This Article: (6 Pages)
- 1. What Does Armageddon mean?
- 2. The Bible's Warning About Armageddon.
- 3. The Word 'Armageddon' is Hebrew... for a Place
- 4. The Modern Political Situation... Fits These Prophecies
- 5. Answering the Questions and... options for Survival
- 6. Armageddon To Occur In The Valley... of Jehoshaphat
4) The Modern Political Situation Fits These Prophecies
Israel is a tiny country of only about 8,000 square miles (~22,000 km2). New York is bigger and more than 40 Israels would still be smaller than Texas. Japan, a small nation in area, is almost twenty times bigger than Israel with thirty times its population. The countries that surround Israel and threaten to destroy it and drive its inhabitants into the sea present an amazing contrast. Syria has nine times the area and three times the population. Iraq is twenty times bigger in area with seventeen million people and Iran is eighty times larger with about fifty million people.
Under these Arab lands, long vandalized, degraded and desolated, by their peoples, lies a commodity which is essential to that resource intensive lifestyle that the western world likes to live. Our civilization runs on oil. Increasingly the major nations want to have access to, if not control of, the massive oil resources of the Middle East. Increasingly both France and Russia are politically involved in the Middle East. In 1997, President Chirac of France visited Boris Yeltsin in Russia and they committed themselves to a “great partnership” to reduce American influence in the Middle East. Both Russia and France are strongly allied with Iran, Iraq and Syria and oppose American interference in Iraq. The nations of the world are aligning into two clear divisions, the U.S.A. and its allies and the European confederacy.
Ezekiel 38 has the same themes as those in Joel 3, but Ezekiel lists the contestants. Ezekiel 38:1-5 enumerates the nations that will rise up to invade the land of Israel. “Gog, of the land of Magog, the Prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal…” (R.V) have been identified by historians with Russia. An all powerful Russia, dominating Europe, is shown as being confederate with Gomer (France, Germany, Spain, Belgium etc.), Persia (Iran, Iraq), Ethiopia, Libya and Togarmah (Ancient Armenia and part of Turkey). These nations gather their military might to invade the Middle East.
Ezekiel describes this invasion as coming out of the “north parts” against God’s people, Israel. The time is given as “the latter days” when Israel is inhabited by a people “gathered out of the nations,” in the land that was once “desolate places but now inhabited.” (Ezekiel 38: 8-12) There will be a great shaking in the earth (verse 19) and manifestation of God’s power against the nations and the establishment of his authority in the earth. Ezekiel 38:18,23, in the same way as Joel’s prophecy, makes these predictions. “It shall come to pass at that same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord God, that my fury shall come up in my face…and I will magnify Myself and sanctify Myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord.”
In Zechariah 14, another prophet speaks of a battle. All these prophets are speaking of the same battle, the same destruction, but from a slightly different aspect or perspective. It’s like a giant jig-saw puzzle, with each of the pieces precisely fitting and integrating, and producing a larger picture as they are joined together. Verse 1 states that the “day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil (note: sp-OIL) shall be divided in the midst of thee.” As in Joel and Ezekiel, Zechariah locates the place of a great battle. “I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle” (verse 2) and “the Lord shall go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.”(verse 3) It was in the days of Jehoshaphat that the Lord fought against Israel’s enemies and the nation of Israel had victory without having to fight the battle themselves. (2 Chronicles 20) Zechariah (verse 4) gives details of a massive earthquake that will shake the earth at this time. “His (Messiah’s, Christ’s) feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley.” This place is geographically on one of the earth’s major fault lines, the Great Rift Valley, of which the Dead Sea is part. A large movement in this fault line will almost certainly cause movement in the other plates that make up the earth’s surface. The result could be widespread devastation.
Isaiah predicts that “the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard,” (Isaiah 24 :20) and that Yahweh will reign in Mt Zion and in Jerusalem gloriously. (verse 23) Jeremiah also prophesies that there will be a great battle and the nations will be overthrown. “Yahweh hath a controversy with the nations…and the slain of Yahweh shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth…they shall not be lamented, neither gathered , nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.” (Jeremiah 25: 31-33) The devastation is so terrible and widespread and there is none to help. This vision is not confined to the Old Testament. The apostle Paul gives a warning in 2 Thessalonians 1: 8. “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
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