, the sign of the Son of Man would be seen in the sky,
men would see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and
great glory and then he would send his angels forth.” (Matt 24:29-31)
According to the Lord, his angels would remove
the wicked who would be cast into the furnace of fire, while the righteous
would inherit the
Paul the apostle was given the Revelation that,
previous to this the Lord would have come to resurrect the righteous dead and
to transform the living saints. Both would be caught up to meet the Lord in the
air, but the wicked would be left behind to go through the Great Tribulation.
What Paul taught was not what Jesus had taught or else Paul would never have
said, “I show you a mystery.” (1 Cor 15:51) A mystery is a truth which has not
been taught or revealed previously.
Let us tabulate this:- Paul said that the Lord
Jesus would return and he would remove all who belonged to him, both from the
grave and from the everyday walk of life. Those who were removed in this manner
would receive glorified bodies at this time and would be equal to angels. (Luke
20:36) There would be seven years of Great Tribulation during which time there would
be those who would turn to the Lord and become believers. This is why God sends
the two witnesses and also the 144 000 as servants of God. See Rev 7 and Rev
11.
Then what Jesus taught would come to pass. He
would return and, at Armageddon, would destroy the armies of the Antichrist
then his angels would remove all the wicked leaving only the righteous behind
to multiply and replenish the earth.
The promises of Jesus Christ
The Lord Jesus made it very clear that we were
not to have an easy time while we were here on earth. In John 16:33 he tells
his disciples, “in the world ye shall have Tribulation: but be of good cheer; I
have overcome the world.”
Paul remarks to the believers in Asia “that we
must through much tribulation enter into the
It is contended by the Post-Tribulationists
that those who advocate a Pretribulation Rapture may not be of the same mind as
these first century Christians. What they fail to observe is that there is a
difference between the tribulation which is inflicted upon the believer by the
world because he is a Christian, and the tribulation which God is going to
inflict upon the ungodly at the end of this age.
In writing to the Thessalonians Paul says in 1
Thess 3:4, “For verily when we were with you, we told you before that we should
suffer tribulation; even as it came to pass, and ye know.”
Then in 2 Thess 1:4-10 Paul speaks of their
patience and faith in all their persecutions and Tribulations which they
endured saying “It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to
them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord
Jesus shall be revealed from heaven … taking vengeance …”
In the Greek the words ‘trouble’ and ‘troubled’
are the verb form of the noun translated ‘tribulation’. Thus the apostle is
saying that the tribulation which is coming upon the church which is his body,
in this present time, is going to be repaid with interest upon an ungodly world
in the end.
It is the strangest of reasoning on the part of
some to expect God’s saints not only to endure tribulation at the hands of a
wicked world but also to remain here and endure God’s wrath which is pored out
as recompense to the ungodly for what they have done to his own called-out
church.
It is asserted by some that God will preserve
them through the Great Tribulation down here. Seeing that this time of trouble
is coming upon the “whole inhabited earth” one is rather at a loss to establish
just exactly where God is going to preserve them.
Now the apostle Paul is very specific in 1
Thess 5:1-9. He is telling the Thessalonians about the Day of the Lord. We will
look at this Day of the Lord under a separate heading later on, but it is
sufficient to say here that it is a day of God’s wrath because, when it comes,
sudden destruction is going to engulf the wicked. But, says Paul, “God has not
destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus
Christ.” (1 Thess 5:9) Now the word salvation does not only always refer to
spiritual salvation. It can and does also refer to salvation from circumstances.
Thus Paul has already written earlier in the
epistle, telling his readers that they are to “wait for his son from heaven,
whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.” (1
Thess 1:10) Luke records what the Lord has to say about this deliverance from
the coming wrath. We read in Luke 21:34-36 the words of Jesus, “be careful, or
your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the
anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For
it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always
on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to
happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.” In the
Greek interlinear it is so much clearer “… begging that ye may be able to
escape all these things being about to happen …”
Note what the Lord Jesus says:-
1. It is going to affect all those who live on
the face of all the earth.
2. Some will escape these things (pertaining to
God’s wrath) and we are to watch and pray that we may be amongst them.
3. Those who escape, will escape when they are
on the point of happening. Here the New Berkeley version is very clear. It
reads, “Pray unceasingly so that you may have strength to escape all these
impending events and to stand before the Son of Man.” In the numeric New
Testament we read, “that ye may prevail to escape all these (things)
that shall come to pass.”
4. Those who prevail to escape the impending
events will do so to stand before the Son of Man.
It may be helpful here
to look at the word ‘escape’. In the Greek it is the word ‘ekphugo’ and it is
found seven times in the New Testament.
Luke 21:36 The escape of those who watch and pray
from the events which will take place during the Great Tribulation.
Acts 16:27 The jailer at
Acts 19:16 The seven sons of Sceva escaped the
demon-possessed man by fleeing naked from the house.
Rom 2:3 Paul asks the Romans if they suppose
that they can escape the judgment of God.
2 Cor 11:33 Paul escaped from
1 Thess 5:3 When the Day of the Lord comes the wicked
shall not escape.
Heb 2:3 How shall we escape if we ignore or
neglect such a great salvation.
Vine says of this
Greek word … to flee out of a place.
(ek … out of; phugo … flee.)
Before the flood we
see:-
Enoch
caught up … a type of the church.
Noah
in the ark … a type of
The one escapes all wrath by being
removed, the other preserved through the wrath in a place of safety.
The blessed hope
Paul writes to Titus and speaks of
us “looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great
God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.” (Titus 2:13)
It would be strange of the apostle
to refer to the coming of Jesus as our blessed hope, if we were to have to go
through the Great Tribulation. Surely, were that the case, the blessed hope of
the believer would be to die before the Lord came or before the Great
Tribulation began?
His coming can only be a blessed
hope if he comes before the Great Tribulation begins. It would also be strange
for the Lord to allow his people to remain on the earth while his wrath is made
manifest. It is because many people do not realise just how awful that time is
going to be, that they can glibly say that the church will have to go through
the Great Tribulation.
The departure of the church
In recent years there has been a
re-examination of the passage to be found in 2 Thess 2:1-5. Paul says, “… for
(the Day of the Lord) shall not come, except there come a falling away
first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition …”
The popular teaching of this passage
presumes that the falling away is to be seen in the turning away of men from
the truth in the last days, and an embracing of error.
We all acknowledge that the
Scriptures do teach that this is so, but, is that what this passage teaches, or
is the apostle trying to make another point? The whole question hinges on our
understanding of the Greek word ‘apostasia’ which is translated “falling away”
here.
Dr E. Schuyler English and Kenneth
Wuest present another view which cannot just be lightly brushed aside. Dr
English, in his booklet “Re-thinking the Rapture”, points out that some of the
earliest translators of the Bible rendered the passage differently.
William Tyndale’s version of the NT
translated and published at
The word apostasia has come over
into the English language, and the word apostasy has one
meaning only and that is “a departure from the faith”. That is not so in the
Greek. The neuter form is to be found in three places in the NT:-
Matt
5:31 give her a writing of divorcement
Matt
19:7 to give a writing of divorcement
Mark
10:4 to write a bill of divorcement
Here ‘apostasion’ is rendered
divorcement. To divorce someone is to send them away or to cause them to
depart. The feminine ‘apostasia’ is found in two places in the NT, here in 2
Thess 2:3 and in Acts 21:21, “… thou teachest all the Jews which are among the
Gentiles to forsake Moses …” Paul is accused of encouraging the Jews to depart
from the teachings of Moses. In Acts 21:21 Luke explains what is being departed
from. It is the teaching of Moses.
But in 2 Thessalonians there is no
explanation as to what men will depart from. Is it the truth? The passage does
not say so. In fact the real apostasy (using the English usage), which is the
manifestation of the man of lawlessness, only comes after the ‘apostasia’.
On page 68 of his booklet Dr English
says of apostasia, “apostasia generally carries the meaning of defection,
revolt, or rebellion against God. These are the primary meanings of the word,
as found in most lexicons. There is a secondary connotation in Liddell and
Scott’s Greek-English lexicon, namely: disappearance, or departure.” In the
passage under consideration Paul says “the departure” must come before the Day
of the Lord, and only then can the man of lawlessness be revealed.
The contention of these brethren is
that, seeing that the writer does not specify what departure he is referring to
in verse 3, we must look at the whole passage, so, going back to verse one, we
read, “now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and
our gathering together unto him …” Thus, it is contended, the departure which
comes before the Day of the Lord and the manifestation of the man of sin, is
not a spiritual departure from the truth, rather, it is a physical departure
when we will be gathered together unto him (Christ).
Thus
the Day of the Lord cannot come:
The
man of lawlessness cannot be revealed:
until the church has departed at the
time of the Rapture.
The Revelation proves it
It is unfortunate that most
Pretribulationists insist on placing the Rapture between chapters three and
four of the book of Revelation. Then they interpret the twenty four elders as
being the glorified church, whereas, in many Scriptures, it can be clearly seen
that these elders are individuals. (Rev 4:4, 10; Rev 5:5, 6, 8, 11, 14; Rev
7:11, 13; Rev 11:16; Rev 14:3; Rev 19:4 … note “one of the elders” in both Rev
5:5 and Rev 7:13.)
It is quite clear that the breaking
of the sixth seal by the Lord Jesus brings this present age to an end, and the
Day of the Lord begins. All that happens under the first five seals can be
explained in the light of the preliminaries which precede the Great
Tribulation. As has already been mentioned, both Peter and John make it clear
that immediately before the great and terrible Day of the Lord, the sun will be
turned into darkness and the full moon into blood. (Acts 2:20; Rev 6:12) In the
passage Rev 6:12-7:17, we see four things which will happen when the sixth seal
is broken. There is a sequence in the recording of these things, but they will
take place at the same time.
