I know the title of
this article is outrageous, but
Revelation 13:14 and Revelation 17:
12 do not predict the world’s
religions and nations will be
abolished before Jesus returns. If
God’s Word did not state it, I
would not believe it. Since this may
be the first time you have ever read
this prediction, I am sure you are
wondering how these events will
happen.
Apocalyptic prophecy
predicts a series of coming events
which are stranger than fiction.
During the Great tribulation, the
world will be very different than it
is today. The Bible predicts a coming
world order unlike anything people
are anticipating. The same situation
occurred in Noah’s day. In
Noah’s day, no one believed that
a significant change was in the
offing. This is the advantage of
studying and understanding the
“the more sure word of
prophecy.” God wants His people
to understand His Word so that when
He steps into the affairs of mankind
and alters everything we know, we
will not be discouraged or
deceived.
Revelation 9
indicates a time is coming when God
will permit Lucifer 9the devil
himself, the Antichrist) and his
demons to physically appear on Earth.
As I understand the subject, Jesus
will only permit the devil and his
angels to exit from the spirit realm
(the Abyss) when two-thirds of the
time allotted for the Great
Tribulation has expired. God holds
the devil and his angels back until
the 891st day of the Great
Tribulation arrives. When these
supernatural beings are released from
the spirit realm, they will have
physical bodies. The devil and his
angels unexpectedly will descend to
Earth from the sky. (Revelation 9:3)
Their appearing will be glorious and
intimidating. The devil’s angels
will be so numerous that they will
fill the sky from horizon to horizon
like a swarm of locusts. At first,
the people of Earth will run for
shelter to escape their glorious
presence, but before long, millions
of people will go out to see
“the greatest deception” to
ever occur on Earth.
The Bible tells us
that God is love. He is not willing
that anyone should perish. This may
sound strange, but God intends to use
the physical appearing of the devil
to save people who
would otherwise choose His salvation!
Please consider some of the
objectives during the fifth and sixth
trumpets.
1. Searching
among the Wicked for Precious
Souls
Long ago, God
thoughtfully and deliberately
designed the Great Tribulation to
accomplish several objectives. One of
God’s objectives is to save as
many people as possible during the
1,260 days allotted to the Two
Witnesses. There are at least two
problems with this objective. First,
from God’s point of view, the
religions of the world are
blasphemous. Mankind is basically
ignorant of God and His truth.
Second, each person on Earth has been
given the power of choice. To judge
the living and determine who will be
saved, God intends to enlighten the
world with His truth (using 144,000
servants) so that each person can
hear and understand the properties of
salvation and sin. Once a person
receives this knowledge, he/she will
be in a position to make an informed
and intelligent decision about
his/her eternal destiny.
The first two and a
half years of the Great Tribulation
will be agonizing. The Bible reveals
that the first trumpets will
devastate the whole world and reduce
the population by 25%. In response to
God’s wrath, all nations will
implement martial law shortly after
the Great Tribulation begins. To make
matters worse, the religious and
political leaders of the world will
create a crisis government in an
attempt to appease God so that His
judgments will cease, and the crisis
government which the Bible calls
Babylon will persecute everyone who
refuses to obey its blasphemous laws.
Given the dire circumstances that
remain after the first four trumpets,
survival will be questionable. For
890 days, the survivors will hear the
144,000 and by the 891st day, most
people will have made their decision
for or against God.
God mercifully keeps
the devil and his angels in the Abyss
for the first two-thirds (890 days)
of the Great Tribulation which last
1,335 days. Lucifer and his demons
will be released after a majority of
the people on Earth no longer listen
or consider the 144,000’s
testimony. The release of the devil
and his angels will be a powerful
“game changer.”
When Lucifer and his
angels physically appear, the devil
will masquerade as Almighty God.
Claiming to be God, he will travel
the world for five months, winning
the confidence of billions of people
by appearing to be holy, righteous,
generous, forgiving, and gracious.
His appearance and actions will
deceive a large number of survivors
from the first four trumpets.
Pretending to be Almighty God, the
devil will perform amazing miracles.
He will even call fire down out of
Heaven to prove his assumed divinity.
His popularity will quickly grow and
millions of wicked people will
admire, adore, and worship him.
Millions of wicked people will bow
down before him in humble obedience.
They will be the people who defiled
the gospel of Jesus presented by the
144,000.
Currently, there are
many non-religious people on Earth
(atheists, agnostics, etc.). These
people do not believe there is a god
and they will continue to deny there
is a god when Lucifer is walking on
the Earth! During the five months
allotted to the fifth trumpet,
Lucifer’s demons will be at work
by attempting to eliminate the
infidels and torturing them with
indescribable pain. During the fifth
trumpet, the demons will force many
non-religious people to capitulate
and join ranks with those who believe
that Lucifer is Almighty God. There
will be an antidote to torture for
this demonic torture. If a person
surrenders to the gospel of Jesus,
Jesus will not permit the
devil’s demons to torture him
any further. So, the fifth
trumpet will eliminate many infidels.
Most of the infidels will join forces
with Lucifer, but a few will
surrender to Jesus Christ and be
saved!
Notice Paul’s
comment about this coming event. Paul
describes Lucifer as the
“lawless one” or “man
of sin” (KJV) because Lucifer
will not be subject to any law but
his own. He will do as he pleases,
and because of his incredible powers,
no one will be able to obstruct or
thwart his actions.
