Jesus The Victorious King at Armageddon
For behold, in those days and at that time, when I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem, I
will also gather all nations, and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment
with them there on account of My people, My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations
(Joel 3:1-2)
Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for war! Wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war
draw near, let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the
weak say, ‘I am strong’. Assemble and come, all you nations, and gather together all around. Cause Your
mighty ones to go down there, O Lord. Let the nations be wakened, 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. Come, go down; for the winepress is full, the vats overflow – for their wickedness is great.” Multitudes,
multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and
moon will grow dark, and the stars will diminish their brightness. The Lord also will roar from Zion, and
utter His voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and earth will shake; but the Lord will be a shelter for His
people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling
in Zion My holy mountain. Then Jerusalem shall be holy, and no aliens shall ever pass through her again.
(Joel 3:9-17)
I. HUMAN HISTORY DOES NOT END WITH A NUCLEAR WAR
A. The drama of human history does not come to a close with the superpowers of the nations blowing each other
up in a massive explosion, as has been the popular Hollywood theory of our day. Scripture makes it clear that natural
history ends by a battle, but this battle is not between the East and the West, it is not about Communism verses Capitalism,
or about any other human conflict. The two sides of this great battle will be evil human beings against God Himself – and
God wins. The church will not be absent when this great struggle takes place but will be here on the earth. We will
experience the anticipation leading up to this battle, and the knowledge of its approach will encourage us. The antichrist
and his evil army will be desecrating the earth and persecuting Jewish people and Christians in their fierce hatred. As the
circumstances leading up to the end-time battle intensify, believers will be crying out to God for His break-through and
vindication of His people. Just as the martyrs in heaven will be praying, “how long, O Lord?” the saints on the earth will
be crying out, “Do not keep silent, O God!! … For behold, Your enemies make a tumult …” (Revelation 6:10; Psalm 83:1-2).
B. The end-time events will come to a crescendo, with revival breaking forth, persecution mounting, oppression
deepening, economics failing, food becoming scarce to the point of famine, food being supernaturally provided for
believers in the earth, the judgments of God breaking forth upon the unbelievers, and the wrath of satan breaking out
against the church. Believers will be in the difficult position of persecution, imprisonment and martyrdom, crying out to
God, “How long?” And the Lord’s answer will be the Battle of Armageddon – a great and glorious day for the righteous.
It is the day of the Second Coming.
C. Jesus will step out of heaven, and He will stand in the sky as a fully human King who is also fully God. No human
king in history has ever stood in the sky. This day will mark an entirely new order of supernatural power – a Man will stand
in the sky with His armies. The wicked people on the earth will look up in marvel, in a total quandary as to what to do about
this supernatural set of events! In all of the might and unity of the antichrist’s evil army, they will have never confronted an
army standing in the sky! The evil power that oppressed the earth with ease and caused the inhabitants of the nations to
say, “Who is able to make war with him?” (Revelation 13:4) will now look up to the sky to see the One who will utterly
defeat them forever!
D. What should strike us most about this scene is that it is literal! This is what is most alarming and invigorating about
all end-time prophecy – the fact that it is true! It will happen in the natural realm, in real time and space, with the human
process playing into it! When Jesus splits the sky with His appearing and liberates the captives, it won’t be instantaneous,
but a process! It will take time. Though He will use supernatural power, He will also operate to a high degree within the
boundaries of human process. Because He comes from heaven, we automatically assume that he will nearly do away with
the natural human dimensions of life in His Second Coming, by doing everything according to the supernatural. Yet that
is not the case. God loves the natural realm. He designed His plan so that the romance and drama crescendos when the
natural and the spiritual realms come together! The two joined together exhilarates the human heart – we were made for
it! Jesus’ return and the events surrounding it, are fully manifested in the earth, in actual time and space. He will release
His glory to the nations involving natural, human processes with a supernatural anointing. We will marvel at His leadership
on the earth.
E. The battle of Armageddon, the great final battle around Jerusalem, will not be over in fifteen minutes. He will first
appear in the sky. Though He could just stay in heaven, say the word, and annihilate the armies without ever showing up.
He will appear in the sky with all of His angels and then He will strike the evil nations in a progressive battle, causing the
blood to flow far and wide. Isaiah described Jesus as the One coming up from Edom, traveling in the greatness of His
strength, with garments stained red (Isaiah 63:1-4). As this real human King makes His way up from Edom, His garments
will truly be red with the blood of his enemies. It is not an impersonal force of light that will wage war with the wicked nations
of the earth; it is the God-Man, Christ Jesus. Though the supernatural activity of God will accelerate this battle, He will do
it all through human process, in real time and space.
