(with footnotes)
Based on Revelation Chapter 14 v 7-20AA
Fear God, you peoples of the earth throughout,
For His judgment, hot and fierce, has arrived.
Let heaven and earth, against the beast1, shout
His downfall – against the one who deprived
Peoples and nations of their decency,
In league with Satan, and with him, contrived
With the false prophet, paths of errancy –
This evil trio, set for destruction –
Who debase this world, and God’s constancy.
Receive not his mark2, nor his seduction,
For this great deceiver has been exposed.
All his promises are misconstruction.
His rule for seven years is unopposed,
This world leader of saturated sin,
Of lying wonders3, vile, it is composed.
But all the nations come to enter in.
They sucked the breasts of the Antichrist’s life.
They gave allegiance to the man of sin.
The world is bathed in wickedness so rife.
Gather trumpets; Mass the voices; Shout aloud!
For soon will end the Tribulation’s strife.
Behold, the Son of Man upon a cloud4;
A sickle, steely sharp, and golden crown –
The ending of all sin He has avowed.
Put in the sickle! Bring the harvest down!
Reap, for the time has come; ripe is the earth
For harvest, in its ultimate showdown.
The vine yields its clusters, those of no worth,
Fit only for judgment; fit to be crushed –
Mankind’s sinfulness, increased from its birth.
Blood from the wrath of God’s winepress, outrushed;
The fierce wrath of God is fully displayed.
The winepress was trodden; out the blood gushed.
For two hundred miles5 the armies were flayed –
Those armies of Satan, gathered for war.
God’s wrath was the balance – there they were weighed
And found wanting, to writhe and squirm in gore.
The Great Tribulation has brought defeat
To the beast, false prophet, and the whore6.
Earth’s people beware, that they who mistreat
The promised nation of Abraham’s seed;
Practice against them unrighteous deceit;
Attack and persecute; cause them to bleed;
Those who raise up their hands, against God’s sheep,
Will never, never, no, never succeed7.
Revelation Chapter 16 v 13-16
Gather the nations8, and come with all haste!
Come, do the dragon’s bidding at Jezreel!9
God’s enemies, from Jehovah will taste
His judgment hand, when God prepares the meal,
And summons unclean birds to gorge on flesh
Of captains, generals, duped for this ordeal.
Unclean spirits like frogs8, sent to enmesh
Mankind in battle against God’s nation;
Gathered in vain, against Israel to thresh.
In Jezreel’s plain, they will know gyration,
And fall in judgment, fierce and strong and sore,
Swallowed by Har-Magedon’s9 damnation.
Come, frog spirits, gather nations for war,
With hatred dark, insane, and bent on blood;
Collect the armies for Palestine’s shore,
And surge, and surge, and advance like a flood
To cover the land where the Saviour taught.
All will be exposed – nothing but a dud!
The great battle of Jezreel will be fought
‘gainst the false prophet and Antichrist’s hosts;
Satan’s aims, and their ambitions are fraught.
Smashed are your arrogant, devilish boasts.
The King of Kings and Lord of Lords descends10 –
Ripped out are the ensigns, stations and posts!
With two-edged sword, His own saints11 He defends;
The Lord on a white horse, comes like a thief.12
Stay awake! Stay awake! The one who contends.
The iniquitous horde in unbelief
Is assembled to fight at Megiddo,9
But the saints of the Lord will find relief.
Rake the forces! Messiah will harrow –
Armageddon – defeat is victory13,
Pierced through the heart by the Lord’s straight arrow.
Revelation Chapter 17 v 5-18
The decile’s co-joined14 – the beast’s arms of strength,
Ensconced in Satan with deadly power,
Prepared to go to any extreme length.
These have purpose, and have come to this hour,
Intent, against the Lamb, their war to wage,
But at Har-Magedon,9 God will devour
His enemies together, with great rage,
For against the Lamb, they spewed out hate.
They fall, broken and mangled, on that stage.
The armies of the beast now lie prostrate.
The Lord of Lords and King of Kings prevailed.
