not only all of God's people who should bless and praise Him, but all of His works praise Him, even His judgments praise the Lord. And we're continuing to study in Revelation 16 of God's judgments, this time the great judgment of Armageddon. Revelation 16, 12 through 16. Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and his water was dried up so that the way for the kings from the sun's rising might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are demonic spirits performing signs which go out to the kings of the whole inhabited earth to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Watch out, I'm coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who watches and guards his clothes so that he not walk about naked and they see his shame. So he gathered them to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon. Father God, we thank you for your word, and I pray that you would enable me to faithfully preach it for each one of us to understand it and for each one of us to live it out. We desire to serve you more and more faithfully with our understanding of your word, and so we desire that your Holy Spirit would strengthen us to that end. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, as I mentioned, we come now to a very brief snapshot of the Great Battle of Armageddon. And this is one of those topics where there are an enormous number of horrible, horrible books that have been written. And they're written in such a way that they destroy the faith of the church, have a very depressing view of history. But as we'll see, the way this battle is placed, it was actually designed to give the church great faith. And let me begin by reviewing some of the frustrations that Satan had leading up to this battle. And let me remind you that the great battle of Armageddon took place in 8070. This is not future to us, although I'll interact with some of those theories. But there were a number of things that could have easily prevented this prophesied battle from taking place. And I believe Satan did not initially want this battle to take place. He was forced to in order to continue to achieve his plans. And let me remind you of some of the pieces of the puzzle that we've already seen in the book of Revelation. These are pieces of the puzzle which would have enormously frustrated Satan. He eventually thinks he's getting his way. but it's God who's getting his way all the way along. Now we saw in chapter 12 that Satan was blindsided by the Zealot Rebellion in AD 66. Previously he had a well-oiled machine, a perfectly united Rome and Israel that had made a seven-year compact or covenant to annihilate the Church of Jesus Christ and to overturn God's prophecies. And this globalist government had become the perfect killing machine for Christians. And for some time it looked like it was actually working. We saw that from AD 62 to 68 it got cut short. But from AD 62 to 68, the church faced the greatest persecution that it had ever faced or will ever face in this world. And it almost completely exterminated the church in other parts of the Roman Empire and exterminated two-thirds of the Palestinian church. And we saw those numbers from various passages like Zechariah. Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24 that if that seven-year tribulation had not been cut short for Christians, there would not have been a single Christian left. That's how severe that tribulation was. Now in the rest of the empire, it was cut short with the death of Nero in June of 68 AD. It was cut short much earlier in 8066 in the land of Palestine. Now what frustrated Satan's plans is that God allowed three factions of Jewish zealots to create such trouble in Israel that Rome was forced to focus all of its energies in putting down that rebellion. Much to Satan's rage, the persecuted church of Israel managed to flee to the region of Pella And God would not allow any demons into that area. He completely protected that area from any demonic influence. And instead, the land of Israel swallowed up. Remember that flood that spewed out of the dragon's mouth? It was the land of Israel that suffered. It swallowed up most of the anger, the fury that Satan had originally intended for the woman, for the church. And we saw that his first step to put down the rebellion was to get the demonic beast from the land and the demonic beast from the sea to work together to get their respective human armies to try to pacify the rebels. And that would enable him to continue on with his plan. But amazingly, the rebels defied all expectations, even though they were totally untrained they completely destroyed Cestius' well-trained Roman army, almost exterminating that army. Cestius barely escaped with his life and his shame. He lost the Roman standard and the Roman eagle, which made Rome duty-bound to fight against them for their own honor. Then in chapter 13, we saw that Satan moved Nero to send several legions to the area. Again, the beast from the land who controlled the Jewish leadership and the beast from the sea who controlled Rome were still trying to work together. But we've already seen that God messed up the plans once again. Nero died in June of 8068. The Roman Empire fell apart. There was faction fighting against faction. Legions were killing each other off. It was a civil war that ended up killing millions of people throughout the empire. Even one world governments are not almighty, praise God. Satan's persecution machine was falling apart. So Satan was forced to ignore the church for a while and to desperately, frantically try to restore his one world government. We saw that Satan had the beast who had previously possessed Nero. The beast, remember, was a demon who rose up out of the bottomless or the abyss. possessed Nero, he possessed Titus, and controlled his father Vespasian, enabling both of them to do incredible miracles, such as healing the blind, healing cripples, and other miracles that Vespasian and others, that Tacitus mentions. Now this so impressed the troops that right there on the spot, they declared Vespasian and his son Titus to be gods, and said, you are the Caesar. Now the problem is, Vitellius was on the throne in the capital city of Rome, so Vespasian and Titus had to fight their way and take all of their legions back to Rome in order to secure the empire. Now unfortunately for Satan, this gave the zealot rebels time to arm themselves, to entrench their positions, and to train. The rebels had given the beast from the land which was the Jewish leadership, had