1
Great
astral (cosmic) signs.
These include the dark sun, the
blood-like moon, meteorites falling upon the earth, and every island and
mountain is moved out of its place. (Rev 6:12-14)
2
All
men recognise that the great day of God’s wrath has finally come and they cry
to the rocks and mountains to fall upon them to hide them from him who sits
upon the throne. (Rev 6:15-17)
3
God
tells his angels not to harm the earth, the sea and the trees until his 144 000
servants (Jews) are sealed. Note well that these Jewish servants are on the
earth. (Rev 7:1-8)
4
An innumerable host is seen in heaven for the first time. These are the
resurrected, transformed and raptured saints. The dead in Christ and the
transformed living saints. (Rev 7:9-1).
Contrast between his
coming for the church and at Armageddon
Rapture & resurrection |
Armageddon (Revelation) |
|
1 |
He returns for his disciples in
the same manner as he left his disciples when he ascended from the |
He returns riding upon a white
horse, with eyes as a flame of fire, his head crowned with many crowns, and
clothed with garments dipped in blood. (Rev 19:11) |
2 |
He comes to receive those who are
his own, so that we may be with him in the place that he has gone to prepare
for us. (John 14:3) |
His object at Armageddon is to
execute judgement upon all the ungodly. He makes war upon the nations who
have assembled to resist him. (Rev 19:11; Ps 2) |
3 |
He comes alone. He left alone from
the He said, “I will receive you unto myself.”
(John 14:3) |
He is accompanied by the armies of
heaven all riding upon white horses, clothed in white linen white and clean.
(Rev 19:14) Jude says, “the Lord cometh with ten thousand
of his saints to execute judgement upon all …” (Jude 14-15) The Lord Jesus “shall be revealed from heaven
with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance upon those who know
not God …” (2 Thess 1:7-8) |
4 |
The Lord comes with a word of
command, an archangel’s voice, and a trump of God. (1 Thess 4:16) It is needful to emphasise that the judgement trumpets of the
Revelation signal (each one of them), a new manifestation of the wrath of God
and of the lamb, whereas the trump of God signals the resurrection of the
dead and the gathering of all Christ’s own to a meeting with him in the air. Trumpets were sounded to summon and to warn
the people of God. (1 Sam 13:3, Ezek 33:1-6) |
Here the Lord comes, not with the
trump of God, but with a sharp sword in his mouth, that with it he might
smite the nations. These are the nations who have been gathered to the battle
of Armageddon by the unclean spirits (which are demons) sent out by Satan,
the beast, and the false prophet. (Rev 19:15; Rev 16:14) Here is no coming in grace for the redeemed
but a coming in wrath to destroy all the ungodly from off the face of the
earth. |
5 |
All the dead in Christ are to be
resurrected at this time. First it was the firstfruits as we see
recorded in Matt 27:50-53, now it is the harvest which has been sown in the
earth throughout the ages. |
In the Revelation we see that, after
the battle of Armageddon, it is only those who “were beheaded for the witness
of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had
received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and
reigned with Christ a thousand years.” (Rev 20:4-5) These are the gleanings of the harvest. Note well: the rest of the dead lived not until the
thousand years were finished. (Rev 20:5) |
6 |
The living saints are transformed
just after the dead saints are resurrected. The dead in Christ shall rise first.
(1 Thess 4:16) Thus all who partake in this great event are
glorified and have resurrection bodies. They are now equal unto the angels,
they neither marry nor can they die. (Luke 20:35-36) Who will populate the
earth if the church remains until the end of the Tribulation? |
Many who turn to Christ during the
Great Tribulation will be slain. (Beheading seems to be the method that will
be used to kill them.) Those who remain will not be glorified, Jesus said of
these, “come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world.” (Matt 25:34) “Then shall the righteous
shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father.” (Matt 13:43) |
7 |
The Lord Jesus removes his people
after he has given to each one of them a resurrection body. This body is a
spiritual body as opposed to a natural body which they had before. (1 Cor
15:44) The place where the Lord meets these saints
is in the air. They are caught up in clouds to meet the Lord in the air. (1
Thess 4:17) The wicked are left behind. Some will turn to
the Lord and be saved, others will be hardened in their opposition to the
Lord and will throw off all restraint. Saints are immortal here, and they go
to the place which Jesus said he was preparing for them. This is most
probably the new Jerusalem |
After the Great Tribulation the
angels remove the wicked. “The Son of Man shall send forth his angels and
they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them that do
iniquity.” (Matt 13:41) As king of the earth (Zech 14:9) Jesus will
determine who of all men who have survived the holocaust of the Great
Tribulation, will enter into his millennial kingdom. All who go up to
Armageddon will perish there, but the wicked who do not go up will be dealt
with at the throne of his glory where they judge those who survive the Great
Tribulation as to their worthiness to enter his kingdom. (Matt 25) Saints are mortal and remain on earth as
citizens of the Millennial kingdom. |
8 |
Once the saints are resurrected
and transformed they are equal to the angels. Thus they do not need or
require the ministry of angels to convey them to meet the Lord in the air.
Thus they, having the power that angels have, will be able to do what angels
do. Thus they will rise of their own accord to meet the Lord in the air. |
The saints here (as well as the
wicked) will all be in natural and not in glorified bodies. They will be
unable to do what the saints at the Rapture can do. The earth is devastated
beyond measure, its surface is twisted as the result of the terrible
earthquakes which have rocked it. Thus the Lord will use angels to convey all
who are alive on the earth after Armageddon to the place where he will judge
them. “The angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just,
and shall cast them into a furnace of fire.” (Matt 13:49) So also the elect. (Matt 24:31) |
9 |
This day on which the Rapture
takes place will come unexpectedly upon the ungodly. It will come as a snare
upon them. (Luke 21:35) “When they (the ungodly) shall say, peace and
safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman
with child; and they shall not escape.” (1 Thess 5:3) Believers are waiting and watching. (Luke
21:36) |
Here the ungodly are aware of the
very day on which Armageddon will take place. As the beast is given power for
42 months (Rev 13:5), and as his power is terminated by the return of the
Lord at Armageddon the very day of Armageddon can be calculated. Thus the
armies of the nations gather for a specific day on which they know the Lord
will appear from heaven to destroy the Antichrist and to cast Satan into the
Abyss. Ungodly are waiting and watching as they know
the day of his appearing. |
10 |
Thus the day and hour of the
coming of the Lord for his own at the resurrection and the Rapture is
unknown. We can only know that it is near. (Matt 24:36. Mk 13:32) |
There is a time coming when Satan,
and his servant the beast, will know the very day the Lord will descend with
the armies of heaven. A vast army of men will be waiting to fight against the
army which Christ will lead. |
11 |
Thus this day will come as a thief
in the night. (1 Thess 5:2) In one moment the whole world will realise
that the saints have disappeared and will exclaim that the great day of the
wrath of God has come. (Rev 6:17) |
This day does not come as a thief
in the night. It is known that the Lord will come 1260 days after the beast
has received his power and authority, and they will be ready to fight him.
Remember that Armageddon is not a war of men against men but of men against
God. (Rev 19:19) |
12 |
The judgement of the saints who
take part in the first resurrection takes place. Thus we read, “thy wrath
came, and the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give their
reward to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear
thy name, the small and the great: and to destroy them that destroy the
earth. (Rev 11:18) |
Here we need to see what happens as the Lord
comes after the Great Tribulation. First a vast army is assembled at a
specific location in anticipation of the Lord’s coming. Those who assemble
thus do so, not to welcome the Lord, but to make war on him. This entire army
is destroyed at his appearing. However, there are those who do not go up to
battle who are evil. All these wicked survivors of the Great Tribulation are
gathered to face the Lord as king of the earth. At the throne of his glory
the king will judge the wicked and cause them to be cast into everlasting
punishment. No wicked survivor will be permitted to enter into the millennial
reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. |
13 |
Thus the Lord resurrects and
transforms his saints, judges them with regard to rewarding them, and they
then remain with him forever as glorified beings equal to angels. |
The Lord utterly destroys the
ungodly. There are no survivors at Armageddon Those who do not go up to war
on the Lord but are ungodly will not prevail to enter the Millennium as no
enemy of Christ will be permitted to survive the judgement of the nations.
(Matt 25) |
14 |
The saints escape and stand before
the Son of Man. We read, “but you be vigilant and pray unceasingly so that
you may have strength to escape all those impending events and to stand in
the presence of the Son of Man.” (Luke 21:36) Paul makes it clear that God has not
appointed us unto wrath. We read, “for God has not destined us for his anger,
but for the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thess
5:9) This salvation is from the wrath poured out
upon the earth during the Day of the Lord. In 1 Thess 1:10 Paul refers to the
Lord Jesus as the one who delivers us from the coming wrath.” |
As far as the wicked are concerned
we read, “when they (the ungodly) say ‘peace and safety’ then sudden
destruction will come upon them like the birthpangs of a pregnant woman, and
there will be no escape.” (1 Thess 5:3) Paul says in 1 Thess 5:2 that the Day of the
Lord will come as a thief in the night. But we see that Armageddon does not
come as a thief in the night. All who dwell on the earth know just when it
will come. The saints who come to believe during the
Great Tribulation will also not escape. We read that the beast will make war on the
saints and to conquer them. (Rev 13:7) |
15 |
We read concerning the Rapture
that the Lord will be appearing “unto them that look for him.” (Heb 9:28) Thus this is a very selective appearing. He
does not appear to those who are not looking for him. |
When he comes all who dwell on the
earth shall see him. Thus we read “every eye shall see him.” (Rev 1:7) Also,
“and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power
and great glory.” (Matt 24:30) |
16 |
There are celestial signs which
will begin before the Great Tribulation, will continue right through it, and
will be the sign also that it has ended. There are three Scriptures which indicate
that the sun will turn black and the full moon will become blood-red before
the great and terrible Day of the Lord begins. The first is in Joel 2:31.
