The Gospel of Luke 17:22-37 – Tribulation & Second Coming

Good morning. Before we go into the passage, I wanted to just bring up, we've got a couple of situations to pray for here. Ruth Smith, as many of you know, who's been working with evangelizing the children, mostly in our area. is on the 20th underwent a spinal surgery and so we pray for her recovery there and that she can get back to the ministry for which we support her and you can also pray for Hassan and Juliet They recently had thugs break into their front door while they were sleeping at night and threaten them if they didn't let them steal everything in their house.

So, at any rate, they're having a tough time calming down after that and going to sleep and that sort of thing. So, anyway, you pray for Hassan and Juliet, and I'll try to get more details and see if there's any way we can help out. So anyway, let's pray for both of them. Let's do that now. Lord, we do pray for Ruth in her recovery and I just pray that she would recover quickly and well and be able to get back to the ministry that she's carrying on with the young people in the greater Denver area.

And we pray for Hassan and Juliet having gone through this traumatic experience and having lost some things. We just pray for them for peace. We thank you that though they were threatened, no one of them was hurt. And we just pray for their recovery from this traumatic incident. And Lord, we pray for each of them, for Ruth and for Hassan. We pray for them, for their return to ministry after these events here. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Okay, so now we're back to this Luke 17 passage, verses 22 through 37. This content here appears similar to what we see and read in Matthew 24. However, that Matthew 24 context was during the crucifixion week, and in Luke that's not occurred yet. He hasn't gotten there. So this is actually a separate event. And he does make some different kinds of statements, as we'll see, between those two. So they're harmonious, they're compatible, they're addressing similar subjects, but they're not the same event, apparently.

The words in this passage were said at a time before Jesus went to Jerusalem, the last time. But it was also said shortly before Jesus went to Jerusalem for the last time. Jesus began telling them about the events surrounding his second coming. I think that's what we're going to be seeing here. As you look at various passages, there are some passages or some books that lay out the big picture and some where we get kind of glimpses of different parts. This is one of those glimpses of different parts of the future. And so we'll be taking a look at that here. Here's Luke 17, 22. And he said to the disciples, the days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it." So he's kind of getting them ready for what's ahead for their lifetimes.

The term Son of Man, with man being a capital M, that is referring to Christ as deity, is only in Daniel 7, 13 and 14 in the Old Testament. And it reads like this, I kept looking in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man was coming and he came up to the ancient of days and he was presented before him. And to him it was given dominion, glory and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

So this term, days of the Son of Man, it occurs only here in the passage, the verse we just read, and also in verse 26 and nowhere else in the Bible. The term Son of Man, as we've seen, does occur many times, but the days of the Son of Man is unique to this passage here. Jesus used the days of the Son of Man in the way He applies it, in a way similar to the way the day of the Lord, that whole phrase, is used in the rest of the Bible. And the day of the Lord is used for any time from the beginning of the tribulation to the end of the present heavens and earth, and so similarly for the days of the Son of Man. It's used for that stretch of time. Altogether, we would say that that's 1,007 years, the days of the Son of Man and the day of the Lord. Here is the graphical representation to get the big picture.

In Christ's first coming, as described in the Bible, where Christ was ultimately crucified and buried and raised and ascended. Then we have, following that, the Church Age. which began in Acts chapter 2 and just kind of interestingly more recently the evidence from chronology and including even geological evidence was that Christ was crucified on April 3rd 33 AD resurrected on April 5th 33 AD that he ascended on May 14th of that year and that Pentecost was on May 24th of that year. Now we have Pentecost then beginning the Church Age, then up to the time of the Rapture.

The Rapture does not start the Tribulation, but it must happen before the Tribulation. So there is the possibility of a time gap between the Rapture and the beginning of the Tribulation period. Sometimes people will say, well, I don't see things being set up exactly, you know, like is described in the tribulation period. And that's fine, because with a time gap, there could be quite a bit of change take place between the rapture and the beginning of the tribulation period.

That beginning of the seven year tribulation period then would be the beginning of the day of the Lord or the days of the Son of Man, to use the term in this particular passage. At the end of that tribulation period, that seven-year tribulation period, would be the second coming when the Lord will bring the angels from heaven and bring us, and he will resurrect the Old Testament saints, Jew and Gentile, and tribulation saints, Jew and Gentile, those saints who have died during the tribulation, and he will begin his millennial reign, his reign upon the earth. and a substantially restored earth.