F. This concept of literal events in a natural realm is important for us to understand! This is not hard for the Jewish
mindset. They always saw the Kingdom of God as a literal, Jewish, earthly, political reign. This is why they were confused
and bewildered when Jesus came to earth the first time and didn’t conquer the Romans and vindicate the Jews! They were
looking for a political human government. And they were partly right! It is what they were promised all through the
prophets. Their error was in limiting God’s Kingdom to the natural and to their nation, for it is also spiritual and
international – the covenant was given to bless all nations.
G. Gentiles error on the other side. Our mindset is quick to understand that God’s kingdom is spiritual and international.
Yet we struggle with the idea of a literal earthly reign of Christ centered in Jerusalem. We must learn to bring these two
paradigms together because both are necessary to understand what is coming when Jess returns and rules the nations!
H. Jesus jolted the paradigms of His Jewish disciples when He said, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit
has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in al Judea and Samaria, and the end of the
earth” (Acts 1:8). The power they would receive would be supernatural, of the Holy Spirit, not just the natural, physical
strength of armies. Then He said that they would go to Samaria and to the Gentiles. This was a stumbling block to their
minds! They all bought into the idea of going to Jerusalem and Judea; but the Jews had no dealings with Samaritans, and
the resurrected Christ was sending them to these ‘defiled’ Gentile neighbors! (John 4:9). He was also sending them to
the uncharted territory of the ends of the earth. They believed the earth would come to them (which it will – Isaiah 2;2;
Micah 4:1-2), more than understanding their responsibility to go to all the earth. Thus Jesus was rocking their paradigms!
I. In our day, we need a jolt in the exact opposite direction. The Gentiles today need to understand that a King is
really returning in the natural, and He will reign from Jerusalem in a literal earthly reign. His reign will be nationalistic in
that He will reign as a Jew from Israel, and it will be political in that Jesus will truly govern the earth. “And the government
will be upon His shoulder … of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David
and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal
of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (Isaiah 9:6, 7).
II. ALL NATIONS GATHERED FOR JUDGMENT
I will also gather all nations, and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into
judgment with them there on account of My people, My heritage Israel … (Joel 3:2)
Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all
the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished.
Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
(Zechariah 14:1-2)
A. The Lord will gather all of the nations, all of the military forces of the earth, together in one place. The “all nations”
of this passage is not speaking of every single human being of every nation – it is not a gathering of the whole population
of the earth to be destroyed by God. Zechariah 14:16 tells us that some of the nations will be left. Rather, the Lord is
speaking about the governments of the earth – the military captains, leaders, and personnel representing of all the nations.
Still, this will be no small number; millions will be gathered to Israel and the surrounding area of the Middle East. Some of
these will be come to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, just outside of Jerusalem, where Jesus will demonstrate His zeal and
enter into judgment with them.
B. Satan will also work to gather the nations to Israel. He will send out his demons to work false miracles that cause
the kings of the earth to be allured in the deception to unite against God.
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 spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth
and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. (Revelation 16:13-14)
C. The Lord says that He will gather the nations, and the devil claims that he is the one bringing them. And truly both
powers will be at work, yet God’s sovereignty always overrides the devil’s schemes. Both sides will work in a way that God
will use to help fulfill the Great Commission of bringing all nations to God. Throughout all human history, satan continually
plays the role of “God’s devil”, in that whatever he does, God brings about good. Satan’s schemes continually fall into the
greater purpose of God’s ultimate plan.
D. The other factor that will bring the nations together in war against God will be the antichrist. They will come on
account of their own envy, bitterness and greed – wanting to take the spoil from the land of Israel and steal the wealth of
the Jewish people whom they wish to exterminate.
Thus says the Lord God, “I will do according to your anger and according to the envy which you showed
in your hatred against them; and I will make Myself known among them when I judge you.” (Ezekiel 35:11)
E. Summary – three things will work together to cause the great gathering of the nations in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
Men will come under the compulsions of human greed. Hoping to conquer the earth, the devil will work miracles to draw
the kings there. And Jesus, superseding the others, will be drawing these evil and wicked men that He might deal with
them and kill them all before the eyes of the whole earth. He will lure them into a divine trap and gather them together
so that He might display His mighty power with such an impact that it will stay in the memory of the nations for the next
thousand years.
F. Nothing He will do will be unnecessary or too severe. He will use the least severe means to bring the greatest number
of people to Him at the deepest level of love. The Lord will have given them every single chance to repent; yet these
ungodly nations will be in a wicked state of rage against God. In their rebellion, their hearts will be utterly hardened,
completely unresponsive to the grace of God. They will hate God with perfect hatred (Revelation 11:18). And to this
wicked anger and abhorrence, the Lord will stir them with an invitation, “Well, come them.”
G. Only one aspect of God’s motive for calling the nations to war is made known here, it will be a time of retribution
on the nations for scattering the people of Israel, with whom God made covenant. God will fight for the covenant He made
with Israel until the end – and He will prevail. It is such a testimony of His mercy! He promises to remember His covenant
with the ones who have rebelled most against Him throughout history. They are the apple of His eye and He is zealous for
them (Zechariah 2:8; 8:2). He comes to fight for this covenant at a time when they do not even want Him – He is confident
in His ability to change them!
