THE
PUNISHMENT OF THE GREAT PROSTITUE AND
THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON
The Punishment of the
Great Prostitute and the Battle of
Armageddon
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“On of the
seven angels who had the seven bowls
came and said to me, ‘Come, and
I will show you the punishment of the
great prostitute, who sits on many
waters…. The beast and the ten
horns you saw will hate the
prostitute. They will bring her to
ruin and leave her naked; they will
eat her flesh and burn her with
fire’…. The sixth angel
poured out his bowl on the great
river Euphrates, and its water was
dried up to prepare the way for the
kings from the East…. Then they [the
demons] gathered the [ten] kings
together to the place that in Hebrew
is called Armageddon.” (Revelation
17:1, 16, 16: 12,16, insertions mine)
These important Bible
verses will be fulfilled during the
last thirty days of the Great
Tribulation. The great prostitute is
a forthcoming one-world-church-state.
At a place called
“Armageddon,” the kings of
Earth will make war against Jesus as
He and the Father appear in the
clouds of glory. This explanation may
seem fictitious because currently, a
one-world-church state is impossible
because (a) we are a world of diverse
governments, and (b) no one on earth
has enough power to capture the whole
world. Nevertheless, the book of
Revelation predicts these events will
transpire and we can be sure that
everything God has said will occur.
Before we examine the
formation of the great prostitute and
the battle of Armageddon, we need to
understand that some basic behaviors
are very important to God even
though they do not appear to be very
important to a growing number of
human beings. For example, God has
said that He will judge us with the
same attitude and standards that we
judge others. If we are critical of
others, God will be critical with us.
(Matthew 7:2) God requires us to be
fair in our business dealings. If we
cheat in business deals because we
can get away with it, God considers
that stealing. (Leviticus 25; Matthew
7:12; Luke 3:14; Proverbs 16:11) If
we defraud others, commit violet acts
against others or if we live sexually
immoral lives, God will not permit us
to enter Heaven. (Revelation 21:
8,27) God has also promised to
extract restitution from everyone who
refuses to make restitution to those
they have wronged. (Romans 12:19;
Revelation 2: 23; 2 Corinthians 5:10)
God also commands us to love our
enemies. (Matthew 5: 43-45) This
commandment cannot be fulfilled
without God’s help. In fact, all
of God’s commands require
God’s help because our carnal
natures are degenerate.
These principles
matter to God and they should matter
to us because God holds us
accountable for our actions. You
might ask, “So, what does our
treatment of others have to do with
the Great tribulation?” The
answer is quite simple: The Great
tribulation will be a through test of
character. God commands us to love
our neighbor as we love ourselves
(Matthew 22:39) and the Great
Tribulation will reveal our love (or
lack of love) for others. Distressing
situations bring out the best and
worst in people. Thus, the Great
Tribulation will reveal our true
character. During the Great
Tribulation, the necessities of life
will become scarce, and survival will
be questionable. In this context, our
love for others, including our
enemies, will be tested and everyone,
including God, will see the results.
Loving Truth Matters
Most
The first and greatest
commandment is that we are to love
the Lord our God with all of our
heart, mind and soul. (Matthew 22:37)
Is there a difference between loving
God and loving religion? Although
most of the world does not see any
difference between the teachings of
their religion and the will of God,
there is one critical element that
keeps God and the religion separate: truth.
Man’s understanding of truth
is ever advancing and the issue that
matters most to God is our response
to advancing truth. God is totally
honest and He demands the same
from His children. (1 Chronicles
29:17; Matthew 5:8) God looks in our
hearts and sees our commitment to
honesty. He knows if we are pure in
heart. He knows if we are scrupulous
about being honest. God hates
dishonesty, and He detests hypocrites
pretending to be honest but is liars
and thieves. (Proverbs 6: 16-19;
Matthew 23)
You may be wondering
what our conduct toward others and
our honesty has to do with the great
prostitute and the battle of
Armageddon. Actually, a great deal.
The great prostitute in revelation 17
represents a great multitude of
selfish and dishonest people who will
unite with the devil to save their
lives. The honest in heart will not
compromise and will not go along with
the devil’s schemes. As a
result, the honest in heart will be
torn between loving their own lives
and the love for the truth. (John
12:25) Honesty opens the door to
eternal life. When a sinner honestly
confesses sin and becomes will to go,
and be and do all that God requires,
the sinner receives an assurance of
salvation because Jesus has paid the
price of sin. Salvation begins with
honesty. Honesty is an attitude about
life, and truth and our honesty
determines the nature of our
relationship with God.