“The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the
great and terrible Day of the Lord come.” Peter quotes this in Acts 2:20. So
also when the lamb breaks the sixth seal in the Revelation “the sun became
black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.” (Rev 6:12) In the Revelation the ungodly recognise this
as the advent of the wrath of God and of the lamb. |
There are times during the Great
Tribulation when the sun, moon and stars will be affected. This is part of
the terror which will be the lot of men during that terrible time. These terrors will include death and
destruction raining down from the sky in the form of meteors and other such
things. But we read in Matt 24:29, “immediately after the Tribulation of
those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be
shaken.” The powers of heaven are seen by some as
being the various planetary bodies in our solar system. Note here that the
moon does not turn red but, rather, it does not shine at all. This will be
the end of the shaking of the earth and of our solar system, all part of the
manifestation of the end-time wrath of God. |
17 |
When the Rapture takes place the time of
Jacob's trouble begins. Thus when the church age ends, a time of great wrath
upon the people of |
Here we see that at Armageddon the
final deliverance of Certain Old Testament Scriptures indicate
that the elect here are the Jews who are gathered back to the These Jews recognise their Messiah and mourn.
(Zech 12:10) Those who have ill-treated the Lord’s
brethren will be dealt with. See Matt 25:31-46. |
18 |
The appearing of the Lord for the
church is called “the blessed hope”. (Titus 2:13) The appearing of the Lord,
should it come after the Great Tribulation, as far as the church is
concerned, would be no blessed hope, rather, the blessed hope of church
saints would be to die before the coming of the Lord should they have to go
through the Great Tribulation. |
It is hard to see how, if there
was only one appearing, and that after the Great Tribulation, why that coming
should be the blessed hope for the church but a time of terrible trouble for
the Jew Surely the Jew who sees the abomination of desolation in the holy
place and flees is also a believer? Rev 12:17 says that they keep the
commandments of Moses and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. |
19 |
Another amazing thing is that
according to those who believe that the church goes through the Tribulation,
the Lord will preserve them here, yet there is no place in the Scripture
where this is indicated. Surely if the beast is going to make war on the
saints it will include the church saints if they are on the earth? They will
not be glorified if the Rapture has not taken place, how then, and where will
God protect and preserve the church saints? In fact the Bible tells us that
all the saints of God will incur the wrath of the Antichrist but Why not the church? |
When we come to the faithful Jews
who “understand” (Matt 24:15; Dan 12:10) and accept Christ as their Messiah,
we find that they are told to “flee to the mountains”. (Matt 24:16) We read in Rev 12:6 that |
20 |
Fulness of the Gentiles takes
place. What does this mean? We read in Rom 11:25 (Berk.) “so that you may
not be self-opinionated brothers, I want you not to be ignorant of this
secret: partial insensibility has come over The Living Bible says, “until all of you
Gentiles come to Christ – those of you who will.” Thus, at the Rapture the church, which is
almost exclusively a Gentile body, will be completed with the last Gentile
added to the body of Christ. Thus when the last living stone is placed in the
church, the Rapture will take place. |
At the time of the Revelation of
Jesus Christ at the time of Armageddon we find that there is no mention of
the church, rather, it is the salvation of So we read, “And I will pour out on the house
of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and
supplication, so that, when they have looked on him who they have pierced,
they shall mourn for him …” (Zech 12:10) This fulfils Rom
11:26, “and this is how all Thus |
21 |
The earth experiences great
devastation after the Rapture. There are many Scriptures which show that God
is going to cause the earth to experience tidal waves and earthquakes which
will change the whole topography of the earth. Isaiah says, “The Lord is
going to devastate the earth and leave it desolate. He will twist the earth’s
surface and scatter its people.” Again, “… and earth’s foundations will shake.
The earth will crack and shatter and split open. The earth itself will
stagger like a drunken man and sway like a hut in a storm.” (Isa 24:18-20) Jesus said, “for those days will be a time of
Tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation
which God created, until now, and never shall.” (Mark 13:19) That the Rapture will be followed by
disastrous times is made clear also by Paul the apostle. He writes, “while
they are saying, ‘peace and safety’ then destruction will come upon them
suddenly like the birthpangs upon a woman with child; and they shall not
escape.” (1 Thess 5:3) |
After the Rapture, a blessed
event, a time of unparalleled wrath is unleashed upon the earth. After the Revelation of Jesus Christ in
flaming fire taking vengeance upon man at Armageddon, an event which reveals
God’s wrath and anger against sinners, there will come a time of blessing and
reconstruction. The earth will be made a fit abode for men. There are many Old Testament Scriptures which
speak of the great blessings which will follow after the great battle of God
the Almighty. The earth will experience the reign of the
Lord Jesus Christ and the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the
earth as the waters cover the sea. (Isa 11:9; Heb 2:14) One of the first things that the Lord will
enforce as king of the earth is an absolute ban on all warfare. “Nation shall
not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none
shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.”
(Micah 4:3-4) There could be no greater contrast than that
between the events following the Rapture and those following the Revelation.
How can the Rapture then only take place after the time of the Great
Tribulation? They must be separated by a certain lapse of time or else
Scripture contradicts itself. |
22 |
Paul says “he who hinders will
hinder until he be taken out of the way, and then that lawless one will be
revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to an
end with the appearing of his coming.” This passage makes it clear that the church
must first depart and only after the church has departed will the lawless one
be revealed. |
The doom of the Antichrist comes
with the Revelation of Jesus Christ at Armageddon The coming of the Lord
Jesus at the head of the armies of heaven have this express purpose, to
terminate the time of the misrule of the Antichrist. John tells us that when Jesus comes in this
manner, that the beast will be seized, and with him the false prophet, and
these two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with
brimstone.” (Rev 19:20) |
7. The
Day of the Lord
This is a term used of a period of time which
is much longer than a literal day. That the word ‘day’ can be used in this
manner is clear for elsewhere we read of the “day of salvation”. (2 Cor 6:2)
We will look at the Old Testament first, to
discover what the prophets had to say about the Day of the Lord and then we
will look at the passages where it occurs in the New Testament.
Old Testament
The first passage is to be found in Isaiah
2:12, where the prophet details what is going to take place when the Day of the
Lord comes. The passage gives great detail about the wrath of God being poured
out upon men, and their fleeing in terror in an endeavour to hide from his
presence.
There is a striking parallel between Isa
2:10-22 and Rev 6:15-17. Verse 19 in Isaiah is a key verse. Here we read “and
men will go into caves of the rocks, and into holes of the ground before the
terror of the Lord and the splendour of his majesty when he arises to make the
earth tremble.”
Isaiah continues in the same vein in chapter
13:6-13. He speaks of the Day of the Lord coming as a destruction from the
Almighty. He writes, “Therefore all hands will fall limp, and everyman’s heart
will melt, and they will be terrified.” The same language is used than as Paul used
in 1 Thessalonians 5:3. Isaiah says “men will writhe as a woman in labour.”
Describing the Day of the Lord Isaiah says,
“Behold, the Day of the Lord is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger.”
The shaking of the earth is a feature of the Day of the Lord which is repeated
here. “Therefore I shall make the heavens tremble, and the earth shall be
shaken from its place at the fury of the Lord of hosts in the day of his
burning anger.” Thus it is the day of his burning anger and this fact is
made clear by all the prophets who refer to this great day.
In chapter thirty four of Isaiah we are told
that the Day of the Lord will entail the destruction of the armies of all
nations. Isaiah writes, “The Lord’s indignation is against all the nations, and
his wrath against all their armies.” (Verse 2) The prophet then proceeds to
tell of the overthrow of the armies of the nations. Verse 4 is very similar to
the description of the signs which will take place when the sixth seal is
broken in Rev 6:12-14. “All the host of heaven will wear away, and the sky
will be rolled up like a scroll.”
Isaiah says, “The sword of the Lord is filled
with blood … for the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the
cause of Zion” (Vv 6-8) Jesus made it clear when he read the passage from
Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth that he was proclaiming the favourable year
of the Lord, leaving unquoted the last part of Isa 61:2, “the day of vengeance
of our God.”
Over and over again, the Bible makes it clear
that the Day of the Lord is a day of vengeance of our God (see Isa 63:1-4 as
well). Jeremiah the prophet speaks of the Day of the Lord in chapter 30. He
writes, “Alas! For that day is great so that none is like it: it is even the
time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” (v 7) The 30th
chapter speaks of this time as a time of God’s wrath. “We have heard a voice of
trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth
travail with child? Wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins,
as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness.” (Vv 5-6) The
language here is much like that of Paul’s in his letter to the Thessalonians,
where in 1 Thess 5:1-3 he describes the Day of the Lord using the same
illustration of a woman in labour to describe the events which will engulf men
at that time.
In Jeremiah 25:27-33 the prophet describes the
time as a time when the Lord will have a controversy with the nations. He says,
“And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even
unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered,
nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.” (v 33)
Joel is a very short book but the prophet has
much to say about that day. We read in Joel 1:15, “Alas for the day! For the
Day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it
come.” Then we read in Joel 2:1-2, “… let all the inhabitants of the land
tremble: for the Day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a day of darkness,
and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness.”
