There was a commentary, a very old volume, that I came across some years back and it has long since been either given away or lost in my moving around until settling in a retirement community condominium in Arizona which has little space for books (or much else). As I recall, the comments were written somewhere around the middle of the nineteenth century, and one portion of what I read has remained fixed in my mind as an ongoing question as to its possibility.
The word “Armageddon” is mentioned in the King James Version in Revelation 16:16, and the battle is described in Revelation 19:17 ff. in more detail. It is far from any Hollywoodversion and quite far from what most people think of when “Armageddon” is mentioned. Is it a war? Yes. Is it a battle? Yes. Is it nuclear? We don’t know. What I found interesting is how this commentator viewed Armageddon, because it is a bit inconceivable to see nations gathered together in the Valley of Meggido to fight against God, a Spirit more powerful than man’s mind is able to conceive in thought or word.
This commentator expressed his meditations upon Armageddon and its “battle” as being the total political, religious, social, economic and moral breakdown of human society. In summary, he saw the war as being essentially a spiritual war of total rebellion against God Almighty, and the leading by God of the combatants into total defeat, so that their frailties and follies were self-consuming.
Should this commentator be correct, this world is well on its way to Armageddon, if not standing on the precipice of the whole conflagration.
As insane as this world has become, it is as devoid of morality and responsibility as any heathen civilization of the past, and even more contemptuous toward God, His authority and even His existence, as any ever conceived of by man in his sordid travels on earth through recorded time. Even so, it is rather ludicrous to contemplate the Armageddon scenarious put forth by those who believe in it, and those who ridicule it, as being a war in which the nations go about firing nuclear armaments into the sky at random. Even the lunatics governing the nations of the world seem to have slightly better sense than to engage in that kind of conduct.
It is just as naive and demented to envision a battle between “good people” and “bad people” as humans tend to categorize themselves, every one armed to the teeth and the “good” people eventually winning the battle. For one thing, that isn’t even close to what the Bible says about Armageddon. In God’s sight there are no good people, only those who are justified by grace through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, Savior and King. That is the message of the Bible with respect to the mission and ministry of the Christ. And Armageddon is human warfare, presided over by Satan, against Christ and His host of heavenly beings. So there is a spiritual war behind the earthly war, with spirit beings as well as human beings involved. It is indeed the consummate battle between good and evil, far greater than what human minds, even the most devout of believers, are able to envision in the terms presented to us in the Bible (which is not a criticism of the Bible).
What, then, could these deluded kings of the earth be fighting against, and with what? If there is a battle, then there must be combat of some sort … or a condition that will lead to the destruction we associate with the name Armageddon. How could the armies of the earth ruled by demon-led kings actually enter into a battle with God?
We need to travel back to Genesis momentarily and see that Satan never attempted to attack God personally. No, Satan chose man, God’s highest creation (a moral being in human flesh) as the pawn of his warfare against God, and his methods have never changed throughout human history.
Satan has thus deceived both the kings of the earth and their subjects, mankind in general (except for God’s elect) into denying God and disobeying His every commandment and statute given for man’s benefit. What this produces, of course, is the total breakdown of all political, religious, social, moral and economic structures that hold the world, such as it is, together with some form of order. The result is the most ungodly chaos the world system has ever known or beheld. After the great slaughter of Satan’s earthly followers, an angel invites the birds to a feast consisting of the carcasses of the slain. (God is also the Master Ecologist.)
After Armageddon, the next judgment is upon the “great harlot” known as Mystery Babylon. If we look at the history of Babylon, we will find quite easily that it was in Babylon (successor to Sumeria) that we find the beginnings of corrupt politics, false religion, social inequalities, immorality of every sort, and greedy commerce. Those, according to the commentary, are the elements of this world system that are devastated at Armageddon, never to be seen upon the new earth or in the new heavens, cleansed of all evil for eternity.
God, at whom no missile was ever fired, is pictured as seated on a great white horse (rulership) from which He, as the righteous King, both judges and makes war. (Rev. 19:11) Now the war is over, all that is left is the final judgment of the wicked.
The war is one-sided in God’s favor. That is not a Hollywood view with intricate special effects, it is God’s word as to the absolute rulership of God over His creation, that which He initiated when it is written “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen. 1:1)
However, in the Bible’s story about Armageddon, there is no narrative as to the war itself. None. The rebels are gathered together to make war against God; there are voices, lightnings, thunders, and a great earthquake heretofore unknown to the earth. Then it’s over. Yet the wicked are dead, and the power of death is contained not in nuclear weapons but in the word of God.
Why is the battle omitted? This writer cannot be certain. It is certain that God neither records in His word nor omits from it that which we are to know, or must not know.
Would you consider today’s earthwide breakdown of all its previous norms of human behavior as a war? Perhaps not. Or, if you believed that what is happening today is the commencement of Armageddon, would you be a fire-insurance seeker of God’s mercy? We always have had bomb-shelter religionists who want God to come save them from disasters, then forget Him as soon as the emergency is over. Speculation here is endless in its possibilities.
We can know from history that there have been many times when evil seemed to permeate the air and the water, the bones and the marrow of portions of the earth as a result of some egotist’s conquest. Never has the world been this populated or this joined together in world commerce and politics so that what affects one portion of the planet affects it all.
With both Hollywood and the media jumping into the act and carelessly (and ignorantly) talking about “Armageddon” it would do us well to consider whether the commentator of long ago might have been accurate when he concluded that Armageddon would be a world breakdown and loss of the knowledge of God, hence setting itself up for any manner of self-destruct that is actually the war of God against evil.
With the increasing chaos in our world, those who are in Christ will take comfort whether today’s events are the beginning of Armageddon or not. And the only valid question really isn’t whether this is Armageddon, but whether you are on God’s side? When the answer is “yes” then the events that are to come will come and go, but we who are with Christ will endure forever.
“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”