Armagetddon

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Permalink Reply by Tammy on February 28, 2014 at 2:44pm

Revelation 13:1 And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore.

Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names.

2  And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were likethose of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority.

3  I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast;

Armageddon is Christ vs Satan. Satan's army will consist of those who have taken the mark of the beast, the false prophet & other heads of countries as well as demons which are 1/3 of the angels that followed Satan when he turned on God & was cast out of heaven. Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 

For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. Rev 16:14

Satan then is changed up for 1,000 years & then released once again. Rev 19:19-21 And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against Him who was sitting on the horse and against His army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of Him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.

Joel 3:12-14 Let the nations stir themselves up and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great. Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

Zech 14:1-21 Behold, a day is coming for the Lord, when the spoil taken from you will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward. And you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal. And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.

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Permalink Reply by Leonard T on February 28, 2014 at 3:18pm

I could be wrong, but I get the sense that you are mixing two battles, the one before the millennial kingdom (Rev. 19) and the one at the close of the thousand years (Rev. 20).

Before making a couple of comments I would like to note that with most prophecy yet to be fulfilled we can know it in the general sense, but rarely know all the details. Man, in his desire to connect the dots (not speaking of you hear specifically) has attempted to fill in all the blanks. We have people today who profess to know these details and teach them as fact. The interesting thing is that between these recognized teachers there are varied degrees of disagreement on those very details, thus none have it all correct and IMO most will be amazed at how God really does it when He fulfills the prophecies. Thus, there is nothing wrong with studying the Word, far from it. But, we must be cautioned to not try and fill in all the blanks as some of it will be a mystery until the end.

Back to the specific question. There are a number of views on the topic as a whole and I will focus in on what I think is your main question ... who are the nations, and will assume you mean the nations referred to in Revelation20. The real answer is ... we don't know for sure, but will give two views (will not give Scripture because I am not trying to prove a point nor am I sold on either view).

One view holds that there will be people who do not follow Satan's army into battle as described in Revelation 19:17-21. These people were never born again, but they also did not follow Satan. Thus, they transfer (continue on to live) at the close of the tribulation and are part of the millennial kingdom. The Bible speaks of the church (Born again children of God) reigning with Him and to reign one must have a subject or subjects to reign over. These people are able to have children and begin to repopulate the earth, but their children will be born with a sin nature. Because Satan is locked away there is no deception (deceiver) to interfere during the millennial reign, and Christ will rule with an iron scepter. They will follow regardless of their own will as they will have no other choice. When Satan is released they are willing and ready to seek to do as Israel of old and establish another king over them.

A second view (and not the only other view) is that those who died apart from Christ, all unregenerated man, will be raised to life for the final conflict. The raising to life is done by Christ (John 5:28-29). This view basically holds that this is the second resurrection.

I will add a third view that holds that Gog and Magog will be a spiritual army of demons released with Satan.

Though I hold to none of these I lean toward view one, but am not sold on it. As a friend of mine puts it "I am a pan eschatologist." It will all pan out in the end, because God has willed it to be fulfilled just as He has planned.

Lord Bless,

LT

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Permalink Reply by Tammy on February 28, 2014 at 3:47pm

And I agree with LT that there are many prophecies just within your few questions.

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Permalink Reply by Kristie Jamison on February 28, 2014 at 5:10pm

the battles i dont understand the two battles  sounds like two groups of people and do the ones that received the mark get to go to heaven or hell do they get judged or just destroyed by fire because it says the smoke accends forever .and why would God let that happen to people who  where deceived into taking that mark if Satan was controlling that stuff ?anyone  have any clue.....

 

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Permalink Reply by Leonard T on February 28, 2014 at 5:23pm

You cannot start with the assumption that man is good, for the Scripture says otherwise. The question has to be flipped around. Why would God let anyone into heaven? None are righteous ... all have sinned ... etc. The gift of God is given by His grace and is not awarded because we deserve it, but simply by His sovereign will. So, when we start with all deserve hell and separation from God and none deserve grace, forgiveness or entrance into heaven we can better understand the lostness of man and the true value of the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf by going to the cross.

Jesus did not come to make sinners better, He came so that we may be born again (regenerated), brought from death to life. Taking the mark did not change their position before God ... they were already lost. Taking the mark only sealed that position.

A good study before delving into prophecy is a study regarding the attributes of God. Without a base understanding of the attributes of God prophecy will be hard to understand and accept.A couple of people to read on this subject are:
A.W. Tozer - The Knowledge of the Holy

A.W. Pink - The Attributes of God

Lord Bless,

LT

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Permalink Reply by Tammy on March 1, 2014 at 11:36am

I would also like to add that any time we study the end times, we should always remember that the focus for us as Christians is to look for these signs so that we may draw others to Jesus. We should not get so caught up in the details that we forgot our focus. That has happened to may many times. Not saying we should not try to understand God's word but for the sake of our goal, we need to keep it into perspective.

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