THE
PUNISHMENT OF THE GREAT PROSTITUE AND
THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON
The Punishment of the
Great Prostitute and the Battle of
Armageddon
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How the Beast Rises
Now that we have
considered several parts of the
story, let us take a moment and
review the sequence of prophetic
events that leads up to the
establishment of Lucifer’s
one-world-church-state (the image).
Revelation 13:1 predicts that a beast
will rise from the sea shortly after
God’s judgments begin to fall.
Although Revelation 13:1 does not say
what causes the beast to rise from
the sea, the Bible does address the
identity, the timing and purpose of
this beast. The beast that rises from
the sea represents man’s
organized response to the
overwhelming death and destruction
caused by the first four
trumpet-judgments. The first four
trumpet-judgments will destroy
one-fourth of the world’s
population and one-third of the
world’s oceans, land mass and
rivers. As a result, the inhabitants
of this diverse planet will quickly
find a united way to respond
to God’s wrath.
The Bible states that
the beast from the sea will have
seven heads and ten horns, and it
will exercise its authority for
forty-two months. I call this a
crisis government, a union of diverse
churches and diverse states, that
will form shortly after the judgments
of God begin to fall. (Remember, the
devil is not allowed to physically
appear on Earth for approximately 890
days, so the one-world-church-state
will be a later development.) At
first, the crisis government will be
a coalition of the world’s
religious leaders who will agree and
unite in a common cause to appease
God. They will implore their
respective governments to implement
laws demanding repentance for sin and
the worship of God, and fearful
legislators will respond in unity.
The seven heads represent the seven
religions of the world: Atheism,
Heathenism, Eastern Mysticism,
Judaism, Catholicism and
Protestantism. The problem with this
religious coalition is that each
religious group views God’s will
in a different way, resulting in a
great deal of confusion about
repentance and worship. This is why
the beast is called Babylon –
because the word “Babylon”
means confusion.
The head that received
the deadly wound (in 1798) represents
the papacy, and the healing of this
deadly wound indicates the pope will
lead the world as chief spiritual
advisor until the devil appears
masquerading as God. After Lucifer
appears, he will abolish all of the
religions on Earth as quickly as
possible because he will not tolerate
diversity when “God” lives
on Earth. After Lucifer convinces
enough people that he is God, he will
demand that an the image or
likeness to the diverse sea beast be
established. In other words, the
devil will consolidate the religions
and governments of the world into a
one-world-church-state that does not
have to deal with the confusion
caused by man’s diversity. The
book of Revelation gives
Lucifer’s one-world-church-state
three titles because each title
amplifies the character and actions
of his one-world-church-state. These
three titles are: “the image to
the beast,” “the great
prostitute,” “the great
city that rules over the kings of the
Earth.”
We know that God
permits the devil to physically
appear to lead the world into
destruction. There are several
reasons why God permits the devil to
abolish the religions of the world,
but this is the one that I find most
interesting. Revelation 13 and 17
indicate the seven heads (the seven
religions of the world) are
blasphemous in nature (Revelation
13:1; 17:3), signifying that they
have usurped the prerogatives of God.
The religions of Earth are offensive
to God because all of them are
false and arrogant. When false ideas
about God are merged with man’s
fallen nature, religious
organizations become arrogant and
unwilling to change. Somehow, most
clergy view religious change as a
sign of weakness when in reality,
truth is ever unfolding.
Even worse, lay people
typically exalt their religion as
though it were God! Therefore, God
permits the devil to eliminate the
religions of the world, which will
have the calculated effect of putting
millions of people in a great
predicament. If people cling to their
old religion, which will be outlawed,
the devil will kill them for
rebellion. If they join the
devil’s new religion, they will
have to sell their soul to the devil
in order to survive, even though they
may disagree with the demands of the
new religion! This conflict will open
the minds of devoutly religious
people, and for the first time, they
will thoughtfully and intelligently
consider the annoying testimony of
the 144,000. I say,
“annoying” because their
testimony of Jesus Christ will stand
in direct opposition to all the
religions on Earth including
Lucifer’s
one-world-church-state!
Sixth Trumpet
When the appointed
hour, day, month and year for the
sixth trumpet-judgment arrives
(Revelation 9:15), the devil will
declare sovereign authority over all
of Earth. This declaration will force
everyone – on a single day
– to take sides. People standing
in opposition to his
one-world-church-state will be
targeted for destruction. (Revelation
13:15) The challenge on that day will
be very simple. “Worship God or
die.” The problem, of course, is
that the being claiming to be God is
the devil. The Bible indicates
Lucifer will divide the population of
Earth into groups of one thousand and
his angels will kill one-third of
mankind. The survivors of this global
purge will be forced to wear one
of two marks of the beast. The
non-government survivors will wear a
tattoo showing the number
“666” on their right hand.
