Prophecy
15
The Day of the
Lord –
Revelation 19:11 – 20:10
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Revelation
19:15-16
And
out of his mouth goeth a sharp
sword, that with it he should
smite the nations: and he shall
rule them with a rod of iron: and
he treadeth the winepress of the
fierceness and wrath of Almighty
God. And he hath on his vesture
and on his thigh a name written,
KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.{15} When
Jesus speaks, a sharp sword comes
out of His mouth. With this
sword He strikes down the
nations. No person can
escape the sovereign authority of
the Creator of Life.
Everything that lives derives its
life from Him. He alone has
the keys of life and death.[29]
When Jesus offered to die in
man’s place, the Father
promised Jesus that a day would
come when, “He would rule
the nations with an iron
scepter.”[30] An
iron scepter means that His
rulership and authority cannot be
broken or appealed. There
is no higher authority.
With justice and righteous
indignation, He treads the
winepress of the fury of the
wrath of God Almighty.
{16} On
His robe and on His thigh He has
this name written: KING OF KINGS
AND LORD OF LORDS and no one will
be able to diminish this claim
when He appears in glory.[31]
Revelation
19:17-18
And
I saw an angel standing in the
sun; and he cried with a loud
voice, saying to all the fowls
that fly in the midst of heaven,
Come and gather yourselves
together unto the supper of the
great God; That ye may eat the
flesh of kings, and the flesh of
captains, and the flesh of mighty
men, and the flesh of horses, and
of them that sit on them, and the
flesh of all men, both free and
bond, both small and great.{17} I
saw a mighty angel (Gabriel?)
robed with glory as bright as the
sun. He called out in a
loud voice to all the birds
flying in midair, “Come,
gather together for the great
supper of God,
{18} so
that you may eat the flesh of
kings, generals, and mighty men,
of horses and their riders, and
the flesh of all people, free and
slave, great and small, for their
bodies will lie in the street of
the great city.”
Revelation
19:19
And
I saw the beast, and the kings of
the earth, and their armies,
gathered together to make war
against him that sat on the
horse, and against his army.{19} Then
I saw the beast (with seven heads
and ten horns) unite with the
kings of Earth and their armies
to make war against Jesus and His
army.
Lucifer’s
theocracy (the great whore that
rides upon the composite beast)
will last for approximately nine
months. When the fifth bowl
(a plague of painful blindness)
is poured out on Lucifer’s
officials and employees,
Lucifer’s theocracy will
cease to function. The
wicked of Earth will then realize
that Lucifer is the devil and
they will revolt against him and
abandon his one world church
state government. Lucifer
will respond to the implosion of
his government by sending miracle
working demons to the kings of
the Earth. These powerful
demons will inform the kings of
Earth that Jesus will totally
destroy them and their only hope
for survival is to join with
Lucifer attacking the Lamb when
He appears. The kings will
be forced to join the devil and
his forces. They will
prepare their armies to destroy
Jesus as He draws near Earth.
The beast
mentioned in verse 19 is the
composite beast, Babylon.
After the devil is exposed for
who he is and his false theocracy
implodes, the remnant of Babylon
can be compared to a angry
beast. Because
Lucifer’s officials and
employees will be blinded during
the fifth bowl,[32] the
kings and their armies will war
against the Lamb without the
devil’s
administrators. God wants
to demonstrate that wicked people
will knowingly unite with the
devil, when necessary, to save
themselves, even if it means the
destruction of their Creator.
When
Jesus comes close enough to
Earth, the armies of Earth will
fire weaponry at the magnificent
host of angels in the sky, but
weapons will have no
effect. The efforts of
wicked men will be futile and
useless. The wicked will be
filled with terror when they
realize their hopeless
situation. They will cry
out for the rocks and mountains
to fall upon them, calling for
sudden death so their terrified
torment will end.[33]
Revelation
19:20-21
And
the beast was taken, and with him
the false prophet that wrought
miracles before him, with which
he deceived them that had
received the mark of the beast,
and them that worshipped his
image. These both were cast alive
into a lake of fire burning with
brimstone. And the remnant were
slain with the sword of him that
sat upon the horse, which sword
proceeded out of his mouth: and
all the fowls were filled with
their flesh.{20} Above
the din of war, I heard a great
noise, like the sound of a
trumpet.[34]
Jesus spoke and many brilliant
angels suddenly descended from
the sky. They captured
Lucifer (the false prophet who
had performed miraculous signs on
behalf of the composite beast[35]) and his
angels. They also captured
Lucifer’s blind officials,
his employees, and the kings of
the Earth with their armies and
the angels threw them alive into
a fiery lake of burning sulfur.
{21} Suddenly,
the rest of the wicked fell
dead. Jesus killed them
with a command (the sword that
came from His mouth) and all the
birds gorged themselves on their
flesh.
Lucifer
is called “the false
prophet” in Revelation three
times[36] because
he will defy and contradict the
testimony of God’s true
prophets (the 144,000) with
outrageous blasphemy and awesome
miracles. Many people are
confused about the false
prophet’s identity, but the
specification given in verse
20 (“. . . he performed
miraculous signs on behalf of the
composite beast. . . and he
deceived those who had received
the mark of the beast and
worshiped his image”)
perfectly aligns with the
lamblike beast’s actions
described in Revelation
13:11-18.
