Transcript
Segment 41 - 19.01 - Three visions of the final victory
Then he moves the whole thing ahead here into Chapter 19. We’re ready to fight the battle, but we haven’t fought it as yet. In Chapter 19, we can call this a picture of the final victory. The final victory is about to take place. The scene in Chapter 19 opens with a celebration. Praises are being sung and it’s a time of great celebration. Once again, he has visions. Here, three visions are given and each of these visions will relate to events that have already been covered in these three visions. In the first 10 verses, he has a vision once again of the heavenly council. We go back to that vision that we saw earlier with the 24 elders and the four living creatures and others, and they’re all giving thanks for the overthrow of Babylon, which means the overthrow of Rome. Then preparations are made for the marriage of the Lamb and the bride.
Look at verse 7, with all this great celebration, “Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory! For the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.” Once again, he’s speaking out to the faithful. He announces here a marriage that is about to take place and this marriage really means the, symbolizes we might say the return of Jesus and his union with his faithful followers. The Lamb, of course, refers to Jesus and the bride in this instance means the faithful followers. A little bit later on, that bride term is going to be used again, but it means the new Jerusalem, but here it means the faithful followers. This great celebration is held here and we’re all set for it.
Then he gives another picture of the conquering hero. You see how the temple was beginning to build? Remember the battle of Armageddon hasn’t been fought yet, but we’re getting ready for it. Then in verse 11, he has once again a vision of the conquering hero, the rider on the white horse. Back in the sixth chapter of Revelation when the seven seals were opened, the first four seals had to do with horses and riders on the horses. The first horse was a white horse. That represents the spiritual nature, that represents a triumphant Christ. Here he picks up on that picture once again on that whole scene only more detail, more detail is given here than was given in Chapter 6. Now the Christ comes leading God’s armies into a triumphant battle, leading God’s armies into a triumphant battle, into a battle against the beast.
Let’s take a look at verse 11, go on down with it. “Then I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse. He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True. And in righteousness he judges and makes war.” Jesus is kind of given other names here now, right? Faithful and True. “His eyes are like a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems. And he has a name inscribed which no one knows but himself. He is clad in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God. And the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen white and pure followed him on white horses.”
A while back, all the armies of the demonic forces and evil were gathered at Armageddon by the dragon, the foul spirits there, the dragon and the false prophets, and the other one, the beast, all of those have been gathered. Now comes a triumphant Christ and he is gathering all the armies of righteousness and the big battle is about to take place. Then it goes on down. He’s also called King of Kings and Lord of Lords, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The big battle is just about to take place if you’re ready for it.
Segment 42 - 19.17 - The battle of Harmagedon
In verses 17 through 21, the battle of Armageddon takes place but you’d hardly know it. After all this working, and going through all this he doesn’t describe the battle, but he tells you what the results of it are, in verses 17 through 21. Let’s read those. Verse 17 of chapter 19 he says, “Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly in mid heaven, ‘Come gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.’ And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against Him who sits upon the horse and against His army.” There they are, the forces of evil and the forces of good ready to do battle.
Verse 20, “And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet.” Where’s the battle? It’s all over. Somewhere in between verses 19 and 20 there, okay. Well, I thank him for sparing us all the details of the battle, after we’ve gotten through all the rest of this. He says, “And the beast was captured and with it the false prophet who in it’s presence had worked the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast, and those who worship its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with brimstone, and the rest were slain by the sword.” Okay, so we’ve just taken care of the beast and the false prophet, meaning possibly Nero the Emperor, as reporting the emperors, and the false prophets, all of their officials.
They are thrown into the lake of fire, and out of the lake of fire no one comes. When you’ve been thrown into the lake of fire that’s it. So, they’re taken care of right here. Do you see that? The beast and the false prophet are captured and thrown into the lake of fire, which is the final place of punishment, but we’ve got the bottomless pit to deal with, too. You might recall that when we saw the bottomless pit in one of the chapters back there, we said that this was kind of a holding place for a while, and it’s going to be a holding place for the devil for a short time, but it’s not the final place of punishment, because he’s going to be released from that pit.
This is the whole business about the battle of Armageddon. It’s not described at all, but the results are told, and the results are that the beast and the false prophet, the emperors and all of their officials and henchmen have been captured and thrown into the lake of fire. That portion of evil has been taken care of. That part of the battle has been won by God. That’s the way it is with us sometimes. When we’re working with negative thoughts, oh how we like to work with the idea of eliminating all negative thought from our consciousness, but you know we take it in stages, don’t we. Sometimes all we can really eliminate in regard to a certain situation is maybe that which is represented by the beast and false prophet. In other words, we get a part of the job done, but there’s more to be done.
The real culprit, you know the Satan ... Remember, he’s still running around loose down there. We’ve got to deal with him yet, and sometimes that’s what we have to do in order to be completely healed, root out from within our consciousness the true cause of all of our problems. That one resentment, that one pet resentment that we want to hang onto, that one fear thought we’ve been living with for so long, that’s the real Satan, and it’s all within us, and it’s a Satan that we have control over.
Maybe for a time we can get rid of some of the other negative thoughts and deal with them, but to be completely healed we can do it when we finally experience that final healing through getting rid of that one thought cause, whatever it is, that pet resentment, fear, whatever the case might be. So, there it is, the battle of Armageddon. Is that a little bit of a surprise to you with all this business that has been built up about it?