The government workers will wear a
tattoo on their foreheads indicating
the name that the devil will use.
(Revelation 13:16-18) These tattoos
will serve as a non-transferable I.D.
card and will be placed on the
two-thirds of mankind who have joined
Lucifer’s
one-world-church-state. Now you know
why the mark of the beast is a
number: 666 are two-thirds of 1,000.
Of course, the devil’s angels
will be unable to locate and kill all
of God’s saints, but they will
destroy several hundred million of
them during the fifth seal.
(Revelation 6:9-11; 16:4-7; 17:6)
The seventh
trumpet-judgment in Revelation
11:15-19 occurs on Sunday, the 1,264th
day of the Great Tribulation. At that
point, the inhabitants of Earth will
have either the mark of the beast or
the seal of God. Jesus’ final
offer of salvation will have been
terminated, and He will begin to
avenge the suffering of His innocent
saints by forcing the wicked to drink
the bitter dregs of His wrath poured
out of seven bowls – the seven
last plagues. I believe the seven
bowls will last about seventy days
with each plague averaging ten days.
These seven bowl-judgments, unlike
the seven trumpet judgments, will
fall upon the wicked without any
mixture of mercy. The first four
bowls will fall on people having the
mark of the beast, and the last three
bowls will include Lucifer and his
angels.
The Fifth Bowl
“The fifth
angel poured out his bowl on the
throne of the beast, and his kingdom
was plunged into darkness. Men gnawed
their tongues in agony and cursed the
God of heaven because of their pains
and their sores, but they refused to
repent of what they had done.” (Revelation
16:10,11)
The fifth-bowl
judgment will turn everything upside
down for the wicked. This plague
falls upon the throne of the devil,
and his administration of his
one-world-church-state will be
plunged into a dense darkness and a
painful experience. Keep in mind
there will be no electricity in those
days. This darkness will be similar
to the darkness that plagued Pharaoh.
(Exodus 10:22,23) A plague of painful
sores will also befall the devil, his
kings and priests. This series of
events turn everything upside down
for the wicked because this plague
unmasks the devil. The wicked will
understand that the glorious being
sitting on the throne is not Almighty
God as he claimed. Too late, the
wicked realize that they have been
worshiping and obeying the devil
because no one but a higher authority
could impose this painful suffering
and darkness on the devil’s
throne and kingdom. The fifth bowl
unmasks the devil by proving there is
a higher power that is a sovereign
power. (I find it ironic that the
wicked discover this light while
sitting in the dark.)
When the realization
occurs, the one-world-church-state
will immediately break down and
implode because people who have the
mark of the beast will learn that
their God is no god after all. This
is when the punishment of the great
prostitute (the
one-world-church-state) begins. The
huge administration and one world
government that Lucifer assembled
will be filled with people loathing
the one-world-church-state they
built. The devil’s deception
will be exposed and the wicked will
be totally demoralized and disgusted.
Every wicked person will remember how
he sold his soul to the devil to
survive. Every wicked person will
recall what the 144,000 had said. The
fifth plague will provide
unmistakable evidence to the wicked
that their doom is near. They will
hate the one-world-church-state, they
will loathe themselves, and the
devil’s great government will
implode.
Sixth Bowl –
Twenty Days to Go
“The sixth
angel poured out his bowl on the
great river Euphrates, and its water
dried up to prepare the way for the
kings of the East.” (Revelation
16:12) The kings (plural) from the
East are the Father and Son. They
will appear together in clouds of
glory at the Second Coming. (See
Matthew 26:64 and Revelation 6:
16,17) they will come from the East
because anything approaching our
planet from space appears to come
from the East because of our
planet’s clockwise rotation.
The drying up of the
river Euphrates takes a little
explanation. God established the
great river Euphrates as
Israel’s northernmost boundary
when He gave the land of Canaan to
Abraham. (Genesis
15:18) This great river served
as a natural barrier against invading
forces from the North.
Because the great river Euphrates is
fed by snowmelt from several
mountains, the river overflows its
banks from time to time, and the
destruction left in the wake of this
unstoppable flooding “in the
north” became legendary.
God sometimes
paralleled His wrath against Israel
with the flooding of this great river
Euphrates. (See Isaiah 8: 7,8 and
Jeremiah 47:2). God also paralleled
His wrath against Israel as coming
out of the north. (Ezekiel 1:4;
Jeremiah 1:14) To the ancient nation
of Israel, “the flooding of the
Euphrates” meant one thing:
Oncoming and unstoppable destruction
from the north. Once this ancient
figure of speech is understood, the
release of the four angels at the
river Euphrates in the sixth trumpet
becomes easier to understand. When
the sixth trumpet-judgment occurs, an
oncoming and unstoppable destruction
will befall the whole world. In fact,
the devil’s angels will kill
one-third of mankind! (Revelation
9:15) It is interesting to notice
that the sixth trumpet-judgment
concerns the great river Euphrates
and so does the sixth bowl-judgment.