Honestly Wrong
God knows that we live
in a world of “developing
truth” because God alone
possesses absolute truth. Our limited
knowledge of truth is not a problem
for God because He is ultimately
concerned about our response
to what we believe is truth,
not our possession or acceptance of
absolute truth. In other words, when
a person lives up to all that he or
she honestly believes to be
God’s will – God is pleased
with that person’s honesty. God
knows that if an honest person
discovers more truth, he or she will
joyfully conform to it because honest
people love truth and honest people
want all the truth they can find! The
apostle Paul is one of the best
examples in the Bible of a misguided
person who was honestly wrong.
Paul zealously lived up to everything
he thought was God’s will
(Philippians 3), and in fact, he
believed that he was doing God a
service by persecuting Christians!
After meeting Jesus on the road to
Damascus, Paul saw his misdirection
and he immediately became a follower
of Jesus Christ. I believe that Jesus
confronted Paul on the road because
He knew that Paul was unusually
honest in heart. Jesus knew that Paul
loved God and His truth with all his
heart, and Paul’s behavior after
meeting Jesus leaves no doubt about
his love for truth. Consider this
statement carefully: It is no sin to
be mistaken, but it is a sin to
refuse to accept advancing truth that
God has revealed. (2 Timothy
3:1-7; James 4:17)
Jesus told Nicodemus: “Everyone
who does evil hates the light [of
truth], and will not come into the
light for fear that his [dishonest]
deeds will be exposed. But whoever
[love and] lives by the truth
comes into the light, so that it may
be seen plainly that what he has done
ahs been [honestly] done
through [the power of the
indwelling Spirit of] God.” (John
3:20,21, insertions mine) This is a
profound declaration! The great
difference between those who love
truth and those who do not is a
commitment to honesty. Honest people
seek truth, they love truth, and they
are open to the increasing demands of
truth as their understanding of truth
unfolds. Honesty is so important to
God because people cannot live
happily throughout the corridors of
eternity without being honest with
God, self and others.
Honest people are
transparent people. They do business
in an open and honorable way. Their
word is their bond. They do not have
anything to hide. They are willing to
confess their wrongs ands make amends
when necessary. Honest people are
concerned about things that matter
most in life: walk humbly before God
and serving others with integrity,
loyalty and faithfulness. If we love
truth, we make God happy because He
can accomplish great things through
every person who is willing to
advance with greater truth. Jesus
promised His followers: “But
when he, the Spirit of truth, comes,
he will guide you into all
truth….” (John
16:13) A simple test to tell if we
love truth is our reaction when we
are confronted with more truth. If we
are convicted by God’s Spirit
that it is truth, we will obey it
regardless of the consequences that
may come.
This brings us to the
poignant question that Pilate asked
Jesus, “What is truth?”
(John 18:38) Truth is a verity, or
a fact, that is confirmed by the
harmony that comes from the sum of
the parts. In other words, truth
can be as simple as a statement of
fact or it can be a complex
collection of interrelated facts. The
Bible contains simple statements of
truth such as, “God is
love” (1 John 4:8), as well as
complex statements of truth such as
the doctrine of parallel temples.
(Hebrews 8:1-5) As a matter of
non-negotiable faith, I accept as
fact that the Bible is the Word of
God. I believe the sixty-six books of
the Bible are consistent with the
will of God. Whenever God’s
Spirit affirms the veracity of
advancing truth in my heart (that is,
the Spirit puts the weight of
conviction in my heart that something
is truth), that verity becomes testing
truth. God watches to see whether
I will implement advancing truth and
walk in the greater light of
God’s Word, or if I will resist
truth and remain in darkness to avoid
change. God wants to see if I am
willing to endure the social,
economic and familial consequences,
that advancing truth can cause. In a
fallen world, the price that truth
requires can be serious. Jesus said,
“the truth can set you
free.” (John 8:32) His words are
true. The truth can set you free of
your friends, your job, your family
and your church, but the truth also
gives you a new set of friends, a
better job, a larger family and
membership in the body of Christ!
Human beings do not
have access to absolute truth. This
is why there can be different
opinions and views about truth. Two
honest people can have opposing
views! Man’s diversity is not a
problem because God alone knows and
possesses absolute truth. God wants
us to love honesty and truth as He
does so that our relationship with
Him can grow. We are finite God is
infinite. Therefore, the only way we
can grow in love and appreciation for
God is through adopting more truth
because His truths are ever
expanding!