Messiah opened up judgment’s floodgate,
So that all ungodly ambitions failed.
Most glorious defeat, (the Lamb’s now crowned)
Crushed by His omnipotence as they wailed.
Just before this, the GREAT HARLOT15 was downed.
The beast and his ten nations turned on her.
In the blood she shed of saints, she was drowned.
“MOTHER OF HARLOTS”: wicked sins occur
In “THE ABOMINATION OF THE EARTH”15.
The wrath of God, all your evils incur.
Drunk with the blood of saints since its birth,
This BABYLON HARLOT woman is Rome16.
The beast will destroy her – wailing for mirth.
The great city is gone, no longer home
To Satanism, and wanton, gross sins,
Covered completely by destruction’s dome.
It’s Satan who empowers his linchpins –
The Roman woman17 and Antichrist beast,
Infuses, disseminates his doctrines
Of evil, upon which delusions feast;
Blinded the eyes of those who disbelieve;
Corrupted the world from greatest to least.
Revelation 18 v 24 – 19 v 21
Hallelujah! Salvation and might,
And power and glory to our God belong.18
He judged the great harlot and sealed her plight;
Avenged His bond servants’ blood for the wrong
That BABYLON THE GREAT had done to them.
God’s decrees are strong; His judgments are strong:
Those who hate Him, He will surely condemn
To avenge the blood of prophets and saints –
Those who caused that hurt, planned their requiem.
The lawless ones who reject God’s constraints,
And pursue their sins with a heedless joy;
Demonically cast off all set restraints,
Are Satan’s flock that is in his employ!
Rejoice, you saints, for God has fought for you.
The beast, harlot, Rome, He came to destroy.
Rejoice greatly, you saints, Gentile and Jew.
Now we see the Bridegroom on a white horse,19
Coming from heaven, “The Faithful and True.”20
He wages war, and His angelic force –
(The armies of heaven, in linen white),
Mounted on horses, come to reinforce
The Saviour’s purpose, the ones who delight
In righteousness, to do their Master’s will.
O, but this vision is a fearful sight –
God’s wrath is full; the birds will have their fill.
Eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head,
Many diadems. He comes to fulfill
All prophecies, generations have read.
His Second Coming is now occurring.
All will meet fulfillment as God has said.
Written on Him, a Name that’s referring
To Himself only, known to Him alone,
His special Name “The Word of God”21, conferring
Divinity to Himself. From His throne
Comes the Lamb, and His robe in blood is dipped.
He is returning to gather His own.
Behold, this Victor’s eternal Kingship –
“KINGS OF KINGS”22 written on His robe and thigh
With the other half that speaks His Lordship –
“LORD OF LORDS” … but note, world! He cleaves the sky
And comes, the winepress of God’s wrath to tread –
The Battle of Armageddon draws nigh.
In Israel, the devil’s armies are spread:-
At Jezreel’s hill, the armies of the beast;23
Gog and Magog’s forces come for bloodshed;
For bloodshed, gather the kings of the east –
All these world forces, all against Israel,
But God will churn them up for one great feast.
Against His enemies He will prevail
To strike the nations with a two-edged sword.
Against His hateful foes, He will not fail.
Summon the birds, “Come to the smorgasbord!”24
Armageddon, your great supper prepared;
“Come birds of prey, to eat flesh! Come on board!”
The beast and the kings of the earth repaired
To the Holy Land, against God to fight,
But, by Satan’s devices, they were snared.
The beast and false prophet are seized outright25
And thrown alive into the lake of fire:
First interns there, for their hatred and spite.
——-END OF PART SIX——-
- It is suggested that one reads the passage of scripture each time before moving to the poem for that passage.
- In Revelation, the person known as “the beast” often occurs. Part 6 of this poem now deals with eschatology (the doctrine of the last things), and we recognize there are many differing views on this. The position I take is generally known as Pre-Tribulation Pre-Millennialism, that is, a Rapture occurs to end the Church age, and that is followed by a 7-year Tribulation, then the Second Coming of Christ, followed by a Millennial reign of Christ on the earth. If that is not your position, it should not affect your reading of the poem because I largely keep to the scriptural references stated at the top of the 5 sections in this Part 6.
