The Battle

DEVOTION

THE REVELATION

THE BATTLE

Rev 16:9

16 Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

NIV

What are we to do with this? We have been taught for as long as we can remember being a believer that is the last battle between the devil and Jesus and by the words of Jesus, the devil and all his followers are destroyed once and for all. Well at least his followers for the devil is to be thrown into the lake of fire, well actually so are all those who follow him, that take the mark of the beast. So how can this battle be the final blow against Satan and why is it here in this revelation? There still is the bowl of the seventh angel to be poured out. There is still this angel that takes John on a journey to a desert and shows him the lady in purple and gold who commits adultery with the kings of the earth. There is a lot more to come, so why put this battle here? It is just another proof this revelation is not chronological. Yet they, which are the three evil spirits that came out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet, gathered the kings of the earth together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. This has been viewed as the end of the earth, even Hollywood sees it as such by making a movie using that name as the title with an impending destruction of the earth. Of course man saves them, even by forfeiting his own life, like a Jesus thing. So if this is the end then what is next? Our scholars have gotten themselves completely befuddled here. Some have said this battle happened in Austerlitz, others say in Moscow, or even claims it was Waterloo. Some of the conjectures of men are simply ridiculous. This word Armageddon does not appear anywhere else in the scriptures and thus it may not be an actual physical place with a physical battle. Our Greek lexicons are indicating this is a symbol or name of an imaginary place. It may or it may not be a real place, but what we do see is these evil spirits, these ideologies gathering so much strength in the world they have gathered followers who because of the deception of these ideas, reject God to a point of attacking the whole idea of God. This is a battle for the hearts and minds of people. The deception of the evil spirits is so strong that many people follow that sort of ideological thinking and begin to gather or band together to show the strength of man vs the weakness of God. We see that in the environmental movement, men like Al Gore with all his unfounded so called truths. What is our carbon footprint? It is sad to think that even Christians are being deceived by this save our world campaign, ecology or that we are killing off species with our progress, save the owl, save the whale, save something by the power of man, but certainly let us not consider to be saved by God. The evil spirits, the evil ideologies deceive man into thinking he is on the throne, that man is the most powerful force in the world. If we stop doing this or that we can stop those terrible hurricanes, or supposed melting ice caps, or threatened rising oceans, or on and on the list of what man can do to save the planet and all the wildlife. This is the battle for the hearts and minds of the people. What we know for sure is our heart and mind is not deceived by all their foolish thinking. We know God is who he is and nothing happens without his expressed authority. Our heart and mind is completely convinced that God is in control of everything and no matter how strong any man, any ideology becomes which is anti-God, anti-Christ, we know that God wins the ultimate battle. If we have any internal battle, any struggle between our spirit and our flesh, God can win that battle as well. Man can never overpower God, he will always win the battle.  He has won the battle for our heart and mind, and he is winning the battle for others as well. When it is all said and done, God wins every battle