47: World News & Prophecy - A Place Called Megiddo

[McNeely] Alright, in this class I want to go back to chapter 16 of Revelation and give a little bit of what we might call supplemental presentation or material on this. And I want to go back to the sixth bowl that is poured out in chapter 16, beginning at verse 12, and talk a little bit more about what is the geographic historical aspect of this part of the scenario that unfolds.

So let’s begin in chapter 16, verse 12: “The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared” (Revelation 16:12). And we talked last time about this being essentially very likely the same setting of chapter 9, where this 200 million person army comes out of the east.

The timing may be what is divided between chapter 9 and chapter 16, but essentially the same event. So there wouldn’t be two movements of two large armies during this three and a half year period. So just understand that it’s kind of an expansion of what began to be rolled out, very likely. Other commentators bring this out, and I think in our booklet on Revelation we tend to treat it that way as well. And what is interesting here—the way of the kings from the east is prepared. So we’re talking about these rulers of these nations that are being gathered.

Verse 13 shows that “three unclean spirits like frogs” come “out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet” (Revelation 16:13). So we have two physical beings—the beast and the false prophet; the beast being a political leader, the false prophet a religious leader. But the real power behind them is that of the dragon, or we know that is the symbol of Satan.

And so Satan and his demons move upon the world scene through kingdoms and nations and leaders throughout history. We’ve talked about that going back to Daniel chapter 10 and in other locations. And here is a gathering of these forces toward the culminating moments or days, if you will, of the tribulation prior to the return of Christ.

“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 16:14). And so the battle is called “the battle of the great day of God Almighty.” Often this great age-ending battle is called Armageddon.

You’ll hear that term used both as a one-off event or to be a catch-all phrase for end-of-the-age apocalyptic events. “Armageddon is upon us,” sometimes people will say. So you will see that term quite often used to describe huge conflagrations of war. There was even a movie a few years ago called Armageddon. And in that one, though, it was about—I think—an asteroid that was hurtling through space toward earth.

And if it collided on earth, it would have destroyed it. So somehow, I think a rocket ship or spaceship was sent out and they had to divert the course of that particular asteroid. If I recall that—I watched it once years ago. It wasn’t that great a movie. So I’m not recommending putting it on my recommended list, but at least it had the name there. But this battle is called the Battle of the Great Day of God Almighty. Armageddon is actually a geographical place. It is a spot.

Before I go to that, again, I just want to mention in verse 15, which you’ll see in your Bibles is in red letters. I didn’t talk about this when we went through it earlier. But it is directly a statement from Christ: “Behold, I am coming as a thief” (Revelation 16:15). Now that’s a phrase that is used by Peter, by Paul, and by Jesus in His Gospels in Matthew 24 to describe the state of those—well, the suddenness of His coming and the fact that those not prepared and alert and aware will be caught off guard.

I was going to say something else, but I shouldn’t say that. They’ll be caught unawares, okay? And the emphasis in all of these references is not to be in that situation. And there’s a whole message here: “I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches” (Revelation 16:15). So this idea of watching—Christ talks about that as well.

“Watch therefore,” discerning the times He talks about. Watching is more than just watching television or watching news events. Watching has to do as well with being alert spiritually, being prepared spiritually in our own life. So we watch for ourselves. When Christ was arrested in the garden on the night before His death, He went to pray, came back, and found His disciples had fallen asleep. I think He makes a statement there, “Could you not watch with Me…?” (Matthew 26:40).

In other words, the divisions of the night are called the watches of the night. And it’s the idea of being vigilant—keeping watch on the walls, in a guard post, to guard against a sudden attack, a sudden situation, and to be ready to respond. And so this idea of watching here is quite involved in an all-encompassing spiritual lesson of us understanding our time and our world, but also understanding whether or not we are actually spiritually ready—not just for the Second Coming of Christ, but for an event that could even impact our own life, such as a trial, so that we react in a right way.

Look, none of us like trials. None of us go out every morning thinking, oh, I hope I get a trial by 1 o’clock today so my faith is tested. We don’t live our life like that, even though the Bible says, “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials” (James 1:2). But human nature being what it is—and we’re all like that—we don’t go looking for it. But they will come.

And the key to spiritual vigilance and even growth is to be able to react in a right way when it does come. Not just melt down, thinking, oh, what have I done, or how did this happen, or I’m such a good person, why did this happen to me, etc., and seek excuses or pin blame on someone or events beyond your control. But no—be resilient. Be resolute. Be able to meet it and not crumble in despair. And not only do what’s necessary, but do what’s necessary because we’ve already been doing it.

