223 - 8 Stages of Armageddon: Stages 3-5 [B]

8 Stages of Armageddon: Stages 3 - 5. Zech 12 – 14

Revelation 19 focuses on the return of the Lord Jesus Christ at the Second Coming, and that occurs toward the end of what is known as the campaign of Armageddon which is not a battle but a series of battles that take place over a period of time. At about that time there is an attack by another army (we are not sure which army it is) against Babylon, the economic center of activity in the Antichrist's world wide empire. Babylon has been rebuilt and now that is destroyed. So we have seen the first two stages of Armageddon. The third stage is the fall of Jerusalem.

The strategic objective of Satan at this time in history is to wipe out Israel so that there are no Jews left through whom God can fulfill His promise. So there is this assault upon Israel. This is why everything focuses on the Middle East, why everything focuses on Jerusalem ultimately and why that becomes the battlefield. Without that perspective that comes out of the Old Testament we can't really understand and interpret what is going on in the Middle East today. It doesn't mean that what is going on the Middle East today has anything to do with the fulfillment of prophecy, because all the things that we see now are really no different in scale or intensity than what has happened in the Middle East in the past. For example, when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC, and what happened later in AD 70 under the Romans—times of incredible horror and misery and suffering and death far greater than anything that is being experienced today. But what will come about in the end time s is going to be much more intense than all of that. The only way we can understand why it keeps going back to the Middle East is to go back to the Old Testament passages and to understand that the centerpiece of God's plan ultimately is on Israel. God has a plan for Israel and a future plan for the Jews, and He will eventually be the one who protects them and rescues them.

We have the fall of Jerusalem here that takes place as the third stage because the Antichrist is going to send a major part of his army south, about 55-miles as the crow flies, from the Valley of Megiddo to Jerusalem, to destroy all of the Jews in Jerusalem and to take complete control of Jerusalem. That is what is happening in the physical realm but it is a manifestation of what has been going on in the spiritual realm. This takes us back to what we studied in chapter twelve where we see the heavenly warfare that takes place between Michael and the holy angels of God against Satan and his angels. At the mid point of the Tribulation we are told that Satan is cast out of heaven. Revelation 12:12 ^NASB "For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has {only} a short time." Satan knows he only has a very limited time to try to win and so he is going to pull out all the stops and let go with everything he can in order to try in his final desperate moments to destroy God's chosen people. [13] "And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman [Israel] who gave birth to the male {child,}" i.e. Jesus Christ who will rule the nations with a rod of iron. [14] "But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent." This is the protection of God during the Tribulation. God is going to miraculously provide for the Jews to escape from Jerusalem just after he desecrates the temple. Those Jews who flee as Jesus said are going to flee into the wilderness where God is going to supernaturally protect them and provide for them. [15] "And the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood. [16] But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth [another major earthquake that will destroy this army sent after the Jews] and drank up the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth."

The place to go to read about this destruction is the last part of Zechariah—chapters 12 and 14. Zechariah is second to Daniel as the most important prophetic work in the Old Testament related to the end times. It begins with a series of visions describing different elements related to the end times, and then in the last section—chapters 9-14—there revelations given that relate to a future time. Zechariah was written by the prophet Zechariah in approximately 520 BC, after the Jews had returned from exile in Babylon. When the first Jews returned there were all kinds of opposition and problems in rebuilding the city and so they became rather complacent and the work stopped in rebuilding the temple. So two prophets came at the same time, Haggai and Zechariah, and their message was to encourage the Jews to finish rebuilding the temple because there was to be yet a future glorious kingdom for Israel that God would provide and rule. Zechariah gives various prophecies and visions that are related to these end time events. It is important to read through these sections because they start with near events and then move to far events, because some of the near events that occurred during the inter-Testamental period with the breakup of the Greek empire, the assaults down into Israel, especially from Antiochus IV, foreshadowed the horrible and much worse events that will occur during the Tribulation period.

We come upon these oracles or burdens in the last part of Zechariah and they really do interconnect and focus on that end time period. Passages such as 9:11-17 parallel the triumph of Jerusalem that is described in 12:1-9. There is another parallel with the rejection of the false prophets and the false religious system and idols in 13:1-6, and that is parallel to the first part of 10:1-3. Then we see the Lord presented as a Shepherd who gathers the remnant, His flock, in 13:7-9, and that is parallel to what occurs in 10:4-7. So there is an overlapping between these sections as they focus our attenti9on on what will take place during the final days.