The beast is first encountered in Revelation Chapter 11 v 7, but the description of him is in Rev 13 v 1-10. The beast is the coming world leader who comes on the scene after the Rapture. He is often known as the Antichrist, and in Thessalonians as “the man of sin” or “the man of lawlessness” 2Thess 2 v 3. He operates alongside another beast (Rev 13 v 11-18) who is known as “the false prophet.” The two evil men are empowered by Satan during the 7 years of their operation, so there is a trilogy of evil. Rev 14 v 9 and 11 are the “beast” mentions in chapter 14.
Part 6 of the poem is best understood by reading the scripture references heading each section. Chapter 14 is actually a parenthetical chapter looking ahead to the coming chapters as if the events are happening right then, or concluded, but they mostly are still to come.
- Rev 14 v 9. The mark, is the mark of the beast, “six hundred and sixty-six” in the Greek, not 6-6-6. There are two things to say about this. It is not for the Church age, so it will NEVER apply to Christians. It happens in the Tribulation, after the Rapture has happened (1Thess 4 v 13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15 v 50-58). Refer to Rev 13 v 11-18 for more details. The second point is that all those who try to discover what the mark is, and try to identify it, such as talking about chips in the wrist, are wasting their time. It won’t be known until the time it happens, which is probably halfway through the 7 years of the Tribulation.
- Lying wonders. Consider this passage – 2Thess 2 v 7-10 “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains (the Holy Spirit) will do so until he is taken out of the way. And then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming – that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.”
This man who will come (world leader, Antichrist) will be the most evil man ever to set foot on earth. I used the term “saturated sin.”
- Rev 14 v 14. The imagery in the poem for the next 18 lines comes from this 14th chapter, verses 14-20. Although the word “Armageddon” is not mentioned in these lines, it is the Battle of Armageddon that is being described.
The wrath of God in the Tribulation, more specifically, right at the end, is going to be immense, as the description in chapter 14 reveals. Jesus speaks of this same event in these verses – Matthew 24 v 29-30 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken, and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky: and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.”
- Rev 14 v 20. 200 miles, 320 km. That distance will stretch beyond Israel’s borders. Much has been written on this, and it is not for us here to thrash it out. Again, it involves all the armies at Armageddon and Gog and Magog and the kings of the east. We talk about them later on. See Footnote 23.
- The whore or harlot. See Footnote 15 in this Part 6. The overthrow of the beast and false prophet is in Rev 19, and the ending of the whore, which is Babylon, is found in Rev 17 and 18. The whole wicked Babylonian system since the time of Nimrod is corrupt and has infiltrated all activity of man, from ecclesiastical to commercial, and governments.
- Dire warnings are given in the Bible about the mistreatment of the Jews and Israel. Genesis 27 v 29 “May peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you. Be master of your brothers, and may your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be those who curse you, and blessed be those who bless you.” This is said by God to Abraham – Genesis 12 v 2-3 “And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, and so you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
- The great Tribulation ends with the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ when He comes to defeat the armies of the world gathered in Israel to annihilate God’s people. Revelation Chapter 16 v 13-16 tells how this gathering starts. Powerful demonic spirits from Satan, the beast, and false prophet, looking like frogs, go out into the world to gather the nations for war against Israel. They are to be gathered at Har-Magedon. See the next Footnote [9] for explanation of this.
- Har-Magedon means the Hill of Megiddo, sometimes called “Har-Megiddo.” This is where the name Armageddon comes from. It is the Valley of Jezreel, sometimes referred to as the “Plain of Jezreel.” It is called also Esdraelon, close to Mt Tabor. 34 battles/wars have been fought here, and Napoleon called the Jezreel Valley the most natural battleground of the whole earth. The world’s population will be much reduced by this time because of the seal and trumpet and bowl judgments of Revelation. The armies of the Antichrist and false prophet are to gather at Har-Magedon (Jezreel), and the forces of Gog and Magog are also in the land, as are the kings of the east. See Footnote 23. Broadly, the great final battle involving all those enemies of Israel is called Armageddon.