III. THE ZEAL OF THE JEALOUS KING
A. The battle of Armageddon, referred to here as a military conflict in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, is a subject covered
thoroughly in the Word of God. The Lord has given us a significant emphasize and detail in scripture of this so that His
people would be confident about the end of the story.
B. Through this battle He will not only save unbelieving Israel; He will also vindicate and deliver all the believers. The
battle of Armageddon is good news for the church! This battle portrays Jesus’ zeal and His commitment to His people. He
will not sit back in passivity but will take action and go to war on behalf of His own. This great conflict will reveal just how
much evil has accelerated and just how necessary divine intervention will be to put an end to it! Something so severely
wicked will emerge in the earth, that it will require this kind of severity from God.
C. It will not be a one-day event, as though Jesus will appear two o’clock in the afternoon, conquer His enemies, and
complete His victorious mission by three o’clock! It will be a very real battle and though we don’t know exactly how long it
will last, we know from scripture of a number of things that must take place during this battle, and these thins will take
some time.
D. What god does in that day will make an impact on how He governs the earth. To put it in contemporary language,
this will be like His first act as President of the earth – He will kill most all of the current presidents of the earth. And for a
thousand years afterward, as He sets up His Kingdom on the earth, and rules from Jerusalem, the people of the nations
will remember His incredible power, wisdom, zealous love, and unrelenting justice. They will know how serious He really is
about His government. Then all of the nations will know that He is God! this revolutionizing impact will be made through
His stunning display of power and authority. He entrance on the battle scene will be His appearance in the sky, with all His
mighty angels. By this the nations will know He is God. They will also know of His power by the way He governs the earth
in perfect righteousness and justice.
E. These events will make a massive social impact upon the earth when he kills untold millions along with their wicked
leadership including the evil kings of the nations. He will personally slay them and their blood will fill the valley.
The Lord … shall execute kings in the day of His wrath. He shall judge among the nations, He shall fill
the places with dead bodies, He shall execute the heads of many countries. (Psalm 110:5-6)
He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into
plowshares … nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaiah 2:4)
F. The memory of this event will impact the social, emotional, legal, and economic decisions in the earth the next one
thousand years (Revelation 20). The memory will live on and the power of it will affect generation after generation. They
will tell the story to their offspring and to their descendants, the story of this zealous King who killed all of His enemies with
His own hand! The vivid memory of this display of divine zeal will cause the nations of the earth to say of the King reigning
in Jerusalem, “O, you do not want to disobey Him! I was there when He took the rod of iron and smashed the nations!”
This one event will realign the emotional “DNA” of the earth for a thousand years! The story will be told to the generations
because God desires voluntary lovers all over the earth who tremble at His majesty!
G. We need to get to know this Jesus of the scripture; He is not what most people imagine. What we see portrayed
of Him in the Battle of Armageddon – slaying the wicked – is not contrary to His personality of love and tenderness. This
is our Jesus, and this is what His love is capable of. When we learn how far Love goes for love to win, and we know that
He will rule with a rod of iron, we worship Him rightly – there is an awe and trembling in our hearts. His power and majesty
can rightly terrify us!”
H. King David described the safety that only comes from drawing close to the Lord in intimacy and awe in the End-
Times.
Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in
the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him. (Psalm 2:11-12)
I. We must become deeply acquainted with both His burning love and His fierce zeal to remove everything that hinders
love. We see these two manifestations of His heart throughout the bible, in particular the Song of Solomon and the Book
of Revelation. These two books are like the condensed versions of what the whole Bible contains. He is so serious about
love! So severe is His zeal for love that He became human and was crushed by the wrath of God. What He will do in terms
of zeal in the battle of Armageddon, killing millions by His own sword, pales in severity compared to what happened at the
Cross. What He did in becoming human and being crushed by the wrath of God is His ultimate statement of Zealous love,
the eternal testimony of unsurpassed severity and passion that will be treasured for all the ages (Ephesians 2:7).
IV. UNDERSTANDING THE ARMAGEDDON CAMPAIGN
A. The Battle of Armageddon is typically understood as an isolated battle that occurs in Jerusalem just before the
Christ returns. In actuality, it is not an isolated battle; it is the final fight in a whole campaign of battles. It will be the
ultimate expression of a military campaign moving throughout the entire last 3-1/2 years before the Second Coming.
Thus, this conflict in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, when Jesus slays His enemies, is the last of the series of battles in what
I have termed, the Armageddon Campaign.
