The Punishment of
the Great Prostitute and the Battle of
Armageddon
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“On
of the seven angels who had the seven
bowls came and said to me, ‘Come,
and I will show you the punishment of the
great prostitute, who sits on many
waters…. The beast and the ten horns
you saw will hate the prostitute. They
will bring her to ruin and leave her
naked; they will eat her flesh and burn
her with fire’…. The sixth
angel poured out his bowl on the great
river Euphrates, and its water was dried
up to prepare the way for the kings from
the East…. Then they [the
demons] gathered the [ten] kings
together to the place that in Hebrew is
called Armageddon.” (Revelation
17:1, 16, 16: 12,16, insertions mine)
These
important Bible verses will be fulfilled
during the last thirty days of the Great
Tribulation. The great prostitute is a
forthcoming one-world-church-state. At a
place called “Armageddon,” the
kings of Earth will make war against
Jesus as He and the Father appear in the
clouds of glory. This explanation may
seem fictitious because currently, a
one-world-church state is impossible
because (a) we are a world of diverse
governments, and (b) no one on earth has
enough power to capture the whole world.
Nevertheless, the book of Revelation
predicts these events will transpire and
we can be sure that everything God has
said will occur.
Before
we examine the formation of the great
prostitute and the battle of Armageddon,
we need to understand that some basic
behaviors are very important to
God even though they do not appear to be
very important to a growing number of
human beings. For example, God has said
that He will judge us with the same
attitude and standards that we judge
others. If we are critical of others, God
will be critical with us. (Matthew 7:2)
God requires us to be fair in our
business dealings. If we cheat in
business deals because we can get away
with it, God considers that stealing.
(Leviticus 25; Matthew 7:12; Luke 3:14;
Proverbs 16:11) If we defraud others,
commit violet acts against others or if
we live sexually immoral lives, God will
not permit us to enter Heaven.
(Revelation 21: 8,27) God has also
promised to extract restitution from
everyone who refuses to make restitution
to those they have wronged. (Romans
12:19; Revelation 2: 23; 2 Corinthians
5:10) God also commands us to love our
enemies. (Matthew 5: 43-45) This
commandment cannot be fulfilled without
God’s help. In fact, all of
God’s commands require God’s
help because our carnal natures are
degenerate.
These
principles matter to God and they should
matter to us because God holds us
accountable for our actions. You might
ask, “So, what does our treatment of
others have to do with the Great
tribulation?” The answer is quite
simple: The Great tribulation will be a
through test of character. God commands
us to love our neighbor as we love
ourselves (Matthew 22:39) and the Great
Tribulation will reveal our love (or lack
of love) for others. Distressing
situations bring out the best and worst
in people. Thus, the Great Tribulation
will reveal our true character. During
the Great Tribulation, the necessities of
life will become scarce, and survival
will be questionable. In this context,
our love for others, including our
enemies, will be tested and everyone,
including God, will see the results.
Loving Truth Matters Most
The
first and greatest commandment is that we
are to love the Lord our God with all of
our heart, mind and soul. (Matthew 22:37)
Is there a difference between loving God
and loving religion? Although most of the
world does not see any difference between
the teachings of their religion and the
will of God, there is one critical
element that keeps God and the religion
separate: truth. Man’s
understanding of truth is ever advancing
and the issue that matters most to God is
our response to advancing truth. God is
totally honest and He demands the
same from His children. (1 Chronicles
29:17; Matthew 5:8) God looks in our
hearts and sees our commitment to
honesty. He knows if we are pure in
heart. He knows if we are scrupulous
about being honest. God hates dishonesty,
and He detests hypocrites pretending to
be honest but is liars and thieves.
(Proverbs 6: 16-19; Matthew 23)
You
may be wondering what our conduct toward
others and our honesty has to do with the
great prostitute and the battle of
Armageddon. Actually, a great deal. The
great prostitute in revelation 17
represents a great multitude of selfish
and dishonest people who will unite with
the devil to save their lives. The honest
in heart will not compromise and will not
go along with the devil’s
schemes. As a result, the honest in
heart will be torn between loving their
own lives and the love for the truth.
(John 12:25) Honesty opens the door to
eternal life. When a sinner honestly
confesses sin and becomes will to go, and
be and do all that God requires, the
sinner receives an assurance of salvation
because Jesus has paid the price of sin.
Salvation begins with honesty. Honesty is
an attitude about life, and truth and our
honesty determines the nature of our
relationship with God.