Conflicts over Truth
We live in a diverse
world. We live on several continents,
we speak hundreds of different
languages, we worship different gods,
we are citizens of various
governments, and we come from many
races and cultures – yet, we
make up one world. God is not
perplexed by our diversity because He
is responsible for it. When He
scattered the inhabitants of earth at
the tower of Babel some 4,500 years
ago (Genesis 11), He foreknew the
diversity that would occur. As a
matter of fact, He intends to use our
global diversity at the end of
Earth’s drama to demonstrate
some amazing facts. Here is one such
fact: God intends to show the
universe that there are people within
every religion, culture, nation and
tongue who sincerely loves truth and
if necessary, they would sacrifice
life itself because of their love for
truth. The interesting
thing about these people is that the
only thing they have in common is
their love for truth because
the verities they presently exalt as
truth are as diverse and conflicted
as mankind! Even though two honest
people can believe opposite things
about the will of God, this does not
present a problem for God because He
can see that both people love
truth. God knows that if He gave
these two diverse people a clear and
definitive presentation of His will,
both would receive it and joyfully
obey it because they love the truth!
Consider how God will
separate His sheep from the goats in
all religions during the Great
Tribulation. God will send a clear
and powerful testimony of truth
through His servants, the 144,000,
during the Great Tribulation, and all
who love truth will receive their
gospel! The rest of mankind will
reject it. Before you say to
yourself, “I love truth and I
will certainly take my stand on the
side of truth when the time
comes,” you need to understand
that the 144,000 will present a
gospel to the human race during the
Great tribulation within a context of
severe persecution. Accepting
God’s truth will come with a
price. Even though demonic forces
will do their best to thwart the
advance of the gospel, everyone on
Earth will hear the everlasting
gospel, and it will be contrary to
everyone’s religion! This is how
God will level the playing field for
the whole world. God is about to trap
everyone between the demands of truth
and the demands of false religion to
see who loves truth and who is honest
in heart. Our diversity is no
obstacle for God because He will test
our love for truth. The people of
Earth will hear three testing truths,
three simple truths (Revelation
14:6-13), and those who love truth
will receive these truths and obey
them. The rest of mankind will rebel.
Thus, the sheep will be separated
from the goats in all religions.
The Great Tribulation
The Great tribulation
will begin with a global earthquake
that will dwarf the 9.3 Richter scale
earthquake that caused the deadly
tsunami in southern Asia in December
2004. (Revelation 8:5) Shortly after
the earthquake, a trumpet will sound
in Heaven’s temple and the seven
trumpet-judgments will begin to fall.
It appears that the four judgments
will occur during a period of 30-60
days. The first trumpet-judgment will
be meteoric showers of burning hail
that will burn up a third of Earth.
Next, the second and third
trumpet-judgments will occur and
there will be two
civilization-threatening asteroid
impacts. The fourth trumpet-judgment
will produce a period of extended
darkness. Crops around the world will
wither without sunlight and global
famine will set in. (Revelation 8:
2-13) Twenty-five percent of the
world’s population (1.75 billion
people?) will perish as a result of
the first four trumpets, and every
survivor will tremble at such awesome
display of God’s wrath. Everyone
on Earth will stop, look and listen.
Billions of people will wonder,
“What does God want?”
“What should we do to appease
God’s wrath so that His terrible
judgments will stop?”
As the dust from the
first four trumpet-judgments begins
to settle, the clergy of the world
will rush to form a crisis
organization. On that day, all the
religions of the world will unite
around the obvious necessity to
appease God’s wrath. The clergy
of all the religions will agree that
God’s wrath can only be appeased
through repentance and worship. This
“common cause” will enable
diverse religions to unite, and in
Revelation, this organization is
called “Babylon” because
the diverse coalition of religious
leaders will be very confused.
(Incidentally, the word Babylon means
confusion.)
In spite of sincere
efforts, the religious leaders of the
world will not be able to unify the
world in matters of repentance and
worship, and numerous
“sin-less” laws will not
make the nations of the world
righteous. Instead, man’s
religious and political response to
God’s wrath will only cause the
misery index for humanity to climb
higher. This sequence of events will
reveal an interesting point: Moral
legislation does not produce
righteousness. At first, the decadent
behavior will cease because of the
fear of God, but as time passes,
humankind will return to previous
behaviors. When religious leaders see
people doing evil again, they will
ask for even tougher laws that will
result in the clergy punishing
sinners through the power of the
state.