B. The antichrist will conduct numerous battles around the world (Revelation 6:1-6), the greatest of which will be the
3-1/2 year Armageddon campaign, ending with the final battle in the Valley of Jehoshaphat (Revelation 16:14, 16). During
this campaign, the antichrist, with his ten-nation confederation, and with the support of the kings of the East, or the Asian
military forces, will gather to Armageddon to fight God and seek to exterminate all Israel. The evil armies of the earth will
have armed forces stationed in the northern plains of Esdraelon, or the hill of Megiddo, as well as throughout the entire
land of Israel, with troops deployed from the area of Armageddon. This great conflict will extend from the plains of the
north, down through Jerusalem, out into the Valley of Jehoshaphat and southward to Edom.
C. The term Armageddon appears only once in the entire bible (Revelation 16:16). It is the place God chose to
gather the nations for the war of the great Day of God Almighty. In Hebrew it is called, “Har-Magedon” and these two
adjoined Hebrew words can be translated, “hill-country of Megiddo”. Megiddo actually means “Mountain of Gathering”
and comes from a Hebrew root word (Gaw-dahd) which means “an assembling of troops”. Megiddo was an Old Testament
city in northern Israel, sixty miles north of Jerusalem. It is located within a famous valley, a vast open plain that extends
out toward the east, called the Valley of Jezrell. Today Megiddo is a fertile valley known as “Israel’s breadbasket” because
of its continual harvest. The Valley of Jezrell, where Megiddo is located, is approximately fifteen miles wide at its widest
point and twenty miles long.
D. Megiddo itself served as a military stronghold for several generations and many strategic battles in bible history
were fought in this valley. There Deborah defeated Sisera (Judges 4-5), Gideon defeated the Midianites (Judges 6), Saul
died at the hand of the Philistines (1 Samuel 31), Joshua defeated the Canaanite king of Megiddo when entering the
Promised Land (Joshua 12), and Josiah was killed by the Egyptians (2 Chronicles 35:22-24; 2 Kings 23:29). This same
Valley will host the great Battle of Armageddon. Though the plain of Megiddo is too small to host millions of soldiers from
the armies of the earth long term, it is large enough to act as the gathering place to dispatch armies throughout the land.
V. THE GENTILE NATIONS PREPARE FOR WAR AGAINST GOD!
Proclaim this among the nations: ‘Prepare for war! Wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war
draw near, let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the
weak say, “I am strong””. (Joel 3:9-10)
A. God’s answer to the nation’s abuse and defilement of His land and His people is the cry, “Prepare for war!” This is
the voice of the Holy Spirit stirring up the nations to fight. He cries, in effect, ‘Rally your strongest and best! Tell all of the
soldiers to get out their uniforms and reenlist! Let even the weak ones be emboldened in their pride.” Once again, in this
strange paradox, the nations of the earth will be summoned to war by God, satan, and their own sin. Demons will be
deceiving them and falsely prophesying, “go to war and there will be great blessing!” The Lord will be enlisting and
calling, “go to war!” And their own sin and lustful nature will compel them to this war. It is a mysterious thing when the
forces of evil and the forces of righteousness move world history in he same direction, yet for different reasons.
B. The Holy Spirit summons men to beat their plowshares into swords and their pruning hooks into spears. With this
command, God will provoke the deepest streams of pride in the human heart. The nations will convert their agricultural
factories into military machines. This happened all over the earth in WWII. They took industry factories and used them to
produce military equipment. This command is exactly opposite of what Isaiah prophesied would occur after the war is
over: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4). Isaiah was prophesying of the coming earthly kingdom
that Jesus would set up – a kingdom in which they would turn their military equipment into agricultural equipment. Yet
before this new kingdom is established, a great battle must take place, the culmination of all natural history. Before the
time of peace will be the time of war.
C. By summoning the nations to prepare for war, the Lord will stir them up in their arrogance. These wicked nations
believe that they have power over God, and God expose their arrogance. Instead of crushing their pride, he will fuel it to
let it come to fruition. He will hand them over to their own desires, bring them into the battle against Him that their wicked,
false confidence has pressed for. Figuratively speaking, the Lord will get behind them and push them forward into the
fullness of what their pride wants. And as this bolstered confidence swells within their arrogant chests, they will come by
the droves, mesmerized under the spell of their conceit, and certain of a triumph over God that only fools would believe
attainable.
D. David described these proud evil armies in the End-Times.
Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth, set themselves, and
the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “let us break Their
bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.” (Psalm 2:1-3)
E. These kings will gather together and scheme, “We will destroy Jesus, the Anointed One and His people! We will
come against Him! We will cast off God’s cords of holiness! We do not want His Word nor His ways! We do not want His
restraints!” As they arise to this battle, their determination will be to kill all of the Christians and exterminate the Jewish race.
F. Satan has found what he believes to be one major loophole in God’s end-time plan. It is that Jesus boxed Himself
into a corner when He said that He would not return to earth until the Jewish leadership invited Him saying, “Blessed is He
who comes in the name of the Lord!”
I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
(Matthew 23:39)
1. He said he will only return by the invitation of the leaders of the believing remnant in Israel – those who love Him in
Jerusalem. This stipulation is what the devil sees as his loophole. There will have to be a Jewish remnant to invite Jesus
back in order for Jesus’ word to be true; and if His word is not true, He cannot judge satan in justice.