Honestly Wrong
God
knows that we live in a world of
“developing truth” because God
alone possesses absolute truth. Our
limited knowledge of truth is not a
problem for God because He is ultimately
concerned about our response to
what we believe is truth, not our
possession or acceptance of absolute
truth. In other words, when a person
lives up to all that he or she honestly
believes to be God’s will – God
is pleased with that person’s
honesty. God knows that if an honest
person discovers more truth, he or she
will joyfully conform to it because
honest people love truth and honest
people want all the truth they can find!
The apostle Paul is one of the best
examples in the Bible of a misguided
person who was honestly wrong.
Paul zealously lived up to everything he
thought was God’s will (Philippians
3), and in fact, he believed that he was
doing God a service by persecuting
Christians! After meeting Jesus on the
road to Damascus, Paul saw his
misdirection and he immediately became a
follower of Jesus Christ. I believe that
Jesus confronted Paul on the road because
He knew that Paul was unusually honest in
heart. Jesus knew that Paul loved God and
His truth with all his heart, and
Paul’s behavior after meeting Jesus
leaves no doubt about his love for truth.
Consider this statement carefully: It is
no sin to be mistaken, but it is a sin to
refuse to accept advancing truth that God
has revealed. (2 Timothy 3:1-7;
James 4:17)
Jesus
told Nicodemus: “Everyone who
does evil hates the light [of truth],
and will not come into the light for fear
that his [dishonest] deeds will be
exposed. But whoever [love and] lives
by the truth comes into the light, so
that it may be seen plainly that what he
has done ahs been [honestly] done
through [the power of the indwelling
Spirit of] God.” (John
3:20,21, insertions mine) This is a
profound declaration! The great
difference between those who love truth
and those who do not is a commitment to
honesty. Honest people seek truth, they
love truth, and they are open to the
increasing demands of truth as their
understanding of truth unfolds. Honesty
is so important to God because people
cannot live happily throughout the
corridors of eternity without being
honest with God, self and others.
Honest
people are transparent people. They do
business in an open and honorable way.
Their word is their bond. They do not
have anything to hide. They are willing
to confess their wrongs ands make amends
when necessary. Honest people are
concerned about things that matter most
in life: walk humbly before God and
serving others with integrity, loyalty
and faithfulness. If we love truth, we
make God happy because He can accomplish
great things through every person who is
willing to advance with greater truth.
Jesus promised His followers: “But
when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he
will guide you into all
truth….” (John 16:13)
A simple test to tell if we love truth is
our reaction when we are confronted with
more truth. If we are convicted by
God’s Spirit that it is truth, we
will obey it regardless of the
consequences that may come.
This
brings us to the poignant question that
Pilate asked Jesus, “What is
truth?” (John 18:38) Truth is a
verity, or a fact, that is confirmed by
the harmony that comes from the sum of
the parts. In other words, truth can
be as simple as a statement of fact or it
can be a complex collection of
interrelated facts. The Bible contains
simple statements of truth such as,
“God is love” (1 John 4:8), as
well as complex statements of truth such
as the doctrine of parallel temples.
(Hebrews 8:1-5) As a matter of
non-negotiable faith, I accept as fact
that the Bible is the Word of God. I
believe the sixty-six books of the Bible
are consistent with the will of God.
Whenever God’s Spirit affirms the
veracity of advancing truth in my heart
(that is, the Spirit puts the weight of
conviction in my heart that something is
truth), that verity becomes testing
truth. God watches to see whether I
will implement advancing truth and walk
in the greater light of God’s Word,
or if I will resist truth and remain in
darkness to avoid change. God wants to
see if I am willing to endure the social,
economic and familial consequences, that
advancing truth can cause. In a fallen
world, the price that truth requires can
be serious. Jesus said, “the truth
can set you free.” (John 8:32) His
words are true. The truth can set you
free of your friends, your job, your
family and your church, but the truth
also gives you a new set of friends, a
better job, a larger family and
membership in the body of Christ!
Human
beings do not have access to absolute
truth. This is why there can be different
opinions and views about truth. Two
honest people can have opposing views!
Man’s diversity is not a problem
because God alone knows and possesses
absolute truth. God wants us to love
honesty and truth as He does so that our
relationship with Him can grow. We are
finite God is infinite. Therefore, the
only way we can grow in love and
appreciation for God is through adopting
more truth because His truths are ever
expanding!