- That is the Second Coming, and more will be said on that later in this Part 6. A fuller description is given in Rev 19. See Footnote 19.
- “The saints” in Revelation are the Tribulation saints, the Jewish people, who will be saved in the Tribulation. These correspond to the same people and events the Lord described in Matthew 24. This Zechariah passage suggests that one-third of the Jews will be saved, after coming through the horror and “fire” of the Tribulation, and after that, they are in full communion with their God – Zech 13 v 8 “And it will come about in all the land,” declares the LORD, ‘that two parts in it will be cut off and perish, but the third will be left in it, Zech 13 v 9 and I will bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’”
Christians are also known as saints, but Christians have been raptured before the Tribulation can begin. “Saints” in Revelation are Jewish.
- “Comes like a thief” – The scripture references to this are the following [A] – 1Thess 5 v 1-5 “Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you, for you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, ‘Peace and safety!’ then destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief, for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness.”
One of the big errors made about the Rapture is that the Lord is coming like a thief in the night. That is just so wrong. Paul explains that we are children of the day, not of the night, when the thief comes. Paul mentions “the day of the Lord” which is ALWAYS after the Rapture and refers to the Tribulation, most especially to His Second Coming to end the Tribulation. It is the day of the Lord that comes, and it means His Second Coming. [B]. – 2Peter 3 v 10 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.”
This cannot be the Rapture, but again, the day of the Lord reference, and thief, are His Second Coming, and in time will lead to a new heavens and earth as detailed in Revelation 21.
- At Armageddon there is defeat and victory – defeat for all Satan’s armies, and victory for the Lord and His armies of heaven (Rev 19), and for the Jewish saints.
- The coming world leader (often called Antichrist) has his power base in the revived Roman Empire. There will be 10 controlling member nations (also Rev 17 v 7). This is too big to explore here, but Daniel chapter 2 speaks of the four world empires. See 2 v 40-45 in particular. There are 10 toes. Also, the same four empires are featured in Daniel 7. Verses 7 to 14 are the relevant parts there. The fourth beast in both visions is the Roman Empire, and the Daniel verses show that this empire is in existence at the Second Coming.
- The first 5 triplets in this section are dealing with another summary of the Battle of Armageddon, but then it moves to look at the GREAT HARLOT. Revelation chapters 17 and 18 are dealing with the great delusion and evil that the Babylonian system has had since the time of Nimrod and Semiramus (see Part 3 of the poem for details). Chapter 17 is the destruction of Religious Babylon, and Chapter 18 is the destruction of Commercial Babylon. Religious Babylon is called these names in Revelation 17 (verse 5). The influence of Babylon has polluted true religion, and old Israel, and Christianity since its inception. It is best to read Revelation 17 carefully to see the ways it caused insidious intrusions into what is good.
Around 315 A.D. when Roman Emperor Constantine entered the church, he caused all his soldiers to be baptized, and as they were not saved, they brought their paganism into the church, and a lot of those practices still exist today. A good number of Christians identify this Mystery Babylon (the Harlot, the Abomination of the Earth) with the Roman Catholic church, but what we must remember is that Chapter 17 occurs in the Tribulation, AFTER the current Church age has ended. This religious power in the Tribulation is the “church” of the false prophet and the beast, and is satanic and drug- influenced (Rev 9 v 20-21 – The word for “sorceries” is from the Greek word for “drugs”). Naturally, it will incorporate all the unsaved, professing elements of current Christianity after the Rapture.
- I have been careful here to put Rome, not the Roman Catholic church (see Footnote 15). The Apostle John did not write “Rome,” but he said it in this way – Rev 17 v 9 “Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.” Rome is known as the city of the seven hills – Rome geographically features seven hills: Esquiline, Palatine, Aventine, Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, and Caelian Hill. A study of the hugely researched book by Alexander Hislop, “The Two Babylons,” does identify some of the practices of the Roman Catholic church as those of ancient Babylon. However, it must be emphasized that Rome today is not what Rome will be in the Tribulation.