In other words, spiritually alert. Spiritually, you know, get the right garments. Look at what else He says: “Watch, and keep his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame” (Revelation 16:15). And so the garments of righteousness are what is being alluded to here. And there is a direct reference back to chapter 3 of Revelation.

And let’s quickly turn back there to the message to the church at Laodicea, where Jesus says in verse 17, “Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17)—in other words, without the proper garments. Verse 18: “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed.” (Revelation 3:18)

How would it be revealed? You know, I talked about the little boy who looked at the king—the emperor—who thought he had clothes, but he didn’t have clothes.

And we, you know, want to be able to know that we may not be properly clothed.

We might even be naked spiritually—but being watchful can help us to be prepared.

And then this is what He’s saying here: “…and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see” (Revelation 3:18). So going back to Revelation 16:15, there’s a direct connection to what is being said here in all these other references to a thief in the night by Peter, Paul, and Christ—but also to the church at Laodicea and that message to not be caught off guard.

The events that transpire with these movements of nations into this battle formation against Christ at His coming are important to understand. And verse 16 then tells us that they gather them together in a place called in Hebrew, Armageddon. And a breakdown of that shows that that is really talking about Armageddon, or the mountain of Megiddo. And I want to take you to the slideshow to illustrate what we're talking about. Megiddo is actually a location on the map here.

It's about right here. Jerusalem's down here. And up in the plain of Azerilon, there is a site called Megiddo. I've been there a couple of times in years past on tours.

We've just read verse 16 here, so I'll go ahead. This is the entry gate. You drive up to it. It's kind of a national park area in the state of Israel today. And if you ever get an opportunity to tour Israel, perhaps during a Feast of Tabernacles or some other trip that you might take, this is usually on that tour site. And it should be, because it is one of the prime sites in Israel to see from a biblical perspective. But it is also, because of the referencing here in Revelation, what it means to Bible prophecy in this end-time setting. So you look at it here. I've got another map, and you'll see Megiddo right down here outlined—this little spot in the Jezreel Valley, or the Valley of Azeron as it's sometimes called. You've got the Sea of Galilee over here to the right. Of course, the Mediterranean Sea, and then that world-famous spot that we've talked about so many times called Caesarea is right down in this area along the coast. And Jerusalem is down below on the map. Yeah, Megiddo is a historical spot of world-class importance. This map here shows it a little bit better. It is on what is called the Via Maris. The Via Maris is a fancy name for the way of the sea. So I'm going to write it on the board. Via Maris, or via, is a way of the sea. This was a major highway in the ancient world.

It was the major route between Egypt and Mesopotamia. So if you were down in Egypt, you wanted to go over here to Babylon, Assyria, whatever, you'd come up along the way of the sea, and then you would cut over just north of the Sea of Galilee and continue along this way, and then go down to the Tigris and Euphrates River Valley to Babylon, or up here to Nineveh, whatever you're going to do. You wouldn't come and you wouldn't go straight across here because it's desert.

And you've got the Sinai down here, and it was a much better route this way—longer, but better. And Megiddo then stood at a very critical passageway on this superhighway of the ancient world. There was also, and because of that, Megiddo becomes a site of a lot of fighting—a lot of battles. There have been more battles fought in the history of the world at the site of Megiddo than any other spot on the face of the earth. Even as late as World War I, there was a fight between the British and the Ottoman Turks at Megiddo during that time. I don't think there's been a fight, a battle there since then in any of the Israeli wars, but Napoleon fought there. You will read in the account of Josiah, the king of Judah—when Josiah went out to fight, when the Egyptians came up from the south to fight against the Babylonians, God told Josiah, don't go out, but he did, and he got killed, and it was right at Megiddo at that site. And so it's because it is on this Via Maris at a strategic point that a very wealthy, lucrative, strategic city developed there through the years. This is what it looks like from the sky. It's been excavated quite extensively through the years. I think there are even continuing excavations there, but it's what they call in archaeological terms a tell, T-E-L-L, tell Megiddo, and it was mounded up, and there are many layers of civilization there. And they've been working that down for quite a long time, since the 1940s, I believe. And here's another view of that, and you will see the flat plain around it.

Years ago, there was a prolific author named James Michener. Some will remember his name. He wrote a number of historical novels. His particular approach to writing a novel was to take a place and then tell the story of everything that happened on that place from essentially prehistoric-type times, as he would imagine it, all the way through history and various cultures and civilizations that were there. He did that with Alaska. He did that with Hawaii. He did that with Texas. These are all names of his novels. Chesapeake was one that I read. I really liked that one. That was one I read back, I think, in the 70s. And he wrote one on this site here, and it's called The Source. And I think it's still in print. One could find a copy of it on Amazon pretty cheap. But it tells the story of civilization here and comes into the time of the modern state of Israel, and especially the origins of the state of Israel is where he kind of takes it to. And so all the different layers of civilization that are there can be seen. This is a gate. This is the entryway into the city—or at least what's left of it. This would have been a monumental structure, and all that's left now are several courses of stone on either side that you walk. This is how you walk into the site of Megiddo today.