Conflicts over Truth
We
live in a diverse world. We live on
several continents, we speak hundreds of
different languages, we worship different
gods, we are citizens of various
governments, and we come from many races
and cultures – yet, we make up one
world. God is not perplexed by our
diversity because He is responsible for
it. When He scattered the inhabitants of
earth at the tower of Babel some 4,500
years ago (Genesis 11), He foreknew the
diversity that would occur. As a matter
of fact, He intends to use our global
diversity at the end of Earth’s
drama to demonstrate some amazing facts.
Here is one such fact: God intends to
show the universe that there are people
within every religion, culture, nation
and tongue who sincerely loves truth and
if necessary, they would sacrifice life
itself because of their love for truth. The
interesting thing about these people is
that the only thing they have in common
is their love for truth because
the verities they presently exalt as
truth are as diverse and conflicted as
mankind! Even though two honest people
can believe opposite things about the
will of God, this does not present a
problem for God because He can see that
both people love truth. God knows
that if He gave these two diverse people
a clear and definitive presentation of
His will, both would receive it and
joyfully obey it because they love the
truth!
Consider
how God will separate His sheep from the
goats in all religions during the Great
Tribulation. God will send a clear and
powerful testimony of truth through His
servants, the 144,000, during the Great
Tribulation, and all who love truth will
receive their gospel! The rest of mankind
will reject it. Before you say to
yourself, “I love truth and I will
certainly take my stand on the side of
truth when the time comes,” you need
to understand that the 144,000 will
present a gospel to the human race during
the Great tribulation within a context of
severe persecution. Accepting God’s
truth will come with a price. Even though
demonic forces will do their best to
thwart the advance of the gospel,
everyone on Earth will hear the
everlasting gospel, and it will be
contrary to everyone’s religion!
This is how God will level the playing
field for the whole world. God is about
to trap everyone between the demands of
truth and the demands of false religion
to see who loves truth and who is honest
in heart. Our diversity is no obstacle
for God because He will test our love for
truth. The people of Earth will hear
three testing truths, three simple truths
(Revelation 14:6-13), and those who love
truth will receive these truths and obey
them. The rest of mankind will rebel.
Thus, the sheep will be separated from
the goats in all religions.
The Great Tribulation
The
Great tribulation will begin with a
global earthquake that will dwarf the 9.3
Richter scale earthquake that caused the
deadly tsunami in southern Asia in
December 2004. (Revelation 8:5) Shortly
after the earthquake, a trumpet will
sound in Heaven’s temple and the
seven trumpet-judgments will begin to
fall. It appears that the four judgments
will occur during a period of 30-60 days.
The first trumpet-judgment will be
meteoric showers of burning hail that
will burn up a third of Earth. Next, the
second and third trumpet-judgments will
occur and there will be two
civilization-threatening asteroid
impacts. The fourth trumpet-judgment will
produce a period of extended darkness.
Crops around the world will wither
without sunlight and global famine will
set in. (Revelation 8: 2-13) Twenty-five
percent of the world’s population
(1.75 billion people?) will perish as a
result of the first four trumpets, and
every survivor will tremble at such
awesome display of God’s wrath.
Everyone on Earth will stop, look and
listen. Billions of people will wonder,
“What does God want?”
“What should we do to appease
God’s wrath so that His terrible
judgments will stop?”
As
the dust from the first four
trumpet-judgments begins to settle, the
clergy of the world will rush to form a
crisis organization. On that day, all the
religions of the world will unite around
the obvious necessity to appease
God’s wrath. The clergy of all the
religions will agree that God’s
wrath can only be appeased through
repentance and worship. This “common
cause” will enable diverse religions
to unite, and in Revelation, this
organization is called
“Babylon” because the diverse
coalition of religious leaders will be
very confused. (Incidentally, the word
Babylon means confusion.)
In
spite of sincere efforts, the religious
leaders of the world will not be able to
unify the world in matters of repentance
and worship, and numerous
“sin-less” laws will not make
the nations of the world righteous.
Instead, man’s religious and
political response to God’s wrath
will only cause the misery index for
humanity to climb higher. This sequence
of events will reveal an interesting
point: Moral legislation does not produce
righteousness. At first, the decadent
behavior will cease because of the fear
of God, but as time passes, humankind
will return to previous behaviors. When
religious leaders see people doing evil
again, they will ask for even tougher
laws that will result in the clergy
punishing sinners through the power of
the state.