given them such incredible trouble they were absolutely not able to stay in control of the situation. So Satan's plans didn't go quite as smoothly as he had hoped. But by 8070 things were stable enough in the capital of Rome that Titus was able to leave and to begin rounding up the legions from around the empire to march on Jerusalem once again. So that's where we're picking up the story in verse 12. That's the backstory, okay? Verse 12 says, then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates. Now I find that phrase very, very encouraging. Though demons are very active in opposing God and opposing the church, and even though demons are sometimes incredibly successful in destroying churches because of our lack of faith, demons are not the only invisible forces that are working out there in the world. It was not Satan who dried up the Euphrates River. It was not Satan who poured out this bowl. It was God pouring it out through his good elect angels, right? And so, Though Satan may roar, God has him on a chain. And this whole story is wrapped in packaging that makes it very, very clear God has planned every detail of these events, including how the demons are going to oppose him. That's the amazing thing. I love God's sovereignty. He is a sovereign God. He's sovereign even over his enemies. And what satan probably took as a wonderful opportunity a completely dried up euphrates river was actually god's doing Okay, it was god's fury being poured out Now, let me just explain why this is such a significant thing the drying up of that river. It's a pretty huge river I've got a couple of pictures of it in your in your outlines there but this was considered for a long period of time to be the dividing protection that kept the Parthians and other kingdoms from invading east, excuse me, invading west and invading south. It was kind of a barrier that was very difficult to cross over. Now the historical hints that we have is that an earthquake provided a dam for the Euphrates and Satan took advantage of that and in a remarkably short period of time he supplemented Titus's armies with a massive number of armies from the east from the sun's rising and people have wondered in their commentaries how on earth it was possible for these kings to arrive in Jerusalem in such a speedy manner. You can't just easily swim horses and equipment and all that kind of stuff across that river and you can't quickly ferry them across the river. How do they get across so quickly? Now the Sibylline Oracle verse 124 likens Titus to the revived Nero And he was, by the way, in the sense that the beast who had gone down into the pit was released and now possessed Titus, but likens him to Nero going to the Euphrates and wielding a big spear, he causes many myriads, is a myriades, is the Greek term of soldiers to cross the Euphrates. Now let's read verse 12 again. Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates and its water was dried up so that the way for the kings from the sun's rising might be prepared. Now this is a deliberate reversal of what God had prophesied would happen in the Old Testament times under Cyrus before Israel returned from Babylon into the land of Israel. This is not the first time that the river Euphrates had dried up. Isaiah 44. And verses 26 through 28 says that God is the one, quote, who says to Jerusalem, you shall be inhabited, to the cities of Judah, you shall be built, and I will raise up her waste places, who says to the deep, be dry, and I will dry up your rivers, who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd, and he shall perform all my pleasure, saying to Jerusalem, you shall be built, and to the temple, your foundation shall be laid. Now commentators are pretty united that the Cyrus passage I just read from Isaiah 44 forms the background, and it's a reversal background to the verse that we're dealing with in Revelation chapter 16. Now when I say it's a reversal background, what I mean is that the six prophecies that were prophesied to have happened with Cyrus Every one of those six is reversed in AD 70. Now let me give you the history of Cyrus first. When King Cyrus came to the city of Babylon in 539 BC, its walls were so huge that it was impregnable. The city was 60 miles around, and it was surrounded by a wall that was, get this, 350 feet high. That's a very tall wall, 350 feet high, 87 feet across. Historians tell us that four full, with I think four horses apiece, four full chariots could march around the walls of Babylon. It was just an absolutely huge wall. Guards were constantly on watch as if they were guarding a prison wall. There was a 30-foot moat outside of the wall that ran around the city. The city was considered virtually impregnable. It's believed that no military strategy could break through that wall at the time. That was what was believed. By the way, just in terms of comparison, Jerusalem was considered to be impregnable by many people as well. If it was well defended, it was impregnable. But Cyrus came up with a brilliant plan to conquer the city. The river Euphrates ran right under the walls of the city. And so unknown to the people who were inside the city, Cyrus took on the Herculean task of having his troops dig diverting canals way upstream and temporarily diverted the river so that at nighttime he could march on a dry riverbed right underneath those walls. Herodotus gives us many details about that amazing feat. And as soon as Cyrus conquered Babylon, he gave a decree that Israel could return to their homeland, could rebuild Jerusalem, could rebuild all the cities of Israel, and could rebuild their temple, could carry back to the temple, back to Jerusalem, all of the temple furniture and cups and all of the golden articles that were taken by Nebuchadnezzar. Now this prophecy in Revelation 16 reverses every feature of that story and says that the drying up of the Euphrates River would allow the kings in the region of the Euphrates to join Titus' massive army very quickly. And the purpose is not to build Jerusalem, It's not to return articles to the temple. It's the exact opposite. It's to destroy the temple, destroy the city, destroy the countryside, to rob the temple treasures, and to send Jews into the exile. So it's the exact reversal of the Cyrus prophecy. So Jerusalem is now being pictured as a new Babylon that is in need of destruction. So this is really a beautiful, very powerful image that he's setting up, and he's going to do a lot with that image of Babylon, Jerusalem being Babylon in chapters 17 and 