Then, “The earth shall quake before them; the
heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall
withdraw their shining: and the Lord shall utter his voice before his army: for
his camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth his word: for the Day
of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?” (Joel 2:10-11)
The signs in the heavens occur during the Day
of the Lord when the Great Tribulation comes to an end. But the next passage of
Scripture tells us what signs will precede the Day of the Lord. This is the
passage which Peter quotes on the day of Pentecost We read, “… and I will show
wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before
the great and the terrible Day of the Lord shall come …” (Joel 2:28-32)
As we have seen, these signs are the dividing
point of this present age and the Day of the Lord. In Joel 3:9-17 we have a
detailed description of that time. It will be a time of war for plowshares will
be turned into swords and pruning hooks into spears. The heathen will be
summoned to the
Associated with all this, we are told about the
signs which will be seen in the heavenly bodies. Joel says “The Lord shall roar
out of
Ezekiel tells us that water is going to flow
out from the threshold of the Millennial temple and there will be a very great
river flowing down into the dead sea. The water will no doubt transform that
desert area even as the
Amos tells of the restoration of
The prophet Obadiah speaks of the Day of the Lord
as a time when “the Gentiles will reap what they have sown but there will be
great blessing in the land and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.” (Obad 15-21)
Zephaniah describes the awfulness of the Day of
the Lord in his short book. We read, “The great Day of the Lord is near, it is
near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the Day of the Lord: the mighty
man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and
distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess,
a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and alarm against the
fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men,
and they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord:
and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung.
Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the Day of
the Lord’s wrath …” (Zeph 1:14-18)
Thus, this is the terrible day of God’s wrath,
and, when it comes, men will recognise it as such. Chapter 3:8-20 of Zephaniah
speaks again of this time of the wrath of God and then continues to describe
what conditions will be like upon earth after God’s wrath has been completed.
Perhaps the greatest promise in this section is to be found in verse 15, “the
king of
The prophet Zechariah tells us that “the Day of
the Lord cometh … for I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle …
then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he
fought in the day of battle.” (Zech 14:1-21)
Some of the startling events of that period of
human history are:-
1. The Lord will alight upon the
2.
The last reference in the Old Testament to the
Day of the Lord is to be found in the book of the prophet Malachi It is of very
great importance, for here we are told that the prophet Elijah is to come back
before the Day of the Lord. We read in Mal 4:1-6, “surely the day is coming; it
will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble,
and that day that is coming will set them on fire, says the Lord Almighty.”
Following this statement concerning that coming
Day of the Lord, we are told that the sun of righteousness will arise with
healing in its wings. There is a call to remember the Law of Moses, the servant
of God, and then we read, “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the
great and dreadful Day of the Lord comes.” (Mal 4:5)
Some regard this as having been fulfilled by
John the baptizer. We read in Matt 11:14, “And if you are willing to accept it,
he (John) is the Elijah who was to come.” Now it is not possible for John to
have been Elijah himself. The story of how the angel Gabriel told Zechariah,
the father of John, that his wife Elizabeth would conceive, is clearly recorded
in Luke 1:5-25.
John himself denied that he was Elijah. In John
1:21 he was asked, “are you Elijah?” And he answered, “I am not.” The coming of
John was a partial fulfillment of the prophecy but it remains yet to be
fulfilled by Elijah himself.
It is of interest to note the mention of Moses
in Mal 4:4. We see that Moses and Elijah appeared with the Lord Jesus on the
Mount of Transfiguration, to discuss the Lord’s death. (Luke 9:28)
There is much discussion as to the identity of
the two witnesses of the book of Revelation. Some contend that they will be
Enoch and Elijah, others Moses and Elijah. The contention that it could not be
Moses as none die twice is not valid as there are examples in the Bible of those
who were raised from the dead and then they died a second time.
What is of interest in Malachi is the fact that
Elijah will come before the Day of the Lord and the question immediately
arises, “How long before?” This cannot be answered. It could be only a matter
of days, and I believe that it is only a matter of days, or possibly even, only
hours. The fact is that the church could be aware of the presence of the two
witnesses before the Rapture takes place.
The Day of the Lord in the New Testament
The phrase Day of the Lord only occurs in Acts
2:20 and in 1 Thess 5:2; 2 Thess 2:2. The passage in Acts is quoted by Peter
from Joel. It is clear from this portion of Scripture that the Day of the Lord
will be preceded by some unique signs.
Peter says, “I will show wonders in the heaven
above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The
sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming
of the great and glorious Day of the Lord.” There will therefore be ample
evidence in the heavens as well as on the earth, that the coming of the Lord
Jesus is at the very doors. Of course, it is only evident to those who are
Christians, and not to the ungodly.
Paul writes to the Thessalonians saying, “you
know very well that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
While people are saying, ‘peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them
suddenly, as labour pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But
you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you
like a thief.”
Those in darkness will be taken by surprise.
Those who are of the light will not be surprised.
In 2 Thess 2:2 it would appear that the
believers were perturbed by the fact that someone was saying that they were
already in the Tribulation. The Day of the Lord has come already was the cry of
these false teachers. Not so, says Paul the apostle. That day will not come
until the ‘apostasia’ takes place.
Most translations read “rebellion” or “falling
away” or “apostasy” or some other such rendering. Dr E. Scuyler English in his
book “Re-thinking the Rapture” shows how early translators such as Tyndale,
Coverdale and Beza rendered the word ‘apostasia’ by the English word
“departure”. That the Greek word ‘apostasia’ can be rendered departure is made
clear by Liddell & Scott.
Quoting concerning ‘apostasia’ from page 68 of
Dr English's book, we read, “There is a secondary connotation in Liddell and
Scott’s Greek-English lexicon, namely: disappearance, or departure.” That
certain Greek words can have more than one meaning is clear. The word
translated angel (a supernatural being) is also translated messenger where a
human is indicated. That a departure is referred to in the context is clear for
Paul speaks of “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to
him” in 2 Thess 2:1. Furthermore, the rebellion comes after the Holy Spirit
ceases to restrain and not before the Day of the Lord. The Holy Spirit
will cease restraining once the Day of the Lord begins.
8. The
Great Tribulation … how long does it last?
Here is where we need to go to the prophecy of
Daniel concerning the seventy sevens determined upon the people of
“Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people
and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for
wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and
prophecy and to anoint the most holy.” (Dan 9:24)
Seventy sevens give us 490 and the context
reveals that this period of time is 490 years.
Dan 9:25-26 tells us that, “from the issuing of
the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the anointed one, the ruler,
comes, there will be seven ‘sevens’, and sixty-two ‘sevens’.”
After this period of sixty-nine ‘sevens’ “the
anointed one will be cut off.” This refers to the death of the Lord Jesus upon
the cross. Since then the last ‘seven’ has been held in suspense as God does
not count time when
Thus from the Rapture to the Revelation,
Daniel's 70th week must be fulfilled. Once the seventieth week is
completed, Christ will return to establish his kingdom here on earth. This
seventieth week is the time of Jacob's trouble. (Jer 30:7) John, the writer of
the Revelation, tells of there being war in heaven between the archangel
Michael and Satan and his hosts. (Rev 12:7) This is what Daniel says, “and at
that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the
children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was
since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people
shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” (Dan
12:1. See also Matt 24:21; Mark 13:19.)
9. The
Great Tribulation … the first half
The Great Tribulation is divided into two
halves. This division is marked by the fact that, in the middle of the 70th
week, the Antichrist will break the covenant that he made with
Isaiah writes, “Therefore, hear the word of the
Lord, O scoffers, who rule this people who are in
But God says, “your covenant with death will be
cancelled, and your pact with Sheol (Hades) shall not
stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, then you will become its
trampling place.” (Isa 28:18)
So Daniel says, “And he will make a firm
covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put
a stop to sacrifice and grain offering.” (Dan 9:27)
Then the abomination of desolation will be set
up in the
When the sixth seal is broken we see:-
1. A great earthquake, the sun turns black, and
the full moon turns blood-red. Meteorites fall to the earth, the sky is split
apart (Isa 34:4), and every island and every mountain will be moved out of
their places. (Rev 6:12-14). The sun turning black and the full moon turning
blood-red are the signs which immediately precede the Day of the Lord.
2. All who dwell upon the earth recognise that
the time of God’s wrath has come. They cry out to the rocks and the mountains,
“Fall on us and hide us from the presence of him who sits on the throne, and
from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come;
and who is able to stand?” (Rev 6:15-17) Here unsaved men finally recognise
that the great day of God’s wrath is at hand.
We must remember that while these events are
described in a certain order they actually all take place simultaneously. So
the heavenly signs, the recognition of the wrath of God by sinners, the sealing
of God’s 144 000 servants and the arrival of the great multitude in heaven, all
take place at the same instant of time, that is, when the Lord Jesus Christ
breaks the sixth seal.
During the first half of the Great Tribulation,
a period of 3½ years, 42 months or 1260 days, there will be an opportunity for
people to believe and so to be saved. Those who are saved will not, however, be
part of the church. It will be seen that those who do not turn to the Lord
during this period, will certainly not do so during the second half of the
Great Tribulation. This will be due to the fact that all will be required to
receive the mark of the beast. (Rev 13:16-18) All who will not will find that
the Antichrist will make war on them. (Rev 13:7) Some of these Tribulation
saints will go into captivity, some of them will be martyred. (Rev 13:10)
The whole of the first period of forty two
months will find the two witnesses dominating the whole world scene. Until they
finish their testimony (Rev 11:7) they will be indestructible.
“If any one desires to harm them, fire proceeds
out of their mouth and devours their enemies; and if any one would desire to
harm them, in this manner he must be killed. These have power to shut up the
sky, in order that rain may not fall during the days of their prophesying; and
they have power over the waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth
with every plague, as often as they desire.” (Rev 11:5-6)
These signs are the same as those wrought by
Moses and Elijah As we have seen already, Elijah must return before the great
and notable Day of the Lord. His association with Moses makes Moses the most
likely person to fulfill the role of the second witness. Some would make this man
Enoch. It is not really material as to who these men are. The important fact is
that they are God’s representatives here on earth for the first half of the
Great Tribulation.
When they are killed by the Antichrist, he
breaks his covenant with
Let us see some of the manifestations of this
wrath in the first half.