And this is looking back from that point out onto the plain. But that would have been a very large structure called the gate. The gate of the city in the ancient world was essentially a building. Look at it as a courthouse. If you see a courthouse today, especially here in Ohio—we’ve got a lot of quaint towns—and in the center of the town, there’s the old courthouse, especially in the county seat. Well, this is what it would have been. This is where the administrative offices for the city would have been. And the entryway as well is actually an entryway and a building as well.

These are the remains of some stables. You will read about King Solomon. King Solomon built stables here and had a large garrison of soldiers and troops at Megiddo. It was a strategic gateway to do that. And these are some of the remains of the stables going back to the Solomonic times.

This is your teacher here standing in his Indiana Jones outfit with the picture being taken. And that’s looking out toward the east across this flat plain of Jezreel that is there today. So it stretches all the way to Mount Carmel there in the far distance. So it’s a scene of a lot of biblical episodes from the Old Testament. The low-lying hills off to the left over here would be where you would find the city of Nazareth where Jesus grew up. Actually, Jesus grew up in a city overlooking the plain of Jezreel and the site of this battle prophesied in Revelation 16 of the gathering of forces during the great day of the battle of God Almighty. And if you can picture Jesus as a child growing up looking even out over that as He might go out onto the edge of the city of Nazareth and look out, being God, He would know what was going to take place. He’s looking at the site of a future event.

So it’s a spot that is rich in history. And many different biblical accounts are here going back to Joshua during the conquest, Joshua 12:21. The king of Megiddo was one of the conquests of Joshua and the Israelites. There’s a reference again in Joshua 17 to the inhabitants of Megiddo and its towns. 1 Kings 9:15 talks about Solomon building the house of the Lord as well as buildings and houses in different locations, Megiddo being one of them here.

And then in 2 Kings 23:29, what I referenced earlier, where Pharaoh Niko, the king of Egypt, goes up against the king of Assyria, Josiah went out to meet him. And when the Pharaoh saw him, he killed him at Megiddo. And so again, just battle after battle both in the Bible and historical times.

I mentioned Napoleon fought a battle there during his time and then World War—World War I. And then this reference here to what will take place in the future as probably more than the best way to understand it is that this would be kind of a gathering point. It’s not too far off the coast, and the major port city in Israel today, the city of Haifa, Israel.

You can well imagine troopships, planes coming in, and a site of a gathering of forces. And depending upon the size, as we get from Scripture and other references that are put together that we’ve already covered about the breadth of the geographical scope of perhaps 200 square miles, you could see that from this region up here all the way down to Jerusalem, armies on the move at this moment in this great battle of God Almighty, as armies begin to move.

So we take this sixth bowl quite literally as we pour it out—as it is poured out—and look at what is being referenced here in Megiddo, and this site that kind of sets the stage for the final battle that mankind mounts, drawn by demonic forces, for reasons that are not necessarily one would think to fight Christ, but there's a threat of armies from the east against this power of the beast that is already in the Middle East and the Holy Land. We read that back in Daniel 11, beginning at verse 40, where the king of the north comes into this region and occupies it. And again, armies and movements of troops and threats that are described there bring all of this together to create the situation that popularly is looked at and called Armageddon.

But it is called scripturally the Battle of the Great Day of God Almighty. Megiddo is a location, and the actual fighting is something that ultimately centers on Jerusalem, the Valley of Jezreel, in those culminating moments in that battle that precedes or is at Christ’s second coming. We’ll talk about that in chapter 19 more when Christ appears and the armies of heaven at this particular time.

So Megiddo is quite an interesting spot. And the story covers a number of different details biblically and then historically to give us something at least to look at and to graphically understand during this particular time.

So just a bit of addition to the story of what we have here working in chapter 16 and the sixth bowl of events that begin to take place here. And so we have come down to the final sounding of the seventh bowl, which we’ve covered before, and the earth utterly shaken. But we’ve got two more inset chapters to look at. We’ll pick up what happens with the sounding of that seventh bowl and the seventh trumpet when we come to chapter 19 and the return of Christ. But we have two other chapters to talk about the final appearance, composition, and fate of this end-time system called Babylon. And we’ll look at that as we go into the next class and look at chapter 17.