18. But premillennialists have insisted that there has never been a time in human history when the Euphrates River has dried up, and therefore this prophecy that we're looking at in Revelation 16, it has to refer to something in our future. For example, Dr. Olson says, history has never documented the river Euphrates drying up. Now he's wrong. But even if he was right, it's irrelevant. You know, history has never documented the crossing of the Jordan River. But we believe it, because God said it. History has never documented the crossing of the Red Sea. It's never documented, well actually history did document Isaiah's prophecy that we read in Herodotus. But what if Herodotus had never read, written that little section? It still would have happened, right? whether it was documented in history or not. We believe it because the Bible says it. But anyway, many pre-millennialists claim that with the Anatolia Dam constructed in 2010, for the first time in human history, we have a situation where this prophecy can be fulfilled because now all they have to do is shut off the dam and the River Euphrates will be dried up. Voila, Armageddon's just around the corner is what they say. Well, the year before the Anatolia Dam was constructed in 2009, there was a book that was written that actually completely contradicts the assumptions that they have made. This is a book on earthquakes. The documents three times when earthquakes made the Euphrates River stop flowing completely. And when you see how massive that river is, and I tried to give you a little bit of a feel for it in your outline picture, but it is astonishing. Nicholas Ambrase's book discusses an earthquake in 8499 that had the following results. He said, the hot spring at Abameh, near Sarmic, north of Suveric, midway between the Tigris and the Euphrates, dried up for three days, and the Euphrates stopped flowing, and then overflowed its banks. This phenomena, Joshua says, is due to the fact that whenever the earth is rent by earthquakes, it happens that the running waters in those places that are cleft are restrained from flowing, and are at times even turned into another direction. an interesting observation that may refer to surface faulting. Now keep that in mind as we go through that all it took was an earthquake to reverse the flow of the direction of the Euphrates on that particular time and that naturalist said that, hints that this has actually happened more than once prior to 499. The word whenever, and there's another phrase in there, indicates it had been happening before. Now unfortunately it doesn't give the dates for those previous times, but one of them may well have been the explanation for the quick crossing of the Euphrates in AD 70. Now the modern book documents two later times when the Euphrates stopped flowing, stopped flowing for three days and three nights in 8529 and it stopped for an entire day once again in 8810. Now all three of those that are documented by the modern book seemed also to be related to earthquakes, and the ancient author hints that it had happened earlier. So it's simply not true to say there's no historical evidence that the Euphrates has stopped flowing in the past. And by the way, we wouldn't have even known about those three times before that 2009 book had been written, but it still would have happened, even though we wouldn't have known about it. still would have happened. The point is, silence in history is not a proof that something didn't happen, as any historian will tell you. But we know that there were unspecified times that the Euphrates had flowed backwards before the fourth century. So there is a lot of exegesis that demonstrates an AD 70 date, and I'll give you a little bit more. But anyway, sadly, most preterists And most historicists are utterly unfamiliar with this background. And so the mantra that you hear from their books is that this is purely figurative. purely symbolic, that has nothing to do with history. I just don't buy that. I do not buy that. Again, we saw that the symbols of this book are rooted in history. I've already explained what it symbolized, the reversal of what God did through Cyrus in the Old Testament, and if the drying up of the Euphrates in the Old Testament was grounded in history, I don't see any reason why we should deny that it was grounded in history here. And I believe this helps to explain why the armies were able to make it to Jerusalem in such a remarkable period of time. It also explains and perfectly dovetails with Zechariah 12, which we'll look at in a bit. Now, verse 12 says that its water was dried up so that the way for the kings from the sun's rising might be prepared. God was preparing the kings for judgment on both Rome and Israel. Now based on the outcome of AD 70, it appears that Satan's goal has remained the same. His goal is to put down the rebellion so he can once again get Talmudism and Rome joined together to once again start persecuting the Christians. But who were these kings from the East? There may be more, but the histories we have emphasize two. Both Sohamus and Antiochus ruled kingdoms in eastern Turkey that would have been way on the western edge of the Roman Empire from the sun's rising. King Sohamus ruled the kingdom of Sophene between Cappadocia and Armenia, while Antiochus was the king of Comagene. Now history tells us these kings from the east offered, freely offered on their own, their assistance and their entire armies to help Titus take over Jerusalem. Now whether God miraculously stopped the river or whether it was due to an earthquake like happened a few other times, I'm not sure because the histories only hint at it. But the fact that it was indeed dried up hugely speeded up their crossing. Now, in addition to those two kings, Rome itself had quite a number of soldiers at the Euphrates, and they didn't take them all, but they took 3,000 of those soldiers. So there was three armies that came down from the Euphrates minimum. But God literally orchestrated it this way to show the fall of Jerusalem mirroring the ancient fall of Babylon. Both cities having been captured after God dried up the Euphrates. Now what I wanna do right now is dive a little bit into demonology. We'll continue to apply, we'll continue to look at different aspects, but I wanna look at demonology that is highlighted in this passage. There are two facts about demons that are stated in the first phrase of verse 13. and I saw three unclean spirits. First, demons are spirits. That thought is repeated again in verse 14 where