A. The
first trumpet
Fire and hail mixed with blood falls
upon the earth resulting in a third of the earth being burned up, a third of
the trees, and all the green grass being burned up. (Rev 8:7)
B. The
second trumpet
A great mountain burning with fire
falls into the sea and destroys a third of the creatures and a third of the
ships. The sea becomes like blood. (Rev 8:8-9)
What brings about these
catastrophes? God will cause the solar system to become unstable. The earthquakes,
falling mountains, shifting islands, burning mountain and all other such
happening are literal. They come about as the result of some planet or comet
going out of orbit and interacting with the planet earth. This will cause havoc
on the earth.
C. The
third trumpet
Fallout from the heavens will cause
the waters of the earth, particularly the drinking water, to become poisonous.
(Rev 8:10-11)
D. The
fourth trumpet
The solar system and the stars will
not be seen from the earth for a time. This is again part of the havoc caused
by the planet or comet which will plague the earth at this time. Of course, God
will be using his creation to fulfill his will, and to punish mankind for their
wickedness. This will not be the culmination of the first week’s woes, but
there are others that are worse which will bring the world up to the middle of
the week.
E. The
fifth trumpet … the first woe
We find that the wrath of God
continues, but with a difference. The source of man’s misery under the first
woe is not the heavens. God now allows the shaft of the Abyss to be opened, and
out of the Abyss there issues forth vast hosts of evil beings who have been
confined there. They are led by a fallen angel named Apollyon or Abaddon, a name
meaning destroyer. (Rev 9:11)
The Abyss is located in the centre
of the earth. The demons who possessed legion asked the Lord Jesus not to send
them into the Abyss. Luke 8:31. We read that the Lord himself went there. “do
not say in your heart, ‘who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ
down), or ‘who will descend into the Abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from
the dead.)” (Rom 10:6-7) When Christ died, we see from this verse, he went down
into the Abyss. But we also read in Matt 12:40, “For just as Jonah was three
days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man
be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
As he could not have been in two
places at the same time, we can see that the Lord went to the Abyss which is in
the heart of the earth. That these beings have been confined in the Abyss has
been a blessing to mankind for, when they come forth, they bring great troubles
to all who dwell on the earth. Such is their torment, they do not kill but they
torment men, that men will seek death and will not find it; and they will long
to die and death flees from them. (Rev 9:6)
F. The
sixth trumpet … the second woe
Here we see, again, a supernatural
visitation upon men. A vast angelic army proceeds to wreak havoc upon men. This
is not Armageddon, nor is this a human host. The description of the beings who
will be used by God to punish men makes it clear that they too, like the
creatures who come from the Abyss, are fallen angels or some such similar
beings.
The host mentioned here number two
hundred million. Unlike the first woe, where men were only tormented but were
not killed, we find that when this vast host of beings begin to war on sinful
men, they will kill a vast number of them. The Scripture tells us that they
killed one third of mankind. (Rev 9:15)
This woe brings us to the end of the
first half of the Great Tribulation. The ministry of the two witnesses has now
come to an end. The Antichrist receives his power and authority from Satan, and
he kills these two servants of God. At the same time he will break the covenant
with
In the temple, which is yet to be
rebuilt by the Jews, he will sit, demanding that men, and particularly the
Jews, worship him as God. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, “… the man of
lawlessness … who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called God or
object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying
himself as being God.” (2 Thess 2:4)
This is when the Jews who will turn
to the Lord Jesus Christ as their Messiah, are to flee into the wilderness
where God has a place which he has prepared for them.
Mark 13:14 says, “but when you see
the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be (let the reader
understand), then let those who are in
10. The
Great Tribulation … the second half
This is going to be the most terrible time in
the history of mankind. Every voice speaking the truth will be stilled, at
least as far as men are concerned. It is my sincere understanding that, when
the Antichrist receives his power, it will come after he has imitated the death
and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We will not look at this truth here but will
study it separately under the heading of the Antichrist. What is very clear
from the Bible is that he will brook no opposition from anyone.
All men will have to receive his mark. (Rev
13:16-18) Without it, it will be impossible for men to live on the earth. Those
who refuse will be faced with two alternatives.
Death
for those who actively oppose him.
Slavery
for those who refuse to receive his mark, but resign themselves to being
enslaved by him.
This is made very clear in Rev 13:10.
Scripture has made it very clear that God will
permit Satan to give this evil man absolute power for the period of 1260 days,
and any opposition will be crushed mercilessly.
“And it was given to him to make war with the
saints and to overcome them; and authority over every tribe and people and
tongue and nation was given to him.”
So severe is the oppression that God now does
something that he has never done before. Instead of using humans as the means
of warning the wicked not to receive the mark of the beast, God now sends
angels, flying through the heavens, and visible to all men, warning them of the
fearful consequences of submitting to this requirement of the man of
lawlessness. (Rev 14:6-12)
Absolute spiritual darkness settles over the
entire earth. Even the heathen will have to submit and abandon their forms of
worship. The Antichrist will demand all the worship and adoration of men – and
he will get it too.
G. The
seventh trumpet … the third woe
This will cover the whole of the three and a
half years when the anti-Christ exercises his power. During this time we find
the bowls of God’s final wrath poured out by his angels on the earth.
(1) The first bowl
Loathsome and malignant sores break
out upon all who have received the mark of the beast. Rev 16:2. This is similar
to the sixth plague in
(2) The second bowl
The sea becomes like the blood of a
dead man and every living thing in the sea dies. (Rev 16:3) This is much more
severe than what happened when the second trumpet was sounded. (Rev 8:8) See
how similar this is to the first plague of
(3) The third bowl
All the rivers and springs become as
blood. Now men’s drinking water is polluted. (Rev 16:4)
(4) The fourth bowl
Here the sun begins to scorch men
with a fierce heat. It is possible that this is because the sun’s heat is
intensified, or otherwise it is because the earth moves closer to the sun.
Scripture speaks of God shaking the earth out of its place as we have already
seen in our studies.
(5) The fifth bowl
The entire kingdom of the Antichrist
becomes darkened as this angel pours out his bowl upon the throne of this evil
ruler. Men will gnaw their tongues because of the pain caused by their sores.
It will be remembered that it was under the first bowl that loathsome and
malignant sores broke out on those who had the mark of the beast.
(6) The sixth bowl
On the pouring out of this bowl, the
river
We read, “They (the three unclean
spirits like frogs) gathered them (the rulers of the whole inhabited earth and
their armies) together to the place which in the Hebrew is called Har-Magedon.”
(Rev 16:16) It is not easy to pinpoint the location where the last battle will
take place. It will have to accommodate a vast host of men. Psalm 2 expresses
the sentiments of those who will be gathered there for that battle. Verses 1-3
speak of their determination to throw off all his restraint. Then in verses 4-6
we read of the Lord’s derision. “He will speak to them in his anger and terrify
them in his fury.” Then his king (Jesus) will be installed upon
(7) The seventh bowl
When this bowl is poured out, the
whole earth is subjected to a final cataclysm which will result in utter ruin
all over the earth. Apart from huge stones, weighing about 100 lbs each,
raining down upon the earth from outer space, the greatest earthquake ever to
have shaken the earth will destroy all the cities of the nations. No continent
will be excluded. There will be vast topographical changes on the earth. We
read, “And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.” (Rev
16:20)
Imagine the Himalayas, the Alps, the
Rockies, the
“The highways are desolate, the traveller has ceased. He (Antichrist) has broken the
covenant, he has despised the witnesses, he has no regard for man.” (Isa 33:8)
Armageddon … the last battle
It will be remembered that the Antichrist knows
that he has exactly 1260 days – no more, no less. So he will know the exact day
on which the Lord will return to establish his kingdom. As the time draws near,
Satan, Antichrist and the false prophet will send out the three unclean spirits
like frogs, to summon all the host of men to the very place where the battle of
Armageddon will take place.
Thus when the Lord Jesus Christ returns
together with all the armies of heaven, he will find a great multitude of
wicked men waiting for him. They will be gathered there to resist the Lord, to
endeavour to prevent him from ousting the Antichrist, and set up the
A very detailed account of this battle is
recorded for us by the Lord in the nineteenth chapter of the Revelation. We see
heaven opened and the Lord leading the armies of heaven all of them clothed in
fine linen and riding on white horses. The wild beasts and the birds of prey
are summoned to feast upon the vast host of the dead for, at Armageddon, there
will be no survivors. The Antichrist and the false prophet are taken and they
are cast into the lake of fire and brimstone.
Let us always remember that these two persons
are human beings who lend themselves to the devil to fulfil all his will. The
rest of the army were killed by the sword which proceeded out of the mouth of
the Lord. (Rev 19:11-21) Isaiah refers to this great day when he writes, “he
shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips
shall he slay the wicked.” (Isa 11:4)
Again, “For, behold the Lord will come with
fire, and with his chariots like whirlwinds, to render his anger with fury, and
his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and his sword will the Lord
plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many.” (Isa 66:15-16.
There are many other such passages such as Jer
25:33; 1 Thess 1:7-8)
Not all the wicked will have gone up to fight
the Lord at Armageddon They will all be gathered before the throne of his glory
to determine who amongst those who survive this time of Great Tribulation will
be found worthy to enter the millennial reign of our Lord and Saviour.
11. The
Antichrist … the man of lawlessness
There are many names
by which this awful personage is designated in the Scriptures.
Perhaps we should
begin by looking at his names beginning with:-
1. The Antichrist
The word Antichrist is to be found only in the
epistles of John. They occur in 1 John 2:18 (twice), 22. 1 John 4:3. 2 John 7.
This makes five occurrences in the Bible in all.
