Zechariah 14:3-7 “Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. (4) 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. (5) 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. (6) It shall come to pass in that day that there will be no light; the lights will diminish. (7) It shall be one day which is known to the Lord neither day nor night. But at evening time it shall happen that it will be light.”
As revealed in the above quoted passage of scripture, when our Lord Jesus finally returns to the earth, He will return to the Mount of Olives just outside the city of Jerusalem. By that time the anti-Christ and his army would have already evacuated the city, and will be waiting for the Lord Jesus at the geographic location called Megiddo. Megiddo is located approximately one hundred kilometres north of Jerusalem. And so the Lord Jesus will take His army of saints to that location to confront the anti-Christ and his army.
Zechariah 14:12-15 “And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, and their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths. (13) It shall come to pass in that day that a great panic from the Lord will be among them. Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbour and raise his hand against his neighbour’s hand; (14) Judah also will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations shall be gathered together: Gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance. (15) Such also shall be the plague on the horse and the mule, on the camel and the donkey, and on all the cattle that will be in those camps. So, shall this plague be.”
Although scripture refers to the confrontation that will take place between the anti-Christ and his army and the Lord Jesus Christ and His army, as a battle, it will not really be a battle per se (Revelation 16:14). For the Lord’s army will simply stand and watch as the Lord Jesus destroys the army of the anti-Christ with the sword of His mouth. In the above quoted passage of scripture the prophet Zachariah is very descriptive in his account as to the affect that the sword of the Lord will have on the armies of the anti-Christ. For he says, “their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, and their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths.” Clearly this confrontation will be completely one sided, with the anti-Christ’s army of 300 million men being no match against the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, i.e. all of them will be destroyed.
Revelation 19:19-21 “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. (20) Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs 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. (21) 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.”
The above quoted passage of scripture describes the same battle that the prophet Zachariah speaks about. What is interesting in this account is its revelation that once the Anti-Christ’s army has been destroyed, the anti-Christ and the false prophet will be captured alive. The reason why these two will be captured alive is because both are hybrid angelic beings and are therefore immortal. And so whereas the sword that proceeds from our Lord’s mouth can destroy mortal human flesh, it cannot destroy the immortal bodies of angels. And so it is our Lord’s angels who will capture the anti-Christ and the false prophet, and take them to be cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. That lake is located just outside the city walls of the heavenly Jerusalem (Isaiah 66:24). And so we see that these two will be the first to be cast into that lake for all eternity.
Revelation 20:1-3 “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. (2) He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; (3) and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished.”
From the above quoted passage of scripture we can clearly see that the Lord’s angels will be victorious in their battle against Satan and his angels on that day, for this passage declares that an angel of the Lord will bind Satan with a great chain. And so we see that not only will the anti-Christ and the false prophet be captured on that day, but that Satan and all of his angels will also be captured at the same time. However, unlike the anti-Christ and the false prophet, Satan and his angels will not at that time be cast into the lake of fire, but rather they will be bound and cast into the bottomless pit for one thousand years, i.e. for the duration of our Lord’s millennial reign on the earth. As we will see later in this series, the removal of Satan and his angels from the earth during that time will have a profound impact on the earth.
Revelation 19:17-18 “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, (18) 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.”
Once the battle of Armageddon has ended, the battlefield will be littered with the corpses of the army of the anti-Christ. There will be literally hundreds of millions of dead bodies that will need to be buried. And so even though as described in the above quoted passage of scripture, all manner of scavenger birds and beasts of the field will descend on that scene to gorge themselves on their flesh, nevertheless the bodies that remain will still have to be buried. Scripture describes the burial of Gog’s army at the end of our Lord’s millennial reign, taking seven months to complete (Ezekiel 39:12). As we will see later in this series, that army will be substantially larger than the army of the anti-Christ, but nevertheless it will still take several months to complete the burial of the army of the anti-Christ.
Zechariah 14:14 “Judah also will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations shall be gathered together: Gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance.”
The bulk of the nations that will make up the army of the anti-Christ will be located in the geographic area known as the Middle East. And so as mentioned in the above quoted passage of scripture, it is from these nations that the Lord’s saints will gather together a great abundance of gold, silver and apparel. Obviously the reason for that is because these will be the conquered nations, having had their armies destroyed in the battle of Armageddon. We have already mentioned that the number of saints that will return with the Lord Jesus on that day will be approximately 250 million. As we will see in this series, the Lord’s saints will be given lands consisting of vineyards, olive groves and livestock. And so although the geographic location of current day Israel will form the nucleus of the camp of the saints; that piece of real estate will not be nearly large enough to accommodate 250 million saints with all their servants, farmlands and livestock. And so it will be the farmlands of the nations that served the anti-Christ, that will be given over to the Lord’s saints after the battle of Armageddon.
Michael E.B. Maher
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