they're called demonic spirits or spirits who are demons. You can take the genitive in the Greek there. You can translate it either way. Most theologians assume that this means that they do not have bodies or at least they don't have bodies like we have them. Spirits are not limited by walls. Evil spirits can go anywhere that angels can go, unless, of course, God forbids them. And God does sometimes forbid demons from going to certain areas. But they can go anywhere angels can go. So, an angel went right through prison walls and he freed Peter, right? That means demons can go right through walls. They can be in prisons. Here's the point. Our protection from demons is not physical. It is Jesus and Jesus only. Second, they are called unclean spirits. In Luke 9.42, the word unclean spirit is used very clearly as a synonym for a demon. And it seems to be a synonym for unclean demon, Luke 4.33, evil spirits, Luke 7.21, wicked spirits, Luke 11.26, spiritual forces of wickedness, Ephesians 6, 12. So some people think, OK, unclean spirit is just purely a synonym for an evil spirit. And that may be true, but there's a number of commentaries, and I tend to agree with them, that say it's more than just moral uncleanness he's talking about. There is something about these demons that seems to delight in physical uncleanness and filthiness. They delight in filthy things and practices and places. And so you can see that in examples like Luke 8, 47, the demoniac there. Or you can see it in 2 Peter 2. And there are several passages there that indicate that the demonic that was present is related to homosexuality. So these demons promote unclean practices through their unclean spirits. But even in the moral realm, if you're only to take it that way, there are degrees of evil. Matthew 12, 45 indicates that some unclean spirits are more wicked than other unclean spirits. And so in demonology, I think we need to realize there are degrees of evil, degrees of viciousness, degrees of intelligence. There are differences among demons, but they always move creation away from God's purity and into impurity. Third, there is a hierarchy among demons. Now this is explicitly stated in Ephesians 6, but it's hinted at here by three things. First, commentators point out that there seems to be a descending order of authority from Satan to the beast to the false prophet. Now in past sermons I pointed out that these had regional authority. Satan obviously is the prince of the world, the whole planet earth. The beast has authority over Rome and the false prophet has authority over Israel. But the very fact that these frogs are symbolized as coming out of the mouth of each of those demonic princes seems to indicate that they are under the authority of those demonic princes, okay? There's a command. That's what the mouth symbolizes. They come out of the mouth because there's a command to go forth. Now, I believe that the moment that the demon prince, each of those three demon princes, gave a command to the demon frog to go forth, the human who was possessed by the demon prince issued a command in the human arena. And we discussed the implications of this verse really when we looked at the enormous number of demons in chapter 9. Chapter 9, spoke of 100 million demons, at least in the majority text, coming from the Euphrates, even more demons coming from Egypt and other parts of the Roman Empire directly under the beast's control who inhabited Titus. And just as the humans that they led were organized into kingdoms, the demons were organized into kingdoms under the one world government of Satan. So it says these frog demons, quote, go out to the kings of the whole inhabited earth to gather them to the battle of that great day of God almighty. Now the Greek word for whole inhabited earth is oikumene. It's a word that in the dictionaries they say refers to the Roman Empire, not to the whole planet Earth. I don't think it ever applies to the whole planet Earth because the idea of this word is some administrative unit. And so they say it's Rome as an administrative unit. It's some kind of structure. Demons appear to be structured around the world's political structures. That's the meaning of the term. So the demons are an administrative unit, just as empires are in an administrative unit. But verse 14 indicates that these frog demons, they're not just gathering demons like they did back in chapter 9. Here, I mean, we would expect that. Demons gather demons, right? But here, They're gathering human armies for a human battle that will culminate in the destruction of Jerusalem. That implies some influence in human lives. So how do these frog demons, there's only three of them, how on earth are they going to be able to move entire armies? Well, I believe it's with other demonic help. Chapter nine described in detail their hundred million other demon helpers at the region of Euphrates. So the frogs are no doubt messengers sent forth from the demon princes and they're sent to tell the regional leaders who in turn can talk to their underlings and talk to the underlings who are under them. So in a very remarkably short period of time you can have millions of demons influencing whatever humans that they are able to influence to make sure that these armies are going on the march. as God had ordered that they would. Christ is quite explicit that Satan's demons are organized into a tightly functioning kingdom that he tries to keep from being divided. Now, I don't think Satan is always successful in keeping his kingdom from being divided. Frank Peretti's books, This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness, yes, they're just fiction. But I think he's right on that one point. I mean, just think of it. Just think of it theoretically. How difficult would it be to keep trillions of demons who are exceedingly wicked in line and keep them in a united kingdom. These are so self-centered. They hate everything that is, you know, against God. Everyone and everything, they're selfish, they're self-centered. How do you keep such an army of people completely united in the kingdom? Think there's only two things that keep them united and I get this by deduction from scripture it's the incredible power of Satan and Secondly, they have a common enemy that they hate worse than they hate each other and they hate God and Christians Okay so Ephesians 6.12 says that Satan's kingdom is organized into hierarchies of principalities, powers, rulers, and under them, wicked hosts. Now, let me just make another side application from