2. Satan, the dragon of old, has but one chance to escape judgment, and that is if God is unjust or untrue. If one
syllable of His word is untrue, God could be charged with injustice, and therefore rendered powerless to cast satan to the
lake of fire forever and ever. Satan’s only chance, in his own thinking, is to exterminate the very people that Jesus said
must welcome Him back – he must liquidate the Jewish race and charge God as a liar.
G. With vengeance and rage, satan will seek to eliminate every person of the remnant of Israel. I believe this was the
thinking of Adolf Hitler who set his heart to kill every Jew in Europe then across the entire planet. We have seen the
manifestation of this rage throughout history, yet when satan is cast to the earth, and he knows his time is short, oh, what
an explosion of demonic animosity will he spew out on the Jewish race (Revelation 12:7-12)! The evil armies of the world
will join themselves to satan’s desperate fury and arise to the summoning to war. They will put their chests out with such a
sense of pride and military invincibility, and as an entire unified force, they will seek to occupy Israel and exterminate every
single Jewish person in the land. Using the force of the earth, with all the military strength and genius combined into one
ferocious army, they will begin the elimination process.
VI. LET THE NATIONS BE WAKENED
Assemble and come, all you nations, and gather together all around. Cause Your mighty ones to go
down there, O Lord. ‘Let the nations be wakened, and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I
will sit to judge all the surrounding nations” (Joel 3:11-12)
Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O Mighty One, with Your glory and Your majesty. And in Your majesty ride
prosperously because of truth, humility, and righteousness; and Your right hand shall teach You awesome tings. Your
arrows are sharp in the heart of the King’s enemies; the peoples fall under You. Your throne, O God, is forever and ever;
a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God,
Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions. (Psalm 45:3-7)
A. Many times we see that the Lord Himself summoning them to this very feat. He is not scared or intimidated in the
slightest by their strength. He convenes all the nations to this battle, not wanting one guilty nation to be absent (Joel 3:1).
H calls to them, in essence, “Prepare for war! Come and gather against Me! Try to wipe out My people and My land!
And I will glorify Myself in the earth by the magnitude of your defeat!” He is sure, and He is zealous, and He knows this
must be done for righteousness’ sake. This war must be waged. It cannot be stopped!
B. In Psalm 45, the sons of Korah wrote of this final conflict of the evil end-time campaign, saying, “Gird Your sword
upon Your thigh, O Might One, with Your glory and Your majesty. And in Your majesty, ride prosperously because of truth,
humility, and righteousness … Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the King’s enemies; the peoples fall under you”
(Psalm 45:3, 4). This Psalm portrays the glory and the terror of that day, revealing what is in the very heart of this Warrior
King: “You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness
more than Your companions” (Psalm 45:7, 8)
C. We cannot understand the Battle of Armageddon without knowing that the Mighty One who makes war with His
enemies is anointed with the oil of gladness more than any other man in history! The Warrior King at Armageddon is
motivated by glad love. Even as He endured the wrath of God on the cross for the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2), so
He will dispense His wrath on the wicked for the joy of an earth that is free of wickedness and a Bride that lives with Him
in undefiled love. Oh, He is more beautiful than the sons of men! He loves righteousness, hates that which destroys love,
and possesses a fiery zeal for truth! He is not only confident of His victory; He is absolutely sure of this battle’s necessity,
bringing an impact that will instruct the earth for the next thousand years.
D. This Warrior King loves truth and meekness. He does not ride in pompous strength but in truth. He is the Mighty
One with so much power that He will stand in the sky to do war, yet He uses this power for the sake of meekness and truth.
He came as a meek Lamb and for 2,000 years has endured the restraint of His Father’s perfect timing. By this stunning
submission, He has instructed the earth that there is a time for meekness to run its course in our being and our cheek to
be given to him who strikes, and then there is a time for extending the rod. Only One Man could assume the power over
the nations that this King will – the Man who fights on behalf of truth, humility, and righteousness. He understands the
necessity of the day of His power and He knows the eternal value of meekness!
E. Intercession for the release of angels in the Armageddon campaign.
“Cause Your might ones (angels) to go down there, O Lord!” (Joel 3:11)
1. Joel utters the prayer that will be offered in that time, that the Lord send out His mighty angels to this great battlefield.
It is as though Joel, right in the middle of recording the word of the Lord, put his pen down and entered in with this
fantastic prayer, “God send the angels! Break in!”
2. Numerous other times throughout the book, Joel has lifted his own voice to God in prayer (Joel 1:19; 2:17). Here
he prays for the angels of God to enter this immense drama!