Then we come to this burden or oracle that is given in Zechariah chapter twelve, "the burden of the word of the Lord against Israel," verse 1. This was written in 520 BC. The northern kingdom of Israel went out under divine discipline when it was destroyed by Sennacherib and the Assyrians in 722 BC, 200 years earlier, so there hasn't been a northern kingdom in 200 years. What remains is the remains of the southern kingdom, primarily the area of Judah. Many in the north had left the north and gone into the south and so there were members of all of the tribes in the south when the northern kingdom was wiped out—so there is no such thing as the lost tribes of Israel. Then there was the destruction of the southern kingdom in 586 BC, and now they were having a restoration. This is going to be a prophecy towards Israel and it starts with a reminder of who God is— "…the LORD who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him." This indicates that God is the special creator of all things and that is what identifies Him and distinguishes Him from all other gods and goddesses. This was still a major problem in the in the Old Testament, and in the world today it is that we want to worship some aspect of nature/creation. This manifests itself in a lot of different ways including the modern environmentalist movement and it elevates and deifies some aspects of creation, and the Bible again and again draws this distinction between the creator-God who is distinct from His creation. That is the foundation for what is being said, it establishes His authority.

Zechariah 12:2 ^NASB "Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah." The imagery here is the image of a cup. It is a cup of wine, and the image that we see again and again is the comparison of wine and the treading out the winepress, pouring out the wine of God's wrath. That is what it picks up on here, the wine of God's wrath that is going to so devastate everyone that there will be such a state of shock that they are going to be reeling from the impact of the violence that occurs. It is if they were drunk, they are shell-shocked from what they experience during this time. And it all focuses on Jerusalem. So what we are doing is going through these passages in Zechariah which show clearly that this occurs right near the end, just prior to the coming of the Messiah to rescue Israel and to destroy the enemies of Israel and God. [3] "It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it." The phrase "in that day" is used more in the book of Zechariah than at any other time in the Old Testament—19 times in the book or 1 time every two and a half verses. Those who try to solve this problem of Jerusalem will only hurt themselves. The nations gathering against it is the third stage of the campaign of Armageddon.

We skip chapter thirteen and come back to the time frame in the first part of chapter fourteen. Zechariah 14:1 ^NASB "Behold, a day is coming for the LORD when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you." At this point it is anticipated in terms of its immediacy. [2] "For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. [2] Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle." This is when He comes to rescue Israel. So chapter 14 focuses more on the very end of the siege of Jerusalem. Ultimately we see the same thing we saw in our study of the destruction of Babylon: it is the human instruments, the human leaders—Antichrist empowered by Satan—that are making the decisions to go against Jerusalem but it is God in His sovereign power who is controlling and overseeing everything, because this is what is going to bring all of the promises and prophecies and trends of history for over 5000 years to a head in the city that He has called His own. [4] "In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south." Notice the connection with Judah. There are the inhabitants of Jerusalem but Jerusalem itself is surrounded, especially to the south, with the tribal territory for the tribe of Judah. There is a connection with what is going to happen with Judah and this brings us back to Zechariah chapter twelve which fills in the gap of what is taking place.            

Zechariah 12:6 ^NASB "In that day I will make the clans of Judah like a firepot among pieces of wood and a flaming torch among sheaves [^NKJV "like a firepan in the woodpile"], so they will consume on the right hand and on the left all the surrounding peoples, while the inhabitants of Jerusalem again dwell on their own sites in Jerusalem." The action seems to start with the tribe of Judah. They play a prominent role in the defense of Jerusalem and the ultimate defeat under the Lord of the armies of the Antichrist. The "firepan in the woodpile" takes the imagery of someone taking a brass pan—unusual word here for "pan," usually referring to a brass censer for carrying coals—for carrying water. So this is the idea of taking a pan for one purpose and using it for another purpose: destruction. That wasn't their ultimate purpose but they will be used like a firepan of coals that is set in the midst of very flammable wood and everything will catch on fire, picturing the destruction of the armies of the Antichrist. "… on the right hand and on the left"—in Israel the orientation is in the east, the east gate coming out of the temple, and so the right hand is south and the left hand is north if you are facing east. What we have seen in other passages, for example Daniel 11:35ff, there was a rumor from the north and the east, and so we see these other orientations of the compass for the battle. "…the inhabitants of Jerusalem again dwell on their own sites"—the future hope. The Tribulation is not ultimately a time of destruction because it doesn't end with that; it is the cleansing of history, of civilization, of Israel, that needs to take place before the Messiah comes to establish His kingdom. He will come and rescue Israel; that is the promise.

Zechariah 12:7 ^NASB "The LORD also will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem will not be magnified above Judah. [8] In that day [at that particular time] the LORD will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who is feeble among them in that day will be like David, and the house of David {will be} like God, like the angel of the LORD before them." This doesn't happen at stage three in the battle; it will happen about stage five or six. God is going to empower them in the battle. [9] And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem."