this. I think we need to be in prayer for our soldiers when they are out on the battlefield. Demons seem to be especially involved in the military. and not probably just the military, the police forces, and other places like that. Our soldiers need spiritual cover. They need protection. I think the presence of demons with human armies explains some of the unclean things that mysteriously happen in armies, as well as irrational things, and the torture, and rape, and pillaging, and other destructive behaviors you see armies doing down through history. Okay, it isn't just flesh and blood that is at war in Iraq and Pakistan and in other countries. There are demons that are trying to control these situations. Don't think that Kim Jong-un, the chairman or the leader of North Korea, is crazy. I don't think he's crazy. I think he's influenced by demons. When you look at politics around the world in light of the demonic, there's a lot of things that begin to make sense. Even the irrational begins to make sense. But notice that these frog-like demons can also perform true miracles. I have no idea if the miracles that have been attributed to the North Korean leaders, you know, his dad and the current leader, are fake or if they're true, but demons for sure can perform miracles. Verse 14 says they are demonic spirits performing signs. Doesn't say that they fake it, that they pretend to form signs. They are actually performing signs. The word for signs is a synonym for miracles. They are miracles designed to authenticate a person. You know, a sign points. It's pointing in a given direction. It's authenticating something. Now, of course, some signs are lying signs, right? They're pointing in a faulty direction. They're saying, yes, trust this person. He can heal. He can do miracles. but they are kind of designed to be authenticating. And because there are Christians who sincerely believe that Satan and demons cannot do miracles, They trustingly follow anyone who can heal them or who can do other miracles because they think that must be from God. I've seen people say, well, it must be okay. I've seen people justify their pastor's heretical theology because, hey, this guy prayed for me and I got healed. God must be with them. So the occult leaders, let me give you some background of why this is absolutely false. The occult leaders of Pharaoh's court were able to turn their staffs into snakes by their demonic witchcraft, is what the scripture indicates. They were able to turn water into blood, according to Exodus 7, 14 through 25. They were able to make frogs come up onto the land, just like Moses did, according to Exodus 8, 1 through 15. Now they did have their limits of what they could and couldn't do, But speaking of the period leading up to Armageddon, Jesus said, for false Christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. That's Matthew 24, verse 24. Doesn't say that they will pretend to, it says they will show great signs and wonders. Now let me read Paul's description of the demon behind Nero and then behind Titus. This is 2 Thessalonians 2, 7 through 12. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie. that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. So he comes, it says, with all power, signs, and lying wonders. Ancient historians spoke of the miracles that accompanied Nero, actually from the time that he was in the cradle, some weird, weird things that happened there. But he was an emperor that did miracles. We saw that when he died, the demon was confined to the abyss for a year. But then Revelation indicates, AD 69, the demon beast was allowed to come back up out of the abyss. And both Vespasian and Titus were obviously possessed. Now, I believe Titus was the one possessed by the beast, but they were obviously both possessed by demons because immediately their personalities changed in that year. They were immediately, for the first time in their lives, able to prophesy, able to do remarkable miracles. In earlier chapters, we looked at the prophecies and the miracles performed by those who were possessed by this evil triumvirate, these three prince demons. And we looked at things like them making statues move and talk. Yes, there are secular historians that talk about that. Fire falling from heaven, blind being healed, cripples being healed, lightning decapitating all statues of previous Caesars. You know what Titus calls many miracles and numerous signs and wonders. These were actually documented by historians that were skeptics, but they said there's so many witnesses they had to report them. These are not people who were superstitious. These were people who were skeptics. Being able to heal and do miracles is not a sign of spirituality. Let me repeat that. Being able to do miracles is not a sign of spirituality. I know pastors who have denied the inerrancy of scripture, denied justification by faith alone, through Christ alone, are basically heretics headed toward hell that have performed miracles. You don't even have to be a Christian to perform miracles. Out in Ethiopia, witch doctors were able to heal the sick miraculously, instantly. They were also able to curse you, where instantly you would get, my dad experienced this, where curses were pronounced upon him, instant, incredible, excruciating pain. He resisted it, and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ had instantly left. They are able to do miracles. So we cannot discount this kind of thing. They're able to prophesy, speak in tongues, heal the sick. So the bottom line is that demons can perform miracles as well. Paul warned the Galatians about deceivers who would come into the church, and he didn't care how amazing these men were, how much like Christians they might look. He said, but even if we He's including himself. If I change my theology and I preach another gospel, he says, even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 1 Corinthians 1.22 says, Jews request a sign. They're enamored. They were enamored with miracles and they didn't even believe the gospel. Jesus said, an evil and an adulterous generation seeks after a sign and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah, Matthew 12, verse 39. So do not underestimate the power of deceptive demons to make people prophesy, speak in tongues, or do miracles. The witch doctor is anything, but we heard it with our own ears. We heard witch doctors speaking in German and other languages. They would switch from language to language that they had never learned before. Okay, the only infallible thing