The
fifth trumpet-judgment will be the
physical appearing of the devil (the
Antichrist), and he will appear on or
about the 890th day of the
Great Tribulation. (The Great Tribulation
will last 1,335 days – Daniel
12:12). In other words, God will hold
back the appearing of the devil until two-thirds
of the time allotted for the Great
Tribulation has expired. God delays the
appearing of the “Great
Deception” so that most of the
inhabitants of the world can receive or
reject the everlasting gospel on its own
merits. This is the key. The devil is
not allowed to appear until most of
the inhabitants of Earth have had a
chance to make an informed and
intelligent decision about the truth
sent from God.
After
the devil is released from the abyss, the
spirit realm where he is presently
confined (Revelation 17:8), he will
physically appear before billions of
people masquerading as Almighty God. The
devil will travel throughout the Earth
for five months. He will attract huge
crowds and gain followers through amazing
signs and miraculous wonders. He will
also inflict painful intimidation on
wicked people who refuse to obey him.
(Revelation 9:1-11) At the end of the
five months of self-promotion, the devil
will declare that Earth is his kingdom.
Speaking as God, he will demand that a
one-world church-state be established,
which he will claim will last for a
thousand years.
The
apostle Paul says the devil will declare
himself to be God and he will have the
miracle working powers to prove his
deceitful claim. (2 Thessalonians 2)
Because honest people love truth, it can
be said that dishonest people love lies.
Therefore, God sends the wicked “a
great lie” so that they might unite
with the father of lies (John 8:44) and
be destroyed. The devil’s appearing
presents an interest fact. God is not
passive about our rejection of truth. If
we reject the clearest evidences of
truth, then God permits the devil to
sweep us away with lies. In other words,
God permits those who refuse to love the
truth to be deceived by their love for
lies.
The
Bible predicts that a large majority of
the world will be deceived by
Lucifer’s miracles and misled by his
lies. (Revelation 13:8) They will believe
that the devil is almighty God! Paul
wrote, “The coming of the lawless
one [who claims to be God in verse 4)
will be in accordance with the work of
Satan [for he is Satan] displayed
in all kinds of counterfeit miracles,
signs and wonders, and in every sort of
evil that deceives those who are
perishing. They perish because [they
heard the truth and] they
refused to love the truth
and so be saved. For this reason
God sends them a powerful delusion so
that they will believe the lie and so
that all will be condemned who have not
believed the truth but delighted in
darkness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:
9-12, italics and insertions mine) Keep
this thought in mind: God does not
condemn people for honestly believing
things that are not true; however, God
does condemn those who refuse to embrace
the clearest evidences of truth.
After
the devil appears on Earth, no one will
be able to refuse the Antichrist without
suffering a terrible penalty. (Revelation
9:6; 13:15) Standing for truth will be
painful, but going along with the devil
will also prove to be painful, especially
during the seven bowls. This is why the
Great Tribulation is called “a time
of wrath.” (Daniel 8:19; 11:36)
Everyone will suffer. Eventually, the
devil will divide the people of Earth
into ten sectors and he will set up ten
kings to rule over them. Lucifer will
also choose a large number of people to
serve as officials in his new government.
No Room for Diversity
As King of kings (the
chief political leader of the world) and
Lord of lords (the chief religious leader
of the world), the devil’s demand
for a one-world-church-state will seem
very reasonable to his followers. Think
about this statement very carefully: When
“God” lives among men, there
can be no room for diversity within
religion or government. When the
devil lives among men, he will be able to
speak for himself that will eliminate any
question or ambiguity about “the
will of God.” The devil will demand
there must be “one Lord, one faith
and one baptism.” The devil will
quote the Bible and other sacred writings
with marvelous ability to support his
claims. The serpent has no equal
when it comes to deception. He will be
successful for a time. (Daniel 11:36) He
will set up a one-world-church-state and
rule Earth. His one-world-church-state is
called “an image to the beast”
in Revelation 13 because his government
will be “a likeness” of
previous fallen governments that have
ruled on Earth. Calling the great
government of Lucifer “an image to
the beast” is a veiled denunciation
of Lucifer’s government because the
government of Jesus Christ, which He will
set up on Earth after it is purified by
fire, will be totally unlike the
governments of fallen man. In other
words, God’s government will not be
an image of man’s fallen ways.
God’s government is based on love,
righteousness and truth. Lucifer’s
government is based on force, evil
schemes and lies.
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