F. The Lord continues with the command, “Let the nations be wakened and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat”
(Joel 3:12). With fearsome zeal, God will stir up the nations of the earth. He will not force them to come, yet He will create
a setting in which the unholy boldness of their sinful hearts is aroused. He wants this arrogance to swell to its fullest and
the sin that is within these nations to become ripe for judgment. He wants nothing kept in reservation or left dormant in
that hour, but man’s wickedness will be brought fully into the Light. All of the wicked strength of these armies will not
cause the Lord of Hosts to flinch. When the Lord summons the nations to fight against Him, untold millions will respond!
Millions will gather to the nation of Israel and throughout the Middle East, to crushed Israel.
G. At that time, Israel will have no military budget, no infrastructure, and no weapons of warfare. Israel will have fallen
into the trap of the antichrist, making a covenant of peace with him, and then losing everything when he shows his true
colors and turns on them (Daniel 9:27). In the beginning of this peace treaty, they will dwell in safety, though it is a false
peace (Ezekiel 38-39). Yet when he turns on them, they will be defenseless. As millions and millions appear on the
horizon, they will be utterly helpless.
H. God will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women
ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city”
(Zechariah 14:1, 2). Even though there will be great casualties, the Lord will stir all the nations, for it is through this battle
that Israel will cry out to Him, and He will come!
VII. THERE THE LORD WILL SIT AND JUDGE
Let the nations be wakened, 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. Come, go down; for the winepress is full,
the vats overflow – for their wickedness is great.” (Joel 3:12-13)
Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And he who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in
righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had
a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The
Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of
His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron.
He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a
name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. Then I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud
voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, “Come and gather together for the supper of the great God,
that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit
on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great.” And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth,
and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. Then the beast
was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked sings in his presence, by which he deceived those who received
the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with
brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all
the birds were filled with their flesh. (Revelation 19;11-21)
A. It will be in the final days of natural history that the nations will respond to the summoning of God, the deception
of satan, and the pride of their own hearts to gather against Israel. The timing will be at the end of the final seven-year
period prophesied by Daniel (Daniel 9;24, 27). Evil men from all the nations of the earth will be in the staging area of
Israel, the military region that spreads form one end of the country to the other. And in this area, the Lord will sit as Judge
and He will condemn all the nations that surround Israel.
B. Suddenly, Joel records an intercessory prayer going forth from the angels of heaven: “Put in the sickle, for the
harvest is ripe!” The apostle John also depicts this End-Time scene.
Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His
head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with
a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, “thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to
reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and
the earth was reaped. (Revelation 14:14-16)
C. The angels cry out for Jesus to act against the evil that has fully matured on the earth! They are praying that
Jesus would trample the nations. Though this is an intercessory angelic cry, as recorded in Revelation, when we study
the whole picture of the Book of Revelation as well as the whole Word of God, we know that the angels move in concert
with the prayer movement on the earth!
D. In the Book of Revelation, whatever the angels are doing in the spiritual realm, the Church of Jesus enters into a
corresponding activity in the natural! Thus, when the angel cries out to the Lord, “Put in Your sickle”, we can be sure that
the prayer rooms across the earth will also be crying out, “Put in the sickle, O God!” All who serve the Lord and love Him
will enter into this graphic prayer at the end of natural history. Jesus will cause this human cry and angelic cry to
crescendo together and He will respond by trampling out the vintage. John records this Battle of Armageddon, this
treading of the winepress, in Revelation 19.
E. On that day, Jesus will show Himself as the One with fire in His eyes and with a robe dipped in blood. The armies
of heaven, clothed in the whitest linen, will follow Him on white horses. Out of His mouth will go a sharp sword with which
he will strike the nations. He will tread the winepress Himself with the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God (Revelation
19:12-15). He will stomp through the nations of the earth, removing everything that hinders love.
F. The winepress is full and the vats are overflowing because the wickedness of the nations is great. The winepress
represents the drunkenness of the nations with the sins of fornication, idolatry, murder, theft, and the occult (Romans 9:21).
They are pictured in a stupor of drunkenness with their senses dulled and their sin emboldened! They are so intoxicated
with the occult realm and their murderous blood-lists that their immorality is reaching heights never seen before. So drunk
and stupefied are they, that they have no conscience and no fear of consequence – utterly disregarding warning of the
Day of Judgment.
G. Jesus comes to trample this wickedness. He uses the graphic metaphor of treading upon grapes to portray the
blood of the nations that will flow far and wide! The winepress of sin will be full and because the nations overflow in sin,
they will overflow in blood as God comes to judge them. As the nations are drunk in sin, Jesus will begin to march through
them, effortlessly smashing them in judgment.
Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. And in that
day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives
shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward
the north and half of it toward the south. Then you shall flee through My mountain valley, for the mountain
valley shall reach to Azal. Yes, you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of
Judah. Thus the Lord my God will come, and all the saints with You. (Zechariah 14:3-5)
H. Jesus will stomp upon these nations in rage for their disregard of His love, the wine of human blood will inundate
the land and stain the very robes of the conquering King.