in life you can absolutely bank on is the scripture. It is the test by which everyone should be tested. Now I'm not saying I don't believe in miracles. I absolutely do. God's performed miracles through me. What I'm saying is don't believe me because I've performed miracles and you've been healed. Do not believe me unless you can see it as Bereans in the Bible alone. This is our only infallible standard. Now there's another lesson that I believe is equally important. Even though these demons can be scary, praise God, they have limits. And let me share four limits on their power that are hinted at in these verses. First, they are limited by God's sovereignty. The last phrase of verse 14 indicates they are pawns in God's hand. They thought that they were doing this to accomplish the restoration of the Jewish-Roman alliance and begin persecuting the church once again. And by the way, since they were successful in that goal, since they were successful in reinstituting for three and a half years, they were not able to persecute the church. But since they were successful in reinstituting persecution of the church from AD 70 all the way up through AD 136, Satan no doubt thought, this is great, I'm successful. God's the one who is not making any success. But God says that the demons were allowed to do this, quote, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. This is God's judgment on Rome, God's judgment on Israel. Now sure, it may be that Satan treated all of these bodies as human fodder. He could care less about humans. They're just pawns in his hand. But this passage indicates that even what Satan crows about as his victory is actually serving God's purposes. I love the doctrine of God's sovereignty. It is such a comfort. Second, they are limited by Christ's coming in the skies. Verse 15 says, Now all commentators that I have read have taken this as a parenthetical statement that interrupts the flow of the argument. Okay, so there's not debate on that. Everybody's united on that. So he's interjecting a new idea to warn believers to not be present at this great battle of Armageddon. You don't wanna be there. And the only way that believers would be able to not be present at the battle of Armageddon is to heed Christ's warnings in Matthew 24, to pay attention. to have a grab bag ready, to be ready to run the moment they saw Christ leading the armies in heaven on Passover of 8066, which is the next bowl, by the way, bowl number seven. We dealt with this warning in depth when we looked at the sixth seal, so I'm not gonna repeat what I said back then, but Jesus was very literally, as a leader seen in the skies, leading all of these armies of chariots and horses, fiery chariots and horses. This was the great battle reiterated in chapter 12, and I added a great deal of documentation For that, this visible coming of Jesus, great battles in the sky were recorded by various historians, and they themselves said there were tons of witnesses or they would not have recorded this. And we quoted from Pseudo-Hegesippus, a Jew, a non-Christian by the name of Josephon, Josephus, and Tacitus even mention it, though not in as much detail. But why does Jesus interject these words into the discussion of the Battle of Armageddon, which occurs in AD 70. Another way of wording this is why insert a brief mention of bowl number seven while discussing bowl number six? And my answer is twofold. First of all, Christ's coming really can cover the whole seven year period from the beginning of his war against Israel to 74, so 66 to 73. And he was seen, by the way, in 8066. He was seen again when Nero died in 8068. He was seen again in 8070 when the temple burnt. But second, and probably more to the point here, if the Christians he was writing to were to avoid the great battle, Bowl VI, they had to leave Jerusalem long, long before Bowl VI happened. They would have to escape in AD 66 when Christ first came and began his judgment of Israel. If they waited at all, they would have been kept imprisoned in the city by the Jewish zealots. They would not have been able to escape. They had to leave on that day or they would have perished with the two prophets who perished in Jerusalem. Now these words, I believe, parallel the warning Jesus gave in Matthew 24, 17 through 18, where he said this in connection with his coming and judgment. Then let those who were in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who was on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house, and let him who was in the field not go back to get his clothes. But woe to those who are pregnant, to those who are nursing babies in those days, and pray that your flight may not be in the winter or on the Sabbath. This is not the second coming where we're gonna be whisked up into the sky. This is something they can flee from, okay, on foot. In both passages, Jesus told them to watch out. In both passages, he told them he was gonna come suddenly, unexpectedly, without warning, just like a thief. In both passages, Jesus told them, you've got to be ready to flee on a moment's notice. Okay? In Matthew, he told them that they wouldn't have time to get their clothes. In this passage, he tells them, blessed is the one who watches and guards his clothes. Now, there's a spiritual lesson involved from the symbol, but the symbol is rooted in history, in literal clothing. He literally warned them to have grab bags ready at all times because they would not have time to pack. In Matthew 24, Jesus said, hey, even if you're napping or sleeping on the rooftop, When I come, don't run down into the house to get your clothing. You gotta flee over the rooftops. And here he warns that if you don't guard your clothes, you're gonna run out naked. If you're in your pajamas, you're gonna have to flee in your pajamas. Okay? Any who stayed in Jerusalem to the last minute had to be ready to flee the moment they saw Christ's armies coming in the sky or the moment they saw Cestius' armies approaching, which both, by the way, both happened on the same day. So it would have been a double warning to them seeing Jerusalem surrounded by armies. The Battle of Armageddon was to be so horrendous that Christ quickly interjects that believers better take Bowl 7 seriously if they are to avoid the consequences of Bowl 6. Now I'm not going to repeat what I said before, but remember this is a chiasm going forward to chapter 14, then it goes backwards. Everything's going backwards in history to AD 30, excuse me, AD 66. Well, 30 when you go into chapter 17. So why