Let us quote from Vincent's word studies, vol
2, page 337. He says, “peculiar to John in the NT the absence of the article
shows its currency as a proper name … while the false Christ (pseudochristos)
is merely a pretender to the messianic office, the Antichrist ‘assails Christ
by proposing to do or to preserve what he did, while denying him.’ Antichrist,
then, is one who opposes Christ in the guise of Christ.” This means that he
tries to supplant Christ. He is a usurper.
Let us look at the passages in John’s epistles
which refer to Antichrist. “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you have
heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have arisen; from
this we know that it is the last hour.” (1 John 2:18) What the apostle tells us
here is that Antichrist is coming but that there are already Antichrists in the
world.
With regard to this, let us look at 2 Thess
2:7, “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work (there are many
Antichrists arisen); only he who now restrains will do so until he is
taken out of the way. And then that lawless one will be revealed whom
the Lord will slay …”
Both Paul and John tell us that the Antichrist
will have precursors. 1 John 4:3 tells us much the same as the earlier passage,
as does 2 John 7. It is evident that Satan is constantly bringing evil men on
to the world scene, always endeavouring to bring about his absolute control of
man. But there is a constant restraint. He cannot bring the Antichrist into the
world until he is permitted to do so by God. God is always in control and only
what he permits can come to pass. When he permits Satan to unveil the
Antichrist, and only then, can this man come into the human race.
2. The beast
This second name by which the Antichrist is
called is to be found only in the Revelation. The word beast is the translation
of the Greek word therion, a word which means “wild beast”. It is found 37
times in the Revelation. Thirty five times it refers to the person we know as
the Antichrist Once it refers to the man who will promote the worship of the
Antichrist. In all other places in the Revelation the second beast is referred
to as the false prophet. It is in the references to the first beast in the
Revelation that we find the greatest amount of information about this person.
Let us look at what is told us about him.
A) The first fact revealed to us in the
Revelation concerning the beast, is that he will overcome and kill the two
witnesses. It is also recorded that he “comes up out of the Abyss.” (Rev 11:7)
Now the Abyss is revealed to us by other Scriptures as the place to which Jesus
went after his death. (Rom 10:7) As the Lord is said in Matt 12:40 to have been
“three days and three nights in the heart of the earth”, it is clear that the
Abyss is in the heart of the earth. Prior to the resurrection of the Lord, all
who died went down into the heart of the earth for that is the region where
Hades is to be found. From Luke 16:23 we can see that Abraham and Lazarus were
in Hades as well as the rich man. It is also clear from this part of the Bible
that Hades was divided into two parts. Abraham said that “between us and you
there is a great chasm fixed.” (v 26) Coming back to the beast, what is implied
in Rev 11:7 when we read that he “comes up out of the Abyss?” Rev 13:3 provides
an answer. We read, “And I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and
his fatal would was healed.” It would appear as if this evil man will die,
probably by being assassinated and then he will rise from the dead. Jesus said
“Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades” (Acts 2:27) So, after being dead, the
soul of the Antichrist will rise up out of Hades, and be united again with his
body. Thus he will come to life again. Unlike Jesus, who had a resurrection
body and who only appeared to his disciples, this man will rise with his
natural body, but will show himself alive to the entire world. This is why he
is referred to as “the beast that … was and is not, and is about to come up out
of the Abyss and to go to destruction.” (Rev 17:8)
B) This return from the dead is going
to cause mankind to accept his claims and they will worship him. This worship
will be encouraged by the second beast who is known as the false prophet. John
records that men “worship the dragon (Satan) … and they worshipped the beast,
saying, ‘who is like the beast and who is able to wage war with him.’” (Rev
13:4) This is an obvious reference to the fact that he was fatally wounded by someone
who was “waging war” on him, but that he came to life again. This resurrection
will establish his credentials as someone worthy of worship as far as those
whose name is not in the book of life of the Lamb.
C) The false prophet makes the earth
and those who dwell in it to “worship the first beast whose fatal wound was
healed.” (Rev 13:12) This aspect of a religion centred around the Antichrist is
mentioned in other Scriptures. Thus Paul speaks of him and says, “Who opposes
and exalts himself above every so-called God (or, ‘all that is called God’) or
object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the
D) The Antichrist or beast is a man.
There are many theories as to who will be the beast, derived from the number
666. John says, “Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the
number of the beast, for the number is that of a man, and his number is six
hundred and sixty-six.” (Rev 13:18) Through the ages men have used the number
666 to a great number of men.
What does 666 really mean? Bullinger writes in his “critical lexicon” page 391,
about 666, saying, “666 is therefore the triple number of imperfection, the
perfection of imperfection – “the number of a man” – the number of things
specially hateful to God, and which culminate in the perfection of wickedness,
and which seems to peculiarly describe the ‘man of sin.’” Never will a more
evil man have ever lived, never after him will there ever be a man as wicked as
he will be. He will be the personification of evil.
E) The time allotted to the Antichrist
is clearly told us in the Revelation. He will be given authority for 42 weeks
or 1260 days or 3½ years. (Rev 13:5) He will begin by killing the two witnesses
and he will end by gathering a vast army to war against the Lord Jesus Christ,
when he returns to establish his kingdom here on earth. (Rev 16:3) During this
time he will have absolute authority and all who oppose him will be killed. As
no one will be allowed to buy or sell without his mark, believers will have to
face trying times. For many it will be death. For others it will mean slavery.
There will be no possibility of remaining neutral at this time. It is either
absolute devotion to the beast or else absolute committal to God even though it
results in martyrdom. At this time there will be a concerted effort to utterly
destroy the Jews from off the face of the earth.
F) The end of the beast is revealed to
us in Rev 19. He gathers the armies of the nations, so as to war against Christ
as he leads the armies of heaven. We read, “The beast was seized, and with him
the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence, by which he deceived
those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image;
the two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone.”
(Rev 19:20) Thus will end the worst dictatorship that this world has ever
known.
3. The man of lawlessness
In the KJV this is rendered the “man of sin”.
(2 Thess 2:3) There is no doubt that there is a spirit at work in the world
today called “the mystery of lawlessness”. (2 Thess 2:7) There is a restraint
which we believe is a work of the Holy Spirit, which is preventing the mystery
of lawlessness from accomplishing its purpose, until God permits.
Notice that it is only after the restraint is
removed that the Bible says, “Then that lawless one will be revealed.” (v 8)
He cannot be revealed
before his time. (v 6)
The name given to the Antichrist here is very
revealing. He is called the man of lawlessness. When he comes he will throw off
all restraint. Evil will take the place of good. It is hard to imagine what the
world will be like when someone who is completely immoral takes control Hitler
caused a whole world to be shocked at his policy of exterminating the Jews The
Antichrist will do all that Hitler did, and more so.
4. The
son of destruction (perdition)
This is another of the names used in 2 Thess
2:3 to describe the Antichrist. This is the same name which the Lord used when
he spoke to Judas in John 17:12. Some see in this use of the name “son of
perdition” with regard to Judas and the Antichrist, reason to believe that
Judas will be the Antichrist. This is very far fetched. Judas yielded to Satan
and became his tool, just as the Antichrist will, and that is why they are both
called “the son of perdition”. We would have to believe in the heathen notion
of re-incarnation to be able to accept that they could be one and the same
persons.
Other names by which the Antichrist is known
1
He
is the little horn in the beast of Daniel 7:7-8
2
He
is the desolator (the one who makes desolate) of Dan 9:27
3
He
is the wilful king who magnifies himself. (Dan
11:36)
4
He
is the abomination of desolation of Matt 24:15
5
He
is the rider of the white horse of Rev 6:2
The contrast between
Christ and Antichrist |
||
A |
Christ comes from above. (John
6:8) |
Antichrist ascends from out of the
Abyss. (Rev 11:7) |
B |
Christ comes in his father’s name.
(John 5:43) |
Antichrist comes in his own name.
(John 5:43) |
C |
Christ humbled himself even though
he was God. (Phil 2:8) |
Antichrist exalts himself. (Dan
11:36; 2 Thess 2:4) |
D |
The Lord Jesus Christ was despised
and rejected of men. (Isa 53:3; Luke 23:18) |
The Antichrist will be admired and
accepted as world ruler. (Rev 13:3-4) |
E |
Christ will always be exalted
because he humbled himself. (Phil 2:9) |
The Antichrist will be cast into
the lake of fire. (Rev 19:20) |
F |
Christ did the will of his father.
(John 6:38) |
The Antichrist will do as he
pleases. (Dan 11:36) |
G |
Christ came to save mankind. (Luke
19:10) |
Antichrist came to destroy
mankind. (Dan 8:24) |
H |
Christ is the good shepherd. |
The Antichrist is the idol
(useless or foolish) shepherd. (Zech 11:15) |
I |
Christ is the way, truth and the
life. (John 14:6) |
The Antichrist is “the lie”. (2
Thess 2:11) |
J |
Christ is the “holy one of God”.
(Mark 1:24) |
The Antichrist is the lawless one,
the man of sin. (2 Thess 2:8) |
K |
Christ is the son of God. (Luke
1:35) |
The Antichrist is the son of
perdition. (2 Thess 2:3) |
L |
Christ is the mystery of
Godliness. (1 Tim 3:16) |
The Antichrist is the mystery of
iniquity (lawlessness) (2 Thess 2:7) |
M |
Christ is the lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world. (John 1:29) |
The Antichrist is a wild beast
bent on destroying men. (Rev 13:2) |
Doubtless there are other points of comparison
between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Antichrist, but these should be
sufficient to show that the Antichrist is a caricature of the Lord. It has been
well said that Satan is the ape of God. So the Antichrist is the ape of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
The origin of the Antichrist
As we have seen from the Scriptures, the
Antichrist is a man, just as the Lord Jesus became incarnate as a man. All
ideas as to how he comes into this world are supposition as there is no place
in the Bible which throws light upon his ancestry. The book of the prophet
Daniel tells us that he is connected with the beast of Daniel's vision. (Dan
7:7-8; 7:19-28) The final form of the fourth beast of Daniel's vision is a
ten-nation confederacy, symbolised by the ten horns of the beast. (Also by the
ten toes of the image of Nebuchadnezzar dream - Dan 2.)