- The Roman woman. Rev 17 v 6 “And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus, and when I saw her, I wondered greatly.” There is no woman who will be prominent in the Tribulation, so this reference here is metaphorical. Most scholars would identify her with Jezebel, arguably the most wicked woman who has ever lived. The “woman” is best understood as this vile Babylonian system, and MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT. This system is wicked, corrupt. See Rev 2 v 20.
- See Rev 19 v 1. There is heavenly rejoicing at the destruction of the Great Harlot and of the Babylonian System in Rev 17 and 18. Straight after this, heaven prepares for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb when the Church, the Bride of Christ, is united to her Lord and Saviour, the Bridegroom. These events occupy the first 10 verses of chapter 19.
- Rev 19 v 11. This is now the Second Coming of Christ to earth when He sets foot on the Mount of Olives after the Battle of Armageddon – the two events occurring more or less at the same time. His Bride accompanies Him, for Christ will never be separated from His Bride, the Church. Strange as it seems, the “honeymoon” is the Battle of Armageddon. These details are contained in Rev 19 v 11-21, and feature in the rest of this Part 6. See also Zechariah 14 v 1-4 for confirmation.
- Rev 19 v 11. It is interesting that this title of the Lord has two qualities, faithfulness and truth. For human beings it is almost impossible to be both faithful and true at the same time. One or the other is often compromised to the other. The same situation also happens in another description of the Lord – Heb. 2 v 17 “Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”
Being both merciful and faithful without compromising one or the other is impossible for us. The story is told of an Irish farmer who sent two sons to market, each with a pig, and told them they had to be there on time. One son belted the pig along and got there with time to spare. He was faithful to his father’s request, but not merciful. The other son let the pig take its time and cared for it, but got to the market too late. He was merciful, but not faithful. The Lord is both completely.
- Rev 19 v 13. The Name, “Word” and “Word of God” is a special title John used of the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit (John 1 v 1). The Logos is the whole representation and expression of God. It marks His divinity.
- Another divine title – KING OF KINGS AND LORD OR LORDS. This title has always belonged to Jesus, but in the program of mankind’s history, it was not revealed as it will be, at the Second Coming when He comes to claim all rule on earth.
- At the time of Armageddon, there are three separate military forces in the land in Israel. The best known of those are the armies attached to the beast (Antichrist, world leader), and these have been drawn from the territory of the old Roman Empire. The second group is Gog and Magog, and they are on the hills of Israel and entering Jerusalem (Zech 12 v 1-4; Zech 14 v 1-4). This force is largely drawn from the remote north – Russia and its allies, and the Islamic nations to the north of Israel.
Ezekiel 38 v 2-6 “Son of man, set your face toward Gog of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, Thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. And I will turn you about, and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them splendidly attired, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them wielding swords; Persia (Iran), Ethiopia, and Put (Libya) with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer with all its troops; Beth-togarmah from the remote parts of the north with all its troops – many peoples with you.”
Continue to read from Ezekiel 38 v 18 through to 39 v 12 to understand the location and the doom of Gog. Note especially 38 v 15, 16, 18 and 39 v 4. The third group is “the kings of the east” as revealed in Revelation 16 v 12 “And the sixth angel poured out his bowl upon the great river, the Euphrates, and its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the kings from the east. That happens at the same time the frog spirits go out to gather the world’s armies. It is thought the kings of the east are the military forces coming from Asia. It must be said again that at this stage of world history right near the end of the 7-year Tribulation period, the devastatingly fierce Tribulation judgments of the wrath of God have greatly reduced the world’s population.
- Revelation 19 v 17,18. Ezekiel 38 v 4.
- The lake of fire is going to be the final dwelling of all who are not saved. There is more on this in Part 7. The two most evil men ever to walk the planet – Antichrist, false prophet – are the first to be cast into the lake of fire. Those who water down the Bible speak of this as just imagery, or no such place. They are very wrong.