Remember
that during the fourth message
the Holy Spirit will give the
144,000 great power. They
will physically glow from
God’s glory resting on them
as did Moses when He came down
from Mount Sinai and through
them, the whole world will be
illumined to hear the final call
to come out of Babylon. To
counteract this glorious
manifestation of 144,000 true
prophets, Lucifer will take a
bold and defiant stand. He
will call fire down out of Heaven
at will to “prove” to
the wicked that he is God and he
will perform many counterfeit
miracles.[37]
The lake
of fire that burns the beast and
false prophet is not to be
understood as an ongoing hell
even though this fire will burn
for a thousand years.[38]
God will use fire at the end of
the age to destroy Babylon in the
same way that He destroyed Sodom
and Gomorrah. Historians
state that the ancient city of
Jerusalem burned for months after
Rome set it afire in A.D. 70, but
realize that after a person is
dead, the duration of the fire is
immaterial.
The
burning lake of sulfur will not
destroy Lucifer and his
angels. Instead, the
physical bodies they occupied
will be burned up. The
officials and employees of
Lucifer’s government and the
kings of the earth with their
armies will all perish by fire,
but the devil and his angels will
only lose their physical bodies
so they can be returned to the
Abyss.
Revelation
20:1-3
And
I saw an angel come down from
heaven, having the key of the
bottomless pit and a great chain
in his hand. And he laid
hold on the dragon, that old
serpent, which is the Devil, and
Satan, and bound him a thousand
years, And cast him into the
bottomless pit, and shut him up,
and set a seal upon him, that he
should deceive the nations no
more, till the thousand years
should be fulfilled: and after
that he must be loosed a little
season.{20:1}
I saw a mighty angel come down
from the sky. He had the
key to the Abyss and a great
chain in his hand.
{2} He
seized the dragon, that ancient
serpent, who is the devil, or
Satan, and bound him for a
thousand years.
{3} He
threw the devil and his angels
back into the Abyss (the spirit
world). He then locked and
sealed the Abyss so there could
be no escape. Lucifer and
his angels will be incarcerated
for 1,000 years. They will
not deceive the nations (because
no one is alive on Earth) and
they will not be able to leave
Earth. The devil and his
demons will be confined in
solitude, to contemplate their
past, their present, and their
future.
Many
people believe that verse 3
indicates that people will be
living on Earth during the 1,000
years. In other words, they
reason that nations must exist on
Earth if Lucifer is prevented
from deceiving them. This
conclusion is faulty because it
does not align with other
facts. Remember, the carnal
nature makes every sinner a
miniature of Lucifer. Even
if sinners were alive on Earth
during the 1,000 years, the curse
of sin would still remain!
The devil has been invisible to
mankind ever since he was cast
out of Heaven. From his
prison (the Abyss), he has
successfully deceived billions of
people. So, whether in the
Abyss or out of the Abyss, the
devil has been (and will be) able
to deceive the nations.
Please
consider four points: First,
Prophecy 9 teaches that all who
reject the testimony of the Two
Witnesses will be condemned to
death. All of the wicked
who live on Earth during the
Great Tribulation will receive
the mark of the beast and commit
the unpardonable sin, so there
would be no point in allowing
them to live after the Second
Coming. They cannot
possibly be saved later on.
Second, Prophecy 12 teaches that
Jesus will pass eternal judgment
on the dead and the living prior
to the Second Coming, so again,
there would be no point in
allowing the wicked to live after
the Second Coming.
Third, Revelation 19:19,20 teaches
that all of
the wicked of Earth will be
destroyed at the Second
Coming. Some will be
destroyed in the lake of fire;
others will drop dead on command
and the birds will eat their
flesh. Fourth, Revelation
16 teaches that the seven
bowls (the third woe) will be
poured out on those having the
mark of the beast. In other
words, there will only be two
groups of people at the Second
Coming. The wicked will be
destroyed and the saints will
meet the Lord in the air and be
taken to Heaven.[39]
These events leave Earth in a
desolate state during the 1,000
years. After the 1,000
years are over, the Holy City,
New Jerusalem, will descend from
Heaven (containing the saints)
and, at that time, God will
resurrect the wicked of all
ages. Only then will the
devil and his angels be set free
for a short time to deceive the
wicked one last time. (See
verses 7 and 8 for further
discussion.)
Revelation
20:4
And
I saw thrones, and they sat upon
them, and judgment was given unto
them: and I saw the souls of them
that 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.{4}
After Jesus and the saints
arrived in Heaven, I saw the
redeemed sitting on
thrones. God gave the
saints authority to judge the
wicked. The purpose of this
judgment is to determine the
amount of restitution that will
be required of the wicked when
they are resurrected. I saw
those who had been beheaded
because of their testimony for
Jesus and their obedience to the
Word of God. These martyrs
had not worshiped the beast or
his image and had not received
his mark on their foreheads nor
on their hands. Jesus
resurrected them at the Second
Coming and they reigned with Him
for a thousand years so that they
might judge their murderers.
John
particularly noticed the martyrs
who had not worshiped the beast
or received the mark. His
comment does not exclude the
saints from all ages; instead, he
focuses on the numberless
multitude who came out of the
Great Tribulation. In 1
Corinthians 6, Paul states the
saints will review the lives of
their assailants and they will
judge each person according to
the demands of the golden
rule. Jesus, insisting that
justice be served, has determined
that each wicked person will
suffer in direct proportion to
the suffering that he inflicted
on others. Therefore, the
saints will reign with Christ and
judge the wicked according to
this rule: “As you do unto
others, the same shall be done
unto you.”[40]
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