do I say that the demons are limited by this coming of Christ in AD 66? Well, chapter 12 tells us. It says that the woman, which is a symbol of the church, was given two wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the wilderness to her place where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time. So a time is one year. times is two years and half a time so three and a half years from the presence of the serpent. So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood but the land helped the woman and the land opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth and the dragon was enraged with the woman. The land of Israel absorbed Satan's wrath against the church and God protected the church for the next three and a half years. He completely frustrated Satan's plans. But of course, that assumes the next point. Demons are limited by Christians when, and only when, they are on guard. It's not automatic. First words of verse 15 say, watch out. If Christians had not heeded Christ's warnings in Matthew 24, they would have been stuck in the city. Doesn't matter that they're Christians. Hey, you didn't heed the warning. They would have been stuck in the city, okay? Or if they had escaped, they would have escaped without clothes, without a grab bag. But of course, every historical event in this book is a symbol according to Revelation 1 verse 1. So even though there's a historical referent, of physical clothing, it's a symbol that they need to have spiritual clothes so that they're protected from the demonic. So this preparedness in the physical world symbolizes the need to be prepared in the spiritual world, lest demons take advantage of us. And this is a constant theme in scripture. 1 John 5, 19 tells us that the whole world lies in the lap of the wicked one. In other words, he could do whatever he wants with that. They're his pawns. But the previous verse says that's not true of those who have been born again. It says that everyone who was born again, the wicked one cannot touch him, but there's a little parenthetical phrase that says, when? guarding himself. If he's guarding himself, the wicked one cannot touch him. We must be aware of demonic attack and guard ourselves through God's Word and the blood of Christ. This is why Ephesians 4.27 warns us to not give opportunity to the devil. Opportunity to do what? to get involved in our lives. Don't give them opportunity. What gives them opportunity in that passage? It's letting your wrath go down, the sun go down on your wrath. In other words, you perpetually keep angry. That gives Satan opportunity. This is why Ephesians 6, verse 11 tells us to stand against the wiles of the devil. Why 1 Timothy 3, 6 warns us to not put a novice into the office of elder, because if he's unprepared, he says, will fall into the snare of the wicked one. So many scriptures tell us to watch out, and any Christian who knows spiritual warfare keeps himself confessed up, cleansed before the Lord, he's walking right with God, Satan and his demons cannot touch him. Now, They can touch him through other people. They can move other people to persecute you or slander you or do all kinds of things against you. But the demon himself cannot. And then finally, these demons are limited by God's prophecies. No matter what Satan's plans might have been, God's plans completely overruled Satan's plans. I want you to notice that verse 16 does not say, so they gathered them to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon. Now even though demons are indeed involved in gathering them, in verse 14, ultimately it is God who gathers them. Verse 16 says, so He, singular, He gathered them to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon. Now it's true that He could refer back to the angel, Or it could refer back to God, but either way, it's still God. God is the one moving his prophecies forward, and he even uses demons as his unwitting tools. But what on earth is Armageddon? And there's a lot of debate, all kinds of strange theories on the meaning of this term and whether it's a battle that is future to us. And you read there are hundreds of failed historical events that they have said, this is Armageddon. It's going to happen in the next year, in the next two years. It is embarrassing, absolutely embarrassing. And there are some good books out there that document this. My two favorite books are The Day and the Hour by Francis Gummerlach and Last Day's Madness by Gary DeMar, okay. Those two books document some of the utterly foolish predictions, you know, that futurists have made based on their faulty theology. And it just shows you what an incredibly bad testimony their failed interpretations are before a watching world. It makes the world question the truthfulness of Scripture. One popular writer of today, whom I will mercifully leave unnamed, has put out four editions of almost exactly the same book. He just inserts different events into the book. The reason he's had to have four editions is his first book that he said, this is Armageddon, it is on the way, that proved to be a false prophecy. Then he makes another guess, and another, and another. And the weird thing about it is, every one of those books is bestsellers. You know, there's this expression, there's a sucker in every crowd. Well, I'm convinced when it comes to prophecy, there's a crowd of suckers. Enough to make people like this guy rich, really rich. Futurism has a lot of egg on its face from these kinds of irrational, irresponsible interpretations. It's really upsetting. But I believe the text is quite clear. The battle of Armageddon is not future to us. It was the battle of Titus's armies against Jerusalem in AD 70. Every detail fits. I challenge anyone to show me a single detail that does not fit. And even the term Armageddon shows this. Now again, there's all kinds of speculation on the meaning of that term. Some try to make this Har-Magedon. But John is quite explicit in his pronunciation. He says that Armageddon is the Hebrew pronunciation. Now I'm not going to get into all of the theories of what this word means. Some take it as the cities of Megiddo, others as beautiful city, others as Mount Megiddo. And they're the ones who would say it has to be pronounced Har-Magedon because Har is mount. And by the way, just as a side note, there is no such thing. And you look in any commentary, just about, and they will tell you there is no such thing as a Mount Megiddo. It does not exist. There is a plane of Megiddo. There is no Mount Megiddo. Period. But