The fifth
trumpet-judgment will be the physical
appearing of the devil (the
Antichrist), and he will appear on or
about the 890th day of the
Great Tribulation. (The Great
Tribulation will last 1,335 days
– Daniel 12:12). In other words,
God will hold back the appearing of
the devil until two-thirds of
the time allotted for the Great
Tribulation has expired. God delays
the appearing of the “Great
Deception” so that most of the
inhabitants of the world can receive
or reject the everlasting gospel on
its own merits. This is the key. The
devil is not allowed to appear
until most of the inhabitants of
Earth have had a chance to make an
informed and intelligent decision
about the truth sent from
God.
After the devil is
released from the abyss, the spirit
realm where he is presently confined
(Revelation 17:8), he will physically
appear before billions of people
masquerading as Almighty God. The
devil will travel throughout the
Earth for five months. He will
attract huge crowds and gain
followers through amazing signs and
miraculous wonders. He will also
inflict painful intimidation on
wicked people who refuse to obey him.
(Revelation 9:1-11) At the end of the
five months of self-promotion, the
devil will declare that Earth is his
kingdom. Speaking as God, he will
demand that a one-world church-state
be established, which he will claim
will last for a thousand years.
The apostle Paul says
the devil will declare himself to be
God and he will have the miracle
working powers to prove his deceitful
claim. (2 Thessalonians 2) Because
honest people love truth, it can be
said that dishonest people love lies.
Therefore, God sends the wicked
“a great lie” so that they
might unite with the father of lies
(John 8:44) and be destroyed. The
devil’s appearing presents an
interest fact. God is not passive
about our rejection of truth. If we
reject the clearest evidences of
truth, then God permits the devil to
sweep us away with lies. In other
words, God permits those who refuse
to love the truth to be deceived by
their love for lies.
The Bible predicts
that a large majority of the world
will be deceived by Lucifer’s
miracles and misled by his lies.
(Revelation 13:8) They will believe
that the devil is almighty God! Paul
wrote, “The coming of the
lawless one [who claims to be God
in verse 4) will be in accordance
with the work of Satan [for he is
Satan] displayed in all kinds of
counterfeit miracles, signs and
wonders, and in every sort of evil
that deceives those who are
perishing. They perish because [they
heard the truth and] they
refused to love the truth
and so be saved. For this
reason God sends them a powerful
delusion so that they will believe
the lie and so that all will be
condemned who have not believed the
truth but delighted in
darkness.” (2 Thessalonians
2: 9-12, italics and insertions mine)
Keep this thought in mind: God
does not condemn people for honestly
believing things that are not true;
however, God does condemn those who
refuse to embrace the clearest
evidences of truth.
After the devil
appears on Earth, no one will be able
to refuse the Antichrist without
suffering a terrible penalty.
(Revelation 9:6; 13:15) Standing for
truth will be painful, but going
along with the devil will also prove
to be painful, especially during the
seven bowls. This is why the Great
Tribulation is called “a time of
wrath.” (Daniel 8:19; 11:36)
Everyone will suffer. Eventually, the
devil will divide the people of Earth
into ten sectors and he will set up
ten kings to rule over them. Lucifer
will also choose a large number of
people to serve as officials in his
new government.
No Room for Diversity
As King of kings (the
chief political leader of the world)
and Lord of lords (the chief
religious leader of the world), the
devil’s demand for a
one-world-church-state will seem very
reasonable to his followers. Think
about this statement very carefully: When
“God” lives among men,
there can be no room for diversity
within religion or government. When
the devil lives among men, he will be
able to speak for himself that will
eliminate any question or ambiguity
about “the will of God.”
The devil will demand there must be
“one Lord, one faith and one
baptism.” The devil will quote
the Bible and other sacred writings
with marvelous ability to support his
claims. The serpent has no
equal when it comes to deception. He
will be successful for a time.
(Daniel 11:36) He will set up a
one-world-church-state and rule
Earth. His one-world-church-state is
called “an image to the
beast” in Revelation 13 because
his government will be “a
likeness” of previous fallen
governments that have ruled on Earth.
Calling the great government of
Lucifer “an image to the
beast” is a veiled denunciation
of Lucifer’s government because
the government of Jesus Christ, which
He will set up on Earth after it is
purified by fire, will be totally
unlike the governments of fallen man.
In other words, God’s government
will not be an image of man’s
fallen ways. God’s government is
based on love, righteousness and
truth. Lucifer’s government is
based on force, evil schemes and
lies.
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