Who is this who comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, this One who is glorious in His
apparel (Jesus), traveling in the greatness of His strength? – “I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save”
Why is Your apparel red, and Your garments like one who treads in the winepress? “I have trodden the
winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with Me. For I have trodden them in My anger, and
trampled them in My fury; their blood is sprinkled upon My garments (in context to the Battle of Armageddon),
and I have stained all My robes. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed has
come. I looked, but there as no one to help, and I wondered that there was no one to uphold; therefore My
own arm brought salvation for Me; and My own fury, it sustained Me. I have trodden down the peoples in
My anger, made them drunk in My fury, and brought down their strength to the earth.” (Isaiah 63:1-6)
I. John described this profusion of blood through Israel when Jesus returns to kill His enemies.
The winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, up to the horses’
bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs (about 185 miles). (Revelation 14:20)
J. All the while, the saints will be singing, “Worthy is the Lamb! True and righteous are His judgments!” (Revelation
19:1). We will be terrified of Him in His majestic, fearsome beauty! Full of love for Him and recognizing His actions to be
an uncompromising statement of His own love, we will worship Him wholeheartedly. At the same time, we will look upon this
One with garments stained red and fire in His eyes and say, “We hardly know You at all!” The mysteries and complexities
of His Person will stun us and romance us and cause explosive worship in our hearts! Full of confident love, yet trembling
in our spirits, we will rejoice in His leadership.
K. There is an hour of judgment coming when the winepress of sin will be full to the brim and spilling over. And in
God’s perfect judgments, he Himself will slaughter the wicked nations of the earth. This may seem very extreme and even
unreasonable to us now, because we have not yet faced the rage of the evil antichrist system that will emerge in the days
to come, seeking to exterminate Israel and obliterate the body of Christ. When we begin to live in that environment and
begin to witness the unholy torrents of sin and perversion that will inundate the earth, this fury of the Lord will not seem
offensive or excessive, but absolutely true and righteous! We ill be so glad He is passionate about righteousness,
otherwise no one would survive (Matthew 24:22).
VIII. THE VALLEY OF DECISION
Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision
(Joel 3;14)
A. The valley of decision is not a geographic valley but the valley that the human heart lives in right now. Even now,
every human being in the earth that has reached the age of accountability is lining up and moving in one direction or the
other. Every person on the face of the earth is calculating their life vision, passions, strengths and influence. They are
anticipating their way ahead in life and moving either toward the Lamb of God or away from Him. And the pace is about
to dramatically pick up.
B. The nations will not find themselves in the valley of decision for the first time when they look up and see Jesus
coming in the clouds with His sword. That would be way too late to make a choice. Rather, the Lord has everyone in the
grasp of this valley even now. There is no neutral ground in this valley of decision. If we say, “No!” to the evil one, he will
seek to destroy us and take our lives and everything dear to us. Yet if we say, ‘yes!” to the evil one, then God will destroy
us, and that which is dear to us. We cannot claim neutrality and write off the Lord as too intense and satan as too wicked.
The Lord is a God of burning desire, and he has created each person for eternity. He has crowned us with His own glory
– we are the object of His love! He was crushed by the wrath of God in His pursuit of mankind. There is no such thing
as indifference in His Kingdom. Everyone must decide!
C. In the earth today, the pace is about to speed up, and the decisions that we make now will make tomorrow’s
decisions easier – whether for good or for evil, for compromise or abandonment to God. The secret compromises that
we live in today will become easier and easier tomorrow. On the other hand, the secret abandonment to God that is
costing us today will give rise to greater abandonment tomorrow. We must calculate ways to be abandoned to God in
every arena of life. From money, to strength, to honor; relationships, ministry, and our positions, properties, and bodies;
we want to use each area to go after God. This is the valley of decision. Many that we know, even believers, will not
understand such a way of life, yet we still must give ourselves wholeheartedly! Everything in our lives must belong to the
Lord – literally, not just figuratively speaking. We must begin to set our souls today so that when the end comes, we are
ready.
IX. THE KING SHALL REIGN IN JUSTICE
The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will diminish their brightness. The Lord will roar from Zion, and utter
His voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and earth will shake; but the Lord will be a shelter for His people, and the strength
of the children of Israel. “so you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion My holy mountain. Then
Jerusalem shall be holy, and no aliens (foreign armies in military conflict) shall ever pass through her again.”
(Joel 3:15-17)
A. The Lord will not only use the sword in His mouth to execute His judgments, but He will exercise all of His resources
in creation, including the sun, the moon, the stars, and the earth itself. All of created order will obey the command of
Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity! He is the One who spoke Creation into being, and now He will use it as part of
His resource in judgment! As millions of soldiers are gathered together against Israel, loaded down with the most
sophisticated weapons and military arsenal, the God of “Genesis 1” will present His weapons. He knows how to employ
the sun and the moon for His own purposes!