He will reign from Jerusalem over Israel as the king of Israel, the king of the Jews, as it's otherwise put in the New Testament. He will be the king of kings and lord of lords over the Gentile nations. That's specifically a Gentile ruling phrase. It was actually a title used by several emperors in the kingdoms before, all the way up to the time of the Persians. So it had a long-standing history. So King of Kings and Lord of Lords is his title over the Gentile nations, his rule over all the earth.

One of the points we made in the elective right before this is that the kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, or simply the kingdom, those are all equivalent phrases. The kingdom of heaven is simply a euphemism. because of the reluctance of the Jews to say God, the name or the word God, for fear they might use it in vain, so they used it in replacement. And then following that time would be the end of this present heavens and earth and the establishment of the new heavens and earth with the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven to be there where the Lord is with us.

Alright, so in 722, one of the things that Jesus has in perspective here is the disciples are going to become apostles. They don't quite understand what that's all about yet. Apparently, even when Jesus ascended, they didn't understand, because they were asking, is now the time? After all this crazy, confusing stuff, you know, where you got killed and resurrected, and we haven't figured that out, but is now the time you're going to establish your kingdom?

Okay, Acts chapter 1. And Jesus as well. No, got to go. See ya. But they are going to become apostles. They will have the Holy Spirit come upon them. Some other things have to happen first, and Jesus will be telling them about those things. And so he's going to begin spelling out the future here to them in this passage. So while the reign of the Christ Messiah will be days that the disciples would long for, oh boy, we sure wish it was those times.

However, first the apostles must suffer greatly for the sake of the gospel and become martyrs. All of them were martyred. from any record that we have except for the Apostle John. So we have the first martyr among the Apostles is John's brother James, killed by the sword as recorded in Acts. It's the only death of an Apostle recorded in the New Testament. All the others, we have some outside record of how their deaths came about.

And with John, he wrote the book of Revelation, about 95 AD, and died the following year, a natural death, but the only one to die a natural death. The apostles would all suffer. That's recorded, of course, in the book of Acts, and especially for Peter and for Paul and those who were with him.

Acts 9.16 is where Jesus says that Paul is going to suffer a great deal.

In 2 Corinthians 12.12, the apostle Paul says it is common to the apostles that they would all suffer.

But Jesus is telling them here in Luke 17.22, it's not in your lifetime that you're going to see these days of the kingdom. You might be wishing for those days, but it's not in your lifetime that that's going to happen. It's going to be later on. And so He's letting them know just what the future is.

The disciples had been taught to look for the Messiah's coming, and that was actually a good thing. The disciples would even ask Jesus if it was time for Him to establish His kingdom for Israel, as they did in Acts chapter 1. But right now in this passage, He's telling these men they would not see the tribulation or the second coming or the kingdom in their human lifetimes. He's letting them know now what that's going to be. Though they would see the kingdom later on. And by the way, if the church is the kingdom, then that's in conflict with this passage. So, he's making things clear to them.

Here's Luke 17.23, and they will say to you, look there, look here, do not go away, and do not run after them. This is something that's available as a supplement. I won't go into all the detail on it.

But we have a record of at least five false messiahs that showed up during the first century, during the New Testament era. And most of them are either mentioned in or have some connection that we can tie to the New Testament. And so those are Judas of Galilee. This is not Judas Iscariot, nor one of the apostles. Menahem ben Judah was another one. He was a leader of a group called, we don't hear much about, called the Sakariai, and about the best way you could describe them is Jewish terrorists, right?

Then you had Thutis, there's another one mentioned, not by name, I don't believe, but in Acts 5.36.

And then there's the Egyptian that is mentioned in Acts 21.38, and not named, but just the Egyptian. that led people. He's also recorded in Josephus writings. And then finally, John of Geshella, who's a leader of the Jewish revolt against the Romans during the 70 AD time when the Romans came back and destroyed Jerusalem. So those five false messiahs that people start going after them.

