If we listen to what modern day “prophets,” movies, and books have told us, the return of Christ will bring a violent end to the world as God pours out His wrath on all the wicked people who have rejected Christ. No, a thousand times, no! To the contrary, Christ’s return signifies the end of the kingdom of evil. Let me repeat this–Christ’s return signifies the end of the kingdom of evil! The return of Christ is the beginning of God’s vengeance against Satan and his cohorts for every bit of death, destruction, and loss that they have hammered the human race with. In this post, I’m going to share my thinking on how this whole scenario will take place. We’ll be looking at the sequence of events (aka, the plot) by connecting what is written in the Bible, by thinking through the meanings of figurative language, by looking at the circumstances in our world, and by making some inferences.

     I want to start with the two witnesses that stand before the Lord (Revelation 11:1-14). Read through the narrative with the context that the story told here represents a “spiritual” saga that has happened over an extended time. I propose that the two witnesses represent the two covenants that God has made with the human race. The first covenant came through Moses when God laid out His commandments while the second came through Christ when God made the way for the human race to keep His commandments (by loving Him with everything they have and by loving their neighbors as themselves). Satan has hated those two covenants because, when fully understood, they would work together to enable the human race to defeat his kingdom. So, Satan and his cohorts have made war with the covenants and have destroyed their power in the earth. He has stirred up the forces of deception and competition to keep humans looking at each other rather than looking to God. As a result, Satan has made real progress in his plan to obliterate God’s creation. During this time that the covenants were “dead,” Satan pushed the human race into war after war–wars are the ultimate manifestations of competition–and pushed humans into developing weapons that could destroy every living thing on the earth. However, to Satan’s amazement, the time comes when the breath of life from God enters those two covenants, and they are taken up to heaven as a sign of the authority they have. At that point, the human race again has the ability to look upward at God rather than at each other.

     Because the covenants are revived and taken to heaven, the power of righteousness that had been sent forth in Revelation 6:1-2 finds a foothold in the earth as humans begin to look upward. This righteousness–this freedom from sin and guilt–causes believers to cleave to God. Daniel 7 gives us a clearer picture of the result of the Ancient of Days (God) coming on the scene through the faith of believers. In verses 21-22, we read these powerful words:

   I kept looking, and that horn was waging war with the saints and overpowering them until the Ancient of Days came and judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the Highest One, and the time arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom.

Now, let’s look at a statement Christ made in John 16:8-11 as he was talking about the Holy Spirit:

   And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

I propose that the essence of righteousness is found in the resurgence (the “latter rain” talked about in Joel 2:23) of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. When we step back and look at how the two covenants came into being, we can see that the Holy Spirit facilitated the establishment of the Mosaic covenant (Exodus 13:21, 40:34-38), that He was the force behind the fulfillment of that covenant through Christ as He overshadowed Mary (Matthew 5:17, Luke 1:35), and that He was the force behind the birth of the New Covenant (Acts 2).  Doesn’t it make sense that He would be the force behind the fulfillment of that New Covenant as the human race takes back all that has been stolen and destroyed by the kingdom of evil?

     Okay, here’s where we’re at–Satan and his cohorts have ensnared the world into a complex web of competition and deception in order to destroy God’s creation, but, as the world edges closer to total destruction, God looses the power of righteousness through a resurgence of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Now, I’m thinking that with this “latter rain” comes the full understanding of the concept of binding and loosing that Christ talked in Matthew 18:18. In other words, believers start to understand how they can defeat Satan in their prayer closets by binding his cohorts and “taking” them as prisoners of war and by loosing the power of the Holy Spirit and the angels of the Lord. Since both Daniel 12:1-2 and Revelation 12:7-8 tell us that Michael and his angels stand up against Satan and his forces and throw them out of heaven, I think we can infer that this angelic action is the result of the prayers of believers.

     Now, to go a step farther, Revelation 16:13-16 talks about the forces of evil gathering the kings of the whole world together for the war of the great day of God in a place called Armageddon. I know some people believe that there will be an actual world war at that place, but I would like to bring Ephesians 6:12 into the picture: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Again, I’m thinking that Armageddon is the battle going on between the angelic forces and the kingdom of evil–I don’t think we’ll see a physical world war, but that we will face a time of trouble such as never has been (Daniel 12:1, Matthew 24:21-22).

     The most important concept for us to understand about the Battle of Armageddon is the part that believers play in winning the war. Without their prayers, the kingdom of evil would not be defeated. Let’s read Matthew 18:18 again, “Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”  Remember that Daniel 7:22 says the saints took possession of the kingdom? Doesn’t it make sense that these believers (who I think are us) possess the kingdom through binding the forces of evil and loosing the forces of good in their prayer closets?

     In my next post, we will continue to look at the sequence of events that lead us to immortality, a new heaven, and a new earth. I’d like to leave you with something to think about–what commander-in-chief would remove his army before the war is won (think Rapture)?

     All scripture passages are taken from the NASB. As always, feel free to comment–just be respectful.

     ©2009-2010 by Patricia Zell. All rights reserved.