Daniel sees a little horn spring up in the
midst of the ten horns. This little horn plucks up three of the first horns by
the roots. This would indicate that, in the last days, a ten nation
confederacy, which will come into being in the region of the old
That here he will gain control of three
countries, and that the other seven will follow him as well as we read in Rev
17:13, “these (ten kings) have one common policy and they deliver their power
and authority to the beast.” It would seem then, that the Antichrist will arise
in
There are those who do not believe that the
power of the Antichrist will be world-wide. However, it is not illogical to
reason that, after another world war involving Soviet Russia and the western
world, there will be an insistence upon a world government and, with it,
finally, a world ruler or dictator.
Daniel does point out that, while he will enter
the glorious land (the Holy Land), “these shall be delivered out of his hand:
Psalm 2 reveals all the nations expressing the
desire to revolt against God and his authority. Thus, it would seem, the
Antichrist will, from his power base in
The character of the Antichrist
He will be the sum of
all that is hateful to God.
Daniel has something to say about him in chapter
11 of his prophecy.
1. He will do as he pleases. (v 36) He will be
utterly self-centred. His whole purpose in life will revolve around his selfish
will.
2. He will exalt and magnify himself above every
God, and will speak monstrous things against the God of Gods. (v 36) Like his
master, Satan, who sought to wrest God’s throne from him, this man will demand
worship as God. He will speak blasphemies against God. There will be the most
terrible representation of God that this world has ever known. Verse 37
continues this theme, “nor will he regard any other God, for he will magnify
himself above them all.”
3. “He
will show no regard for the Gods of his fathers or the desire of women.” Many
see in this a possible indication of some kind of perversion as far as women
are concerned.
4. He will be utterly ruthless in his treatment
of all who do not follow and obey him implicitly. All who refuse to recognise
him as God will be dealt with severely.
The power of the Antichrist
When God allows Satan to reveal the Antichrist
he will have great power for 1260 days.
Initially, he will go forth “conquering and to
conquer.” (Rev 6:2) For the first three and a half years after the Rapture, he
will extend and consolidate his power in
However, when the second three and a half years
begin, his power will be absolute. God will allow him to have unrestricted
power over the whole earth, the only exception being that part where
No one can argue with the plain facts stated
here. Ultimately, his power will be world-wide, and not just confined to the
ten nations who initially are his power-base.
The end of the
Antichrist
His time to exercise authority is limited by
God. Of these times Jesus said, “Unless those days had been cut short, no life
would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be cut
short.” (Matt 24:22)
His end is brought about by the coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ, who will come with the armies of heaven. Jude says Enoch,
the seventh from Adam prophesied and said, “behold, the Lord came with many
thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgement upon all …” (Jude 14-15) We
see in 2 Thess 2:8 the words of Paul, “and then that lawless one will be
revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to an
end by the appearance of his coming.” So John tells us, “The beast was seized,
and with him the false prophet … these two were thrown alive into the lake of
fire which burns with brimstone.” (Rev 19:20)
12. The
false prophet
There have always been false prophets who have
sought to wean men away from the worship of the Lord. Thus, a lying spirit said
to the Lord, “I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his
(Ahab's) prophets.” (1 Kings 22:22) We are warned explicitly in the New
Testament of false prophets by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. (Matt 7:15;
24:11; 24:24) John warns us, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test
the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have
gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1)
These false prophets all point to the last
false prophet who is to come. We know that the final apostasy will be the
world-wide worship of the Antichrist. Now just as the Holy Spirit has pointed
men to the Lord Jesus as the Saviour, so the false prophet will point men to
the Antichrist
Let us look at the
Revelation to see, in broad outline, what he will do.
1. He will exercise the authority of the
Antichrist on the earth. (Rev 13:12)
This is what the Holy Spirit does on
behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ. I will send you the comforter who will guide
you into all truth. He will not speak on his own initiative. (John 16:13)
2. He makes the earth and those who dwell in it
to worship the first beast whose fatal wound was healed. (Rev 13:12) Thus he
orchestrates the worship of the Antichrist Thus it is by the Holy Spirit that
the believer worships the Lord.
This is what was constantly demanded
of the Lord Jesus. They wanted spectacular signs and the Lord would not comply
with their demands. But this man will make fire come down from heaven in the
sight of men and will deceive those who are not written in the book of life.
How different from the image that
king Nebuchadnezzar had erected on the plain of Dura. There the three Hebrews
had to be taken and thrown into a fiery furnace. Here the image will destroy
all who will not worship it. It is hard to conceive just how all this will come
to pass but we need to believe it because the Bible says it will.
The question that many ask is where does the
false prophet come from? In Daniel 8 we see a king arise who many believe will
be the false prophet. The horn of Daniel’s vision in chapter seven as we have
seen, will arise in
If this is so, it is possible that Islam may
play a large part in the events which will bring the Antichrist to power. The
description of this second little horn seems to indicate power which belongs to
the Antichrist rather than to the false prophet however. However, the second
beast of the Revelation does exercise all the authority of the first beast. The
thought most frequently expressed then is that the false prophet arises in the
13. The
dragon
Behind all the happenings of the end-time, we
find the arch-enemy of God at work. Satan, created by God, is seen in the
Revelation coming to the end of his liberty to do as he pleases. Tracing his
career, we find him rebelling in heaven itself. Thus sin was first conceived in
heaven, and it was manifested there.
Isaiah 14:12-16 goes far beyond the king of
According to Ezek 28:12-19 he was the “covering
cherub”. The function of the cherubim seems to be that of guardians of the
throne of God. The reason for Satan's fall is recorded by Ezekiel, who writes,
“your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by
reason of your splendour.”
It is clear from other Scriptures that, while
he was cast out from his position in heaven, Satan still had access to the
presence of God. This is made clear in job where Satan is shown as presenting
himself before the Lord. (Job 1:6) It is here that he gains permission to test
and try Job. (1:12; 2:6.) The question that arises is this: did this right of
access cease after the triumph of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross? Jesus
said, “Now judgement is upon this world; now the ruler of this world shall be
cast out.” (John 12:31)
While the defeat of Satan at the cross was very
real, this defeat does not entail the denial of access to Satan to God’s
presence. There was a very real limiting of the power and authority of Satan,
without the withdrawal of permission to appear before God’s throne. This only
happens once the Great Tribulation is taking place. While the earth sees the
rise of the Antichrist, Michael, the arch-angel makes war on Satan and his
angels in the heavenlies. (Rev 12:7)
It is good to remind ourselves at this stage
that, throughout the church age, the heavenlies are specifically mentioned as
the abode of Satan and his hosts. Satan is called, “the prince of the power of
the air” in Ephesians 2:2. Paul warns, “For our fight is not against human
foes, but against cosmic powers, against the authorities and potentates of this
dark world, against the superhuman forces of evil in the heavens.” (Eph 6:12)
With the expulsion of Satan from the
heavenlies, and his confinement to the earth, there is much jubilation in
heaven. Perhaps Rev 12:10 is one of the most pertinent Scriptures with regard
to the present activity of Satan, revealing the reason for his visits to God’s
presence. We read, “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘now the
salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his
Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses
them before our God night and day.’” From this defeat there is no going
back. Scripture records the devil as having “great wrath” knowing he has only a
short time.
After the defeat of the nations at Armageddon,
Satan is thrown into the Abyss which is shut and sealed so that he is confined
there for 1000 years. This fulfils Isa 14:15, “nevertheless you will be thrust
down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit.” Being loosed for a season, Satan
again deceives the nations. He is defeated and is thrown into the lake of fire.
(Rev 20:7-10) This is his final defeat. Nevermore will he escape this
confinement.
14. The
apostate church … the harlot
With the true church having departed at the
Rapture, the harlot church is left behind to go through the Great Tribulation.
There will be a unification of this harlot church into a great superchurch. It
is not easy to define the way those who come to believe on the Lord Jesus in
these trying times, will organise themselves or how they will worship. They
will certainly not join themselves to the organisational church which has been
left behind. It is clear that the harlot church will co-operate with the
Antichrist. It is very likely that it will extend recognition to him, according
him an honoured place. In Rev 17:1-18, we see this world church by the woman
sitting on the scarlet coloured beast.
We are told that the woman is drunk with the
blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. (Rev 17:6)
She is referred to as “
1. Political. It was the seat of the
first world government. That government was hostile to God. This unanimity
amongst men in their rebellion against God, culminated in the destruction of
the
2. Economic.
This aspect is dealt with in Rev 18:1-24.
We are all aware of the enormous
economic empires which have marked the 20th century. The
multinational companies of this world exert tremendous power, in fact, with the
exception of a few countries, they are more powerful than many of the nations.
It is very evident that the wealth of this world is being used to prepare
mankind for a one-world government which will be presided over by the
Antichrist.
When we read that Nimrod was a
mighty hunter before the Lord (Gen 10:9), let us not think that this refers to
his prowess as a hunter of animals. It refers to his sustained efforts to wean
men away from the worship of the true God. Thus he was a mighty hunter of
souls. The whole idolatrous system, which from the earliest taught a pantheon
presided over by a father God, a mother God and a son God, is to be found in
all the ancient nations of the world. Many who profess Christianity are ensnared
in this idolatrous system.