“The
coming of the lawless one
[will appear to be a divine event,
but the devil’s actions] will
be in accordance with the work of
Satan [who really is] 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 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 all
will be condemned who have not
believed the truth but have delighted
in wickedness.” (2
Thessalonians 9: 912, insertions and
emphasis mine)
Several things can be
said about this passage, but we will
consider two: First, Paul says the
wicked “refused
to love the truth and so be
saved.” His language indicates
something that many people overlook:
The appearing of the lawless one
occurs for a specific reason. Before
Lucifer can appear, the world will
have had to hear the gospel and
reject it. We know the world heard
the gospel and rebelled against it
because God does not assign guilt to
a person for something that he does
not know and has not heard. (See
James 4:17.)
Second, because the
wicked refused to accept the truth
and be saved, God sends a “game
changer,” a powerful delusion so
that both groups of wicked people
(religious and non-religious) will
believe the lie and be condemned. You
see, long ago God predetermined that
the living will be thoroughly tested
during the Great Tribulation to see
who will choose to live by faith and
be saved. Every person has the power
of choice and each person will be
required to make a choice. Our
response to the testimony of Jesus,
spoken through the lips of the
144,000 will determine our eternal
destiny.
2. Abolishing
the Religions and Nations of the
World
When the five months
allotted to the fifth trumpet ends,
the devil will suddenly change
behavior and character. His deceit is
over. His change of character is
prompted and empowered by the fact
that during the sixth trumpet, the
devil and his forces are permitted to
kill people. In fact, the Bible
indicates that he will kill a third
of mankind, those who oppose him.
(Revelation 9:15) Surprisingly, many
saints, remaining infidels, and a
host of religious people will make a
large group of people who will
continue to oppose him. The saints
will defy his authority and
blasphemous claims. They know Lucifer
is the devil. The infidels will defy
Lucifer’s move to abolish the
nations of the world, and religious
people will defy Lucifer’s move
to abolish the religions of the
world.
Lucifer will give
orders to abolish the religions and
governments of the world at the sixth
trumpet. He does this because when
“God Himself” lives among
men,
there will be no more
room for religious plurality (people
having different views about God).
Lucifer intends to rule over mankind
as Almighty God since he is opposed
to all religions. (2 Thessalonians
2:4) Lucifer will demand that
everyone worship and obey him or die.
The image of the beast mentioned in
Revelation 13: 14 will be
Lucifer’s
one-world-church-state. He will rule
over the world as “King of
Kings” (political matters) and
“Lord of Lords” (spiritual
matters). He will claim that there is
only one Lord, one faith, and one
baptism. Anyone resisting membership
in Lucifer’s
one-world-church-state will be
considered part of the opposition and
will be killed. (Revelation 13: 15) A
one-world government cannot exist
when governments and national
boundaries exist. Lucifer will
eliminate the governments of the
world and divide it into ten sectors,
appointing ten puppet kings over
these ten sectors.
The first four
trumpets (Revelation 8) will destroy
much of the world’s
infrastructures. Communications,
travel, banking, manufacturing, and
energy will be non-existent. When the
devil appears on Earth at the fifth
trumpet, his agenda is to destroy the
world in general and God’s
saints in particular. This is why he
is given the titles, Abaddon and
Apollyon in Revelation 9:11. These
titles mean “the
destroyer.” The devil will set
up his one-world-church-state by
dividing the world into small groups
of a thousand people and he will
place captains over each group that
are loyal to him. (Dividing people
into groups of a thousand was a
common practice in ancient times. It
is an efficient way to logistically
manage many people. It also keeps any
one group from becoming very
powerful. See Exodus 18: 21, 25;
Numbers 31: 14; 1 Samuel 22:7 and 1
Samuel 29:2.)
Remember that one of
God’s objectives for the Great
Tribulation is to save the largest
possible number of people. Jesus
allows the religions and nations of
the world to be abolished during the
sixth trumpet so that people will
realize their need of a Savior. One
of the greatest impediments to a new
gospel is an old gospel, or as some
people call all it, ‘old time
religion.” Many good hearted
people would rather cling to their
“old time religion” than
embrace God’s advancing truth.
When all of the “old time
religions” are abolished and
outlawed, a huge obstacle for
accepting God’s present truth
will be removed. People will find
themselves having to choose between
God’s truth or the devil’s
lies. Past traditions and the
practice of “old time
religion” will not be possible!
The time of the sixth
trumpet will be chaotic and horrific.
All governments will be in disarray
and ineffective during the Great
Tribulation. In the United States,
there will be no Constitution, no
Bill of Rights, and no Congress or
court of appeal. The devil will have
total control over the people of the
world. Only when he has achieved this
will the devil offer survival to
everyone who swears total loyalty to
him and his government. Those who
refuse to go along will be killed.
The good news is that during the
final hour of salvation, a few people
will give up their “old time
religion.” They will wake up and
realize their desperate need of a
savior, a God whose ways are
righteous and whose eternal
government is based on the principles
of love. When these last few sheep
come out of Babylon, God’s offer
of mercy ends. The seven bowls will
begin and Jesus will appear.
Larry
Wilson