Micah 4:11 ^NASB "And now many nations have been assembled against you Who say, 'Let her be polluted, And let our eyes gloat over Zion.' [12] But they do not know the thoughts of the LORD, And they do not understand His purpose; For He has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor." That same imagery of sheaves to the threshing floor was used in Zechariah 12:6—fire to the sheaves, "like a firepan in the woodpile." This is that destructive judgment of the enemies of Israel. They don't understand God, don't understand His plan, and they will be destroyed because they have set themselves on the wrong side of history against Israel. [13] "Arise and thresh [fight], daughter of Zion, For your horn I will make iron And your hoofs I will make bronze, That you may pulverize many peoples, That you may devote to the LORD their unjust gain And their wealth to the Lord of all the earth." So God is behind their action and will empower it in the destruction of the nations.

Micah 5:1, still part of chapter four in the Hebrew: ^NASB "Now muster yourselves in troops, daughter of troops; They have laid siege against us; With a rod they will smite the judge of Israel on the cheek." This is not a fatal blow, so it is seen as the attack against Jerusalem, as an attack against God who is the judge of Israel. But what is the solution? This is the context of that famous passage we often refer to at Christmas time, this Old Testament prophecy that predicts the birthplace of the Messiah will be Bethlehem. [2] "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, {Too} little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity." The prediction is that the one who would be this great end time ruler is going to come from Bethlehem, and Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He is one ^NKJV "whose goings forth are from of old." He is not really temporal, he is going to have a temporal birth time but in reality "His goings forth have been from old, from everlasting." So that indicates that the one who was born in Bethlehem is not just human, He is also fully divine; He has an origin that is eternal. It is this one who was born in this minor, insignificant town, who is the one who go forth to be a ruler in Israel. The focus here is on His second coming mission as the messianic ruler of Israel. [3] "Therefore He will give them {up} until the time When she who is in labor has borne a child. Then the remainder of His brethren Will return to the sons of Israel." So we see this labor imagery used again in relationship to who is the she who is in labor? It seems rather obscure, but if we think about that in terms of the imagery of the woman who flees into the wilderness and connect that with the imagery of labor and the labor pains, which are used again and again in passages related to the day of the Lord, picturing it as the pains that precede the birth of the kingdom, then what this is talking about is Israel as a nation is in labor and what is being given birth to here is going into the glorious kingdom.

Micah 5:4 ^NASB "And He will arise and shepherd {His flock} In the strength of the LORD, In the majesty of the name of the LORD His God. And they will remain, Because at that time He will be great To the ends of the earth"—i.e. the extent of His kingdom as He rules over the earth. [5] "This One will be {our} peace..." This why He is called the prince of peace in Isaiah 7:14, because He is the one who ultimately will destroy evil at the second coming and for the first time in history establish world peace. This connects back to what we read in Zechariah 14:3 ^NASB "Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle."

There is more to this than that third element. There is that major force of the Antichrist's armies that go against Jerusalem. But then he is going to send another part of his force against those Jews that fled earlier in the last half of the Tribulation period into the wilderness and eventually to Petra. The word Bozrah is a Hebrew word that is used in Micah 2:12 ^NASB "I will surely assemble all of you, Jacob, I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. I will put them together like sheep in the fold; Like a flock in the midst of its pasture They will be noisy with men." So this is the believing remnant, those who have accepted Jesus as Messiah at the end of the Tribulation period. The Hebrew word for that sheepfold is bozrah. So this isn't just a small number, there is a large number of Jews.

Isaiah 34:5. We see that this is the site of a major battle down at Petra. ^NASB "For My sword is satiated in heaven [there is a divine mission in this judgment], Behold it shall descend for judgment upon Edom And upon the people whom I have devoted to destruction. [6] The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, It is sated with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, With the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah And a great slaughter in the land of Edom." That is referring to this judgment that will come against the forces of the Antichrist when they come down to try to destroy the remnant of Israel hiding and protected down in Bozrah. In Isaiah 63 there is a reference to the Messiah at the time He defeats these enemies and establishes the kingdom. Isaiah 63:1-3 ^NASB "Why is Your apparel red, And Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press? I have trodden the wine trough alone, And from the peoples there was no man with Me. I also trod them in My anger And trampled them in My wrath; And their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, And I stained all My raiment. For the day of vengeance [justice] was in My heart, And My year of redemption has come." This is when Israel will realize their national redemption.

Jeremiah 49:13-18 ^NASB "For I have sworn by Myself," declares the LORD, "that Bozrah will become an object of horror, a reproach, a ruin and a curse; and all its cities will become perpetual ruins." I have heard a message from the LORD, And an envoy is sent among the nations, {saying,} "Gather yourselves together and come against her, And rise up for battle! For behold, I have made you small among the nations, Despised among men. As for the terror of you, The arrogance of your heart has deceived you, O you who live in the clefts of the rock, Who occupy the height of the hill. Though you make your nest as high as an eagle's, I will bring you down from there," declares the LORD. "Edom will become an object of horror; everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss at all its wounds. Like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah with its neighbors," says the LORD, "no one will live there, nor will a son of man reside in it." This hasn't happened yet historically.

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