In its final form, this harlot religion will support the Antichrist as long as
it suits him. When the time comes for him to exert absolute power we see that
he will destroy this apostate church. In the giving of the kingdom to the
beast, the scarlet clothed woman must be destroyed. If we look at the last
verse of chapter 17, there does not seem to be any doubt that, ultimately,
after the departure of the true church, apostate Protestantism will unite with
apostate Catholicism under the leadership of
15. The
nation of
As an introduction to the nation of
A. The
call
The call of God came to Abram in the ancient
city of
When he was a hundred years old and his wife
Sarah ninety nine years, they had a son, Isaac With regard to this
impossibility, God had said, “Is any thing too hard for the Lord?” (Gen 18:14)
It was Isaac's son Jacob, who had twelve sons, whose name was changed to
B. The
Exodus and wilderness
The word of the Lord was fulfilled in that the
children of
C. The
land possessed
In his farewell address to
They
would be blessed if they were obedient.
They
would be cursed if they were disobedient.
The historical books of the Old Testament are a
record of the longsuffering of God in his dealings with
D. The
rejection of the Messiah
We are aware of the fact that the Jews rejected
the Lord Jesus Christ as their Messiah, even as he had said they would. They
said, “His blood be on us, and on our children.” (Matt 27:25) This awful
imprecation which they called down upon themselves, has been fulfilled in the
two millennia since the death of Christ.
Their temporary respite was over.
E. The return of Israel
With the destruction of Jerusalem and the
scattering of Israel, the land soon began to resemble a wilderness, thus
fulfilling Deut 29:24, “Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? What
meaneth the heat of this great anger? Then shall men say, because they have
forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers …”
But there was a promise in the words of Moses
If there was a turning back to God “then the Lord thy God will turn thy
captivity, and have compassion on thee, and will return and gather thee from
all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee.” (Deut 30:1-3)
It is hard to argue against divine providence
playing a part in the return of the Jews. For an insignificant people, despised
and persecuted wherever they had fled to, in the face of Arab and Muslim
hostility, and in the face of Britain, who had the mandate after Palestine had
been wrested from the Turks, and who certainly favoured the Arabs in spite of
the Balfour declaration recognising Palestine as a homeland for the Jews, and
who obstructed the Jewish return in no uncertain manner, to be able to increase
Jewish citizens from about 50,000 in 1850 AD to between two and three million
people at the present time, would need the help and provision of God. When the
mandate was surrendered by
Let us look at what Scripture has to say in the
New Testament as to the purpose of God concerning
F. The
promise of restoration
We will not look at Old Testament Scriptures as
some will argue that they are fulfilled in the church. Does the New Testament
bear this out?
We
have seen that
That
God has a special purpose with the Gentiles at the present time is clear from
Acts 15:14-18. We read, “Simeon has related how God first concerned himself
about taking from among the Gentiles a people for his name … after these things
I will return, and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen, and
I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, in order that the rest of
mankind may seek the Lord …”
The
apostle Paul asks “hath God cast away his people? God forbid.” (Rom 11:1) He
continues, “I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest
you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to
Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles is come in; and thus all Israel will
be saved; just as it is written, “The deliverer will come from Zion, he will
remove ungodliness from Jacob And this is my covenant with them, when I shall
take away their sins.” (Rom 11:25-27)
In the book of Hebrews the writer, speaking of
the restoration of the nation
G. The
time of Jacob’s trouble
There have been many attempts to exterminate
the Jewish race. The pharaoh of the oppression tried it when he ordered all
males to be destroyed at birth. (Ex 1:16) Then during the captivity, Haman,
filled with hatred towards the Jews, caused a law to be passed “to destroy, kill
and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, women and children, in one
day, the thirteenth of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to seize
their possessions as plunder.” (Esther 3:13)
Hitler was of the same mind as Haman His desire
was to make the world “judenrein”, or free of Jews Thus, as many can still
recall, during the holocaust in Europe, six million Jews were systematically
done to death by the third Reich We do not list the vast number of persecutions
which the Jew has had to endure, nor the fact that, for centuries, they were
locked up in the ghettos of Europe.
However, the tale is not yet done, for Satan,
in one last attempt to utterly destroy the Jew, will provoke the Antichrist, to
utterly exterminate them from off the face of the earth. One may ask, why this
satanic endeavour to exterminate the Jews? The answer is simple, of course. It
is that, by so doing, the Scriptures would not come to pass, and Satan would
have thwarted God’s Revelation and purposes. Let us look at the prophecy of
Jeremiah 30:7, “Alas! For that day is great, there is none like it; and it is
the time of Jacob's distress, but he will be saved from it.” God then promises,
at that time, to break the yoke from off his neck.
The covenant of death
After the resurrection and Rapture, the
Antichrist is going to make a covenant with
At the time when the Antichrist kills the two
witnesses, he will break his covenant with the Jews, and he will place the
“abomination of desolation” in the holy place. (Matt 24:15) It is at this time
that the Jews who are spiritually prepared, will know what to do. Daniel says,
“Many will be purged, purified and refined; but the wicked will act wickedly,
and none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will
understand.” (Dan 12:10)
The very next verse, Dan 12:11, makes it clear
that those who are purified, are Jews, as the abolition of the daily sacrifice
and the setting up of the abomination of desolation, is spoken of in this
verse. That all the Jews will not be saved, is clear. Quoting from Isaiah, Paul
says to the Romans, “Though the number of the sons of
Of those who flee from the
The abomination of desolation set up
Those Jews who are saved at this time, will
read the Scriptures and understand. (Dan 12:10; Matt 24:15; Mark 13:14) This is
the signal for them to flee to the place appointed to them. Rev 12:6 tells us
that the woman will flee to the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God.
There she will be nourished by God for 1260 days. This is repeated in Rev
12:14.
What will happen is this: the Antichrist will
invade the beautiful land (Dan 11:41). His armies will invest the city of
Where is the wilderness to which they will
flee? Daniel says that
Everywhere else, the Antichrist will make a
concerted effort to eliminate all those Jews who believe, but were not able to
escape in time. Thus
“The Lord will then send forth his angels to
gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.”
(Matt 24:31) All
16. The
earth after the Lord comes back
We will not look at the Millennium
in detail, reserving it for a more detailed study later. We need to look at
certain things briefly, however, and will start by looking at what happens to
the survivors of the Great Tribulation.
The survivors of the Great
Tribulation
While there will be vast numbers of
men who will go up to Armageddon, and all who go up will perish, there will be
many others who will remain. Not everybody who survives the Great Tribulation
will enter into the Millennium. In fact, the first thing that the Lord will do
will be to send his angels to gather all men to the judgement of the throne of
his glory. (Matt 25)
The story of the tares and the wheat
applies to this time in history. The Lord will send forth the angels and they
will remove from his kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity.
(Matt 13:41) This gathering out is totally different from the Rapture. At the
Rapture, the Lord removes the righteous, both dead and living, and the wicked
are left behind upon the earth. Now, the angels remove the wicked from off the
earth, and the righteous are left behind. This is what Daniel means when he
writes, “blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1335
days.” (Dan 12:12) If we subtract 1260 days from 1335 days, we will have the
number of days, 75 in all, that it takes for the separation of the sheep from
the goats (Matt 25:31), the tares from the wheat (Matt 13:30), and the good
fish from the bad fish (Matt 13:47-50.)
Only those who have not received the
mark of the beast, who have not served the Antichrist, will be allowed to enter
into the Millennium. As we have already remarked, the earth will be ravaged.
All that man has built will lie in ruins. The vast earthquakes, together with
all the other judgements of God, will have reduced the earth to rubble.
Furthermore, there will be very few people left to begin the reconstruction of
the earth.
There will only be a residue of men
who will be left. After the flood there were only eight people; they multiplied
over 4500 years until, at the present time, they reached over four billion
souls. How many will be left is hard to estimate, perhaps they will only number
hundreds of thousands, perhaps not even that many, for, we must remember, the
Antichrist will martyr many of those who turn to the Lord after the church has
been raptured.
The earth’s topography
The appearance of the earth will be
greatly changed in the Millennium. We have seen that the
Fish will swarm in its waters, and
fishermen will catch fish from En Gedi to En Eglaim. Mountains will have
disappeared, as well as many of the islands. All the cities will be destroyed,
and, it would seem, the way of life after the Great Tribulation, will be very
different.
Universal peace
Men will be compelled to beat their
swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not
lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. (Micah 4:3)
It would seem that the basis of
society will become rural in nature. “They shall sit every man under his vine
and under his fig tree and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the
Lord of hosts hath spoken it.” (Micah 4:4)
The prophet Zephaniah says, “Sing, o
daughter of
Speaking of
The shekinak glory of the Lord will
be upon the city. “Then the Lord will create over all
The glory of the Lord
The entire earth will be aware of
the glory of the Lord. “The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,
as the waters cover the sea.” (Isa 11:9)
“For the earth shall be filled with
the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab
2:14)
There will be a universal knowledge
of the Lord.
Creation reconciled
The apostle Paul speaks of the whole
of the creation waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. (Rom 8:19) At
that time the creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into
the glorious liberty of the children of God. (Rom 8:21) In Isaiah chapter
eleven we read of this new relationship in the creation. The ultimate is the
lion eating straw like the ox.
The position of the Jew
When God called
They failed dismally, but, in the
Millennium, this will come to pass. Isaiah says of
God says of
Zechariah writes, “In those days ten men from
all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the edge of his
robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.”
(Zech 8:23)
The Lord will be present
Zechariah writes, “Shout and be glad, O
daughter of
All nations will have to go up to
Failure to do so will result in the Lord
withholding rain. Thus the Lord will be king of the earth. (Zech 14:9)
About the author:
Warren Paynter was a well-renowned Bible teacher with a specific interest in Biblical prophecy; his favourite of all being eschatology – end time prophecies. He was married to Maureen Warren and they had seven children, thirteen grandchildren and three great grandchildren (as at 2010).
In 1953
Online ministry by Warren Paynter is available at: Warren Paynter Ministry.