B. Suddenly, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah will roar from Zion, from literal Jerusalem! (Joel 3:16). He will stand in the
holy city and utter His voice with a deafening, earth-shattering roar! The God-Man will stand on Mount Zion and the
remnant of Israel will receive Him as their King! “And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Loves, which faces
Jerusalem to the east. And the Mount of Olives shall split in two …” (Zechariah 14:4). Angry against wickedness and
consumed with love for His people, the Lion will lift His voice. “The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man; He shall stir us
His zeal like a man of war.”
The Lord shall go forth like a mighty man; He shall stir up His zeal like a man of war. He shall cry out,
yes, shout aloud; He shall prevail against His enemies. “I have held My peace a long time, I have been still
and restrained Myself. Now I will cry like a woman in labor, I will pant and gasp at once. I will lay waste the
mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation; I will make the rivers coastlands, and I will dry up the
pools. (Isaiah 42:13-15)
C. In that hour, this mighty Lion will become a shelter for His people! As He breaks through the clouds and sets His
feet upon Mount Olives, He will immediately begin to protect those who are in danger. He will act as Deliverer to the
captives and as Savior to those being killed. Yet this process will take a while! A multitude of Jewish people will be
trapped up against a mountain and surrounded on all sides, and there will seemingly be no route of escape. When He
sets His foot on the Mount of Olives, an earthquake will strike, causing the mountain to split in two! Then He will summon
His people to escape from their persecutors through the mountain valley He has just created! (Zechariah 14:4-5) He will
do just what Moses did at the Red Sea, striking the created order and forming a way of escape where there was no way.
And the mountain that He splits in two to create this getaway route for His people. He said one day His people would
move mountains by faith! (Mark 11:1, 23)
D. The strange yet exhilarating part about the great coming of Christ is the process and the time delays! You would
think that He would instantly kill all His enemies upon arrival, yet that is not the case. There is a delay element to the
process. The Jewish captives do not have even a minute to spare; yet instead of killing their enemies, the Lord just
makes a way of escape for them! I imagine them looking at Him thinking, “Escape? This is the Second Coming! You’re
here! Why do we have to escape?” Jesus leads the Jewish multitude out of immediate trouble, but the adventure is not
yet over! The heavenly Hero comes in to rescue His captive people, yet instead of everything being instantly resolved,
he first has to take care of the enemies. He sends His people to a temporary place of safety during the process.
E. In His mysterious and precise plan, the Lord has a perfect order of events which require time and process because
He loves humans and wants the drama to create the highest impact on the heart. The reason this method of deliverance
is so bizarre to us is because we don’t think of Him making change throughout the earth incrementally. We think it will be
instant, but it will be progressive. Thus, He sends the people of Israel through His escape route and then He deals with
the kings over an extended period of time. We do not know how long this period will be, whether it will be hours, days, or
weeks. Daniel talks about a thirty-day period and a forty-five-day period, equaling seventy-five days of transition (Daniel
12:11-12), and it is possible that these seventy-five days are the time period that Jesus marches through Israel, executing
the evil leaders, rebuking kings, setting prisoners free, and appointing new governmental leaders (Psalm 110:5, 6;
Matthew 25:31-32; Isaiah 2:4; 11:4). But of this we can be sure: He will judge between the nations and rebuke many
people, making decisions and giving orders to the peoples. And His government will keep increasing.
F. From His throne in Jerusalem, Jesus shall reign – He is fully God and fully Man. A Man will be King over all the
earth, in time and space, and the Father will give Him the inheritance of the nations. “And the Lord shall be King over all
the earth. In that day it shall be – “the Lord is one, and His name one” (Zechariah 14:9). For a thousand years He will
progressively transform every part of society, bringing His law to even the remotest villages of the earth, subduing every
enemy in every realm, without violating the freewill. Then the end will come and the whole realm of this age will be
finished. “Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and
all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25). Every realm
of life will be subdued and subjected to Jesus’ authority and that is the gift He will offer His Father. “Now when all things
are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be
all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). He will subject His kingdom to His Father and then the next realm will begin!
X. CONCLUSION
A. What a gift God has given us in showing us the end of the story. So often in our short-sightedness we get weighed
down with the cares of life. But the Lord is zealous for our hearts. Even now He is deeply involve din our lives,
orchestrating our circumstances in order for us to enter into the fullness of His plans for us – plans that are so marvelous
we can hardly fathom them (1 Corinthians 2:9).
B. It will take a great shaking in order for His everlasting Kingdom to be brought forth in fullness. We must be
prepared for this. But Jesus says to us, “See, I have told you beforehand” (Matthew 24:25), as if to say, “It is the desire
of My heart that You be with Me unto the very end. I really care about your heart being connected to Mine.”
C. The book of Joel is one of the many ways that He has told us in advance what the earth will look like in the
generation that he returns, and what is necessary in order to remain in Him and to partner with Him in that day. May
we have ears to hear.