The drying up of the great river, to
prepare the way for the kings from
the East, means this: No barrier
protecting mankind from God wrath is
left. The kings from the East will
cross “the river” without
resistance. The kings from the East
will be unstoppable and their global
destruction will be swift and
complete. (See Job 37:22.)
Three Frogs
“Then I saw
three evil spirits that looked like
grogs; they came out of the mouth of
the dragon, out of the mouth of the
beast and out of the mouth of the
false prophet. They are spirits of
demons performing miraculous signs,
and they go out to the kings of the
whole world, to gather them for the
battle on the great day of God
Almighty.” (Revelation 16:
13,14) John saw three miracle working
demons that looked like frogs come
out of the mouth of the dragon
(Lucifer), the beast (the sea beast
with seven heads and ten horns, also
called Babylon) and the false prophet
(the devil’s personation of
God). This language requires some
explanation.
When Lucifer is
permitted to appear before the people
of Earth during the fifth
trumpet-judgment, the devil will
present himself as a glorious being
of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14)
The devil and 200,000,000 of his
angels (Revelation 9:16) will take on
physical forms that humans will be
able to touch and see. This concept
can be difficult to understand at
first because the devil and his
angels will not be human beings.
Perhaps the easiest way to understand
this is through the use of a hand
puppet. When a capable artist puts
his hand inside a hand puppet, the
artist can make the hand puppet appear
to be alive even though everyone
knows that it is the hand inside
the hand puppet that is alive. When
the fifth trumpet-judgment occurs,
the glorious body masquerading, as
God will be the hand puppet. This is
important to know because Jesus will
destroy the glorious bodies that
Lucifer and his angels inhabit at the
Second Coming. The devil and his
angels will be returned to the spirit
realm for 1,000 years. (Revelation
20:1-3)
Lucifer’s
apparition is called a “false
prophet” three times in the book
of Revelation because Lucifer is a
lair and he will lead the whole world
astray with his lies. (Revelation
12:9) The devil will be able to
deceive billions of people because
they never loved the truth. Thus, the
devil will earn the title,
“false prophet.” Notice how
the world will be tested during the
Great Tribulation. Everyone will hear
a call to obey God and exalt His
truth. God’s true prophets will
proclaim God’s Word. The wicked
will hear God’s servants, but
they will accept Lucifer’s lies,
and unfortunately, most of the
world’s clergy will unite with
the false prophet! Surely, the whole
world will stand in the valley of
decision! “Multitudes,
multitudes in the valley of decision!
For the day of the Lord is near in
the valley of decision. The sun and
moon will be darkened, and the stars
no longer shine. The Lord will roar
from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem;
and the earth and the sky will
tremble. But the Lord will be a
refuge for his people, a stronghold
for the people of Israel.” (Joel
3:14-16)
We have already
discussed how God will unmask the
devil during the fifth bowl-
judgment. Finally, the wicked will
understand their great deception. The
wicked will realize their stupidity
as well as their impending doom
because their protection (the
one-world-church-state) turns out to
be a great deception. The implosion
of the great prostitute is
represented as the drying up of the
great river Euphrates. Now, that you
understand this setting, consider the
following: When the sixth-bowl
judgment is poured out, the devil
will acknowledge his clever deception
and inform the wicked that his and
their destruction is imminent. The
wicked will have no place to turn.
Everything they trusted in was either
a lie or a calculated deception.
At that time, the
devil will set out to achieve one
last deception. (The devil does not
give up.) He will send three miracle
working demons throughout the world
with the news that Jesus Christ is
about to appear and that Jesus
intends to destroy every wicked
person. The devil will tell the
wicked that they have no other option
but to join with him in destroying
Jesus as He nears Earth. The
devil’s demons will work great
miracles before the kings and rulers
of Earth to convince them that they
have a ghost of a chance at saving
themselves.
Perhaps one of the
reasons that John describes these
three demons as frogs is found in
Psalm 78:45: “He [God] sent
swarms of flies that devoured them,
and frogs that devastated them.”
Remember that Pharaoh’s
magicians were able to convince
Pharaoh that his God was as great as
the God of the Hebrews because they
could also call up frogs from the
Nile River. (Exodus 8:7) However,
this was the last deception
that Pharaoh’s magicians were
able to reproduce before their
rebellious king. In other words, the
imagery of demons as frogs in
Revelation 16 parallels the last
deception of Satan, and the
devastation that follows for the
kings and armies of Earth parallels
the destruction of the king of Egypt
and his soldiers. Because the three
frogs (three demons) come out of the
mouths of the dragon, beast and
prophet, these demonically controlled
entities are in perfect agreement
with each other. They know their only
remaining option is to destroy Jesus
as He arrives. How low can evil minds
sink? Who could think of actually
entering into combat against Almighty
God? Truly, the carnal heart is
hostile toward God and His laws: The
carnal heart would rather die than
surrender to God’s authority and
given half a chance, it would kill
God.