I think this is rather easily settled. A recent study by Jay Day has argued quite cogently on numerous exegetical grounds that the precise background for this word Armageddon is Zechariah 12 verse 11. It is the only passage in the Old Testament where the Hebrew spells Megiddo as Megiddon. not Megiddo. It's the only passage. Now some argue, well there's a couple of other places where the Greek Septuagint spells it Megiddon, but John is quite explicit here. He says the place is called in Hebrew Armageddon. It has to refer to a Hebrew text. And he gives a bunch of other proofs that Zechariah 12 verse 11 forms the background. By the way G.K. Beale thinks that his argumentation is very cogent. The problem is both of them see Armageddon as future to us but that violates the context of Revelation 16, it violates the context of Zechariah 12. Revelation has quoted Zechariah actually a number of times and when I preached on Revelation 1 verse 7, I think I definitely proved Zechariah 12 refers to the first century. It is a time in history when each tribe of Israel lives separately, has a separate identity. They know which tribe lives where. That is simply not even possible today. All of the tribes have been completely obliterated. There is no such thing as the tribes of Israel anymore. And what's even more important is Zacharias is not just the tribes that are all stationed out and separate, but he says that the descendants of David, Nathan, Levi, and Shimei are all distinguishable and they mourn separately. That means it has to be the first century. Premillennialists claim to be literal in their interpretation. They do not take numerous clues like this literally. I do. Likewise, verse 10 indicates that it happened after Pentecost. This is verse 10 of Zechariah 12. After Pentecost, when the Spirit was poured forth. Going on into chapter 13 of Zechariah, this is the time when prophets cease to exist, and those that claim to be prophets will be executed as false prophets. Look it up, Zechariah chapter 13. According to that prophet, that place, Anybody after the destruction of Jerusalem that came to be a prophet is automatically a false prophet. That's what it says According to that chapter that's also the time when two-thirds of Jewish believers will be killed One-third will survive the Great Tribulation Continuing on into chapter 14. The Great Tribulation is followed by Jerusalem and temple being destroyed half of is a different proportion than Christians that are killed. Half of the unbelieving Jews going into captivity with the rest remaining in the city. That means this cannot be, it has to be before Bulls 1 through 3. Which is Bar Kokhba. No Jews remained in Jerusalem after Bar Kokhba. So every detail of Zechariah has to be literally followed just like these Bulls in Revelation do. And Zechariah continues on to describe these bull judgments exactly as we have described them. Bulls 4 and 5 are described in Zechariah 14, 12. Bulls 1 to 3 are described in Zechariah 14, 13 through 15. OK, so the most important thing I want to bring out from Zechariah is that after Zachariah describes Mount Vesuvius' eruption, which completely, almost immediately dissolves their eye sockets and everything, I mean it dissolves their flesh on their body, immediately after Mount Vesuvius, then it mentions plagues, just like we saw in history happen. Massive plagues all over the Roman Empire, massive second slaughter of Jews, which has to be Bar Kokhba rebellion AD 132-136 and then Zachariah ends by describing a long period of time for the Christianization of the world until every person is a Christian and everything including bells on the horses is holiness to the Lord. It follows perfectly the order that we've been seeing in Revelation. So Armageddon is clearly a reference to the last battle of Titus when he took Jerusalem and burned the temple. Every detail of this bowl six is clearly rooted in AD 70. Though Satan no doubt thought he was making progression, every detail of God's prophetic program was being perfectly fulfilled. Now let me end by reiterating the reasons why this vision on Armageddon is a faith builder, not a faith crusher. We see angels once again involved in natural disasters. This one, the damning of the Euphrates. They're involved in influencing kings. We should pray for kings and for all who are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life. I mean, pray that angels would have a godly influence, break through the strongholds that are in D.C. and in other places that are out there. Pray also against the demons, because demons are influencing these kings. That's an even greater reason to be praying that God would protect them. Demons are involved in war, they are involved in miracles, they move people. like emperors and prophets. So we need to be on guard against their wiles. Yet, we can be confident that demons are on a leash, so to speak. They can only do what God in His sovereignty allows. We need not fear them. Instead, this book calls us to recognize that Armageddon was a turning point in world history. That there would be non-stop growth of the church after Armageddon until the entire world is Christianized. I think that is the inescapable conclusion of Zechariah 12 through 14, which is where the term, the only place where this term Armageddon can come from. Well that means that far from the term Armageddon being a word to send chills down our spine, It is a word that shows we can be more than conquerors through Christ who loved us and gave himself for us. May we put off the faith-killing eschatology that has pretty much paralyzed the Church of America in the last century. and put on the faith building post-millennial eschatology of revelation that was embraced by the greats of the past like George Whitfield, John and Charles Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, David Livingston, William Carey, R.L. Dabney, Charles Hodge, and so many others. May it be so, Lord Jesus. Amen. Father, I thank you that you give instructions in your word that we can anchor our hope upon and ground our faith in. And I pray that we would be a people of faith who would do exploits on your behalf, not fearing what Satan can do to us. He may kill the body, but he cannot kill our souls. And our labors in the Lord we know are not in vain. So I pray that you would help each one of us to be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that our labors in the Lord are not in vain. Bless this, your people, Father, with a world-conquering faith. In Jesus' name I pray it.