“Behold, I
come like a thief! Blessed is he who
stays awake and keeps his clothes
with him, so that he may not go naked
and be shamefully exposed.’ Then
they gathered the kings together to
the place that in Hebrew is called
Armageddon.” (Revelation
16:15,16)
Remember, the seven
bowls will last for a period of
seventy days; each plague will last
for ten days. This means the 1,290th
day (the date for the universal
slaughter of the saints – Daniel
12:11) occurs during the third
bowl-judgment. The devil will rally
the wicked to kill every saint they
can find. The good news surrounding
this event is that (a) God responds
to this evil tactic with a horrible
plague for the wicked, and (b) the
wicked will not be able to find or
kill a single saint. (Daniel 12:1)
Notice what happens to the wicked at
this time: “The third angel
poured out his bowl on the rivers and
springs of water, and they became
blood. Then I heard the angel in
charge of the waters say: ‘You
are just in these judgments, you who
are and who were, the Holy One,
because you have so judged; for they
have shed the blood of your saints
and prophets [during the time of
the seven trumpets], and you have
given them blood to drink as they
deserve.’ And I heard the alter
respond: ‘Yes, Lord God
Almighty, true and just are your
judgments.’” (Revelation
16:4-7)
The sixth
bowl-judgment (demonic deception)
begins twenty-five days after the
1,290th day. At that time,
the saints will be hiding in remote
places, desperate for the appearing
of Jesus, and they will be clinging
to life through faith in Him. This is
why Jesus speaks to the saints
saying, ‘Behold, I come like
a thief! Blessed is he who stays
awake and keeps his clothes with him,
so that he may not go naked and be
shamefully exposed.’
Armageddon
John concludes the ten
days of the sixth bowl-judgment
saying, “Then they [the
demons] gathered the kings
together to the place that is in
Hebrew is called Armageddon.” (Revelation
16:16, insertion mine) This text
puzzled Bible students for almost
2,000 years, but I think the meaning
is quite simple. The word
har-meggiddon is mentioned once in
the Bible, so a word study on
“Armageddon” is not
practical. To be accurate,
har-megiddon is not a Hebrew word!
However, in Old Testament times it is
well known that the Hebrews would
join words together to create names
as circumstances warranted. For
example, when God called Abraham to
offer his son Isaac on Mount Moriah,
the Lord intervened. The Lord
cancelled the sacrifice of Isaac
because He provided a ram that was
caught in the thicket. Abraham named
that place “Jehovahjireh”
by putting two Hebrew words together.
Jehovahjireh means “Jehovah will
provide {the sacrifice]” or
“Jehovah will see to it [that
the sacrifice will be
provided].” (Genesis 22:14)
The word Armageddon
appears to be a combination of two
Greek words: har and Megiddon. The
Greek word har means mountain. The
word Megiddon refers to a battlefield
where kings Ahaziah ands Josiah died.
(2 Kings 9:27; 23:30) The interesting
thing about Josiah’s death is
that he foolishly went against
God’s command. He foolishly made
war with Pharaoh Neco who was passing
through the land, and Josiah was
killed. (2 Kings 23:29; 2 Chronicles
35:21,22) In other words, the
association with Megiddo is that of a
battlefield where kings die. The
kings of the Earth will foolishly
make war with Almighty God at the
mountain of God and they will be
destroyed. At the end of the battle,
“the King of the mountain”
will be Almighty God. The kings of
Earth will perish. The wicked will be
killed; the glorious but evil
apparition of the devil and his
angels will be consumed with fire and
returned to their spirit realm. The
battle of Armageddon occurs the last
en days of Earth’s history.
“The seventh
angel poured out his bowl into the
air, and out of the temple came a
loud voice from the throne, saying,
‘It is done!’ Then there
came flashes of lightening,
rumblings, peals of thunder and a
severe earthquake. No earthquake like
it has ever occurred since man has
been on earth, so tremendous was the
quake. The great city [the
throne, the buildings and offices of
Lucifer’s
one-world-church-state] split into
three parts, and the cities of the
nations collapsed. God remembered
Babylon the Great and gave her the
cup filled with the wine of the fury
of his wrath. Every island fled away
and the mountains could not be found.
From the sky huge hailstones of
about a hundred pounds each fell upon
men. And they cursed God on account
of the plague of hail, because the
plague was so terrible.” (Revelation
16:17-21)
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