And one of the things that characterized Christ is he didn't want people to join his rebellion. He wasn't doing that, right? Even when Peter started to pull the sword out and cut off the high priest's servant's ear, Jesus said, nah, put the sword away. We're not doing that here. We're not carrying out a rebellion.

So anyway, these are the false messiahs, and you can get the supplement with a little more detail on it as you go out this room at the exit on the right there. So one of the things Jesus is saying is, don't look here, don't look there. If somebody tells you you've got to go someplace to go look for the Messiah, that's not the second coming. That's not the second coming. You're not going to see the Messiah come that way.

So He's warning them about that because there were false messiahs and there continue to be false messiahs. Only Jesus Christ is the true Messiah. How many false messiahs can you have? You can have a whole bunch. As a matter of fact, there were false messiahs before the first century, and there continue to be false messiahs in the centuries that followed. Only one true Messiah. Lots of false ones, and there will be false ones even in the tribulation period. But only one true one, and that's Christ.

He came as was prophesied in the Old Testament, as recorded in the four Gospels, and will come again as prophesied in the Bible, and not otherwise. And not otherwise. God knows what He's doing, and He's revealed what He's doing. So here's Luke 17.24, For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day. Quite often what will happen, especially if you're outside, the lightning flashes and everybody knows, right? And especially if right afterward you get this great boom and everybody's kind of startled, right? And this will be the character of the Son of Man.

It won't be a, psst, He's over in this closet. If you just go over to this building, He'll be over there. No, none of that, right? None of that. Everybody will be able to see, uh-oh, Jesus is coming. Or, oh boy, Jesus is coming, right? One response or the other. So when Jesus comes, it will be very obvious that it is He who is coming. As it says, every eye will see Him. The second coming of Christ will be very visible from virtually everywhere on earth.

At first they'll say, now we don't have this in our books, a celestial object. It's not in our computer records. We have a program run by NASA where they look at near-Earth objects, and they've got something like 4,700 asteroids, comets, and things of that sort that they're keeping track of, right? This won't be on that list, right? They're going to say, wait a minute, we've never seen this before, and it's getting bigger and bigger. And they'll be wondering, you know, and saying, where is this coming from, right?

Zechariah 12 10 and by the way, Zechariah 12 13 and 14 is sometimes called the little apocalypse It's a brief summary of the book of Revelation Okay, so they will look upon me whom they have pierced and they will mourn for him Zechariah 12 10 and by the way, John in both the gospel of John and in Revelation quotes that verse and Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him." Revelation 1, 7, A, B, and C. Every eye will see Him. It won't be a, psst, He's over here. If you come over here at 2 o'clock, you can see Him over in this room over here in this building. No, none of that. Every eye will see Him.

Zechariah 14, 1 through 5 and 9, Behold, a day is coming, For the Lord, when the spoil taken from you, this is during the tribulation period among the Jews, will be divided among you, for I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, and the houses plundered, and the women ravished, and half the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. Look what happens next.

Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as He fights on a day of battle. In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which, by the way, when the angels spoke to the disciples, what did they say? The way you saw Him go will be the way He comes back. You look at Acts, He went into the clouds. He's going to come back. out of the clouds, and his feet will again stand on the Mount of Olives, the same place, the same way, the same place, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east, just in case you didn't get it right.

In front of Jerusalem on the east, then the Lord, my God, will come and all the holy ones with him. Is Jesus God? Yes, okay, and so that fits exactly with the verse 5. Then the Lord my God, Jesus Christ, will come and all the holy ones with Him, the saints that are resurrected, you and me, angels, will come with Him and the Lord will be King over all the earth, King of kings and Lord of lords, ruling over the Gentile nations, and that day the Lord will be the only one and is named the only one. He's ruler over all.

Here's Luke 17.25, "...but first you must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation." So he's telling them, not only, look guys, this is what's coming, you're going to be apostles, you're going to suffer many things, and you're going to long for the days of the kingdom, but it's not going to happen in your lifetime. And by the way, something else I've got to warn you about that's going to happen pretty soon is First, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. So Christ's sufferings included his first and his second beatings by the soldiers.

You see, what they did is they would have a light beating, right? They'd have a light beating first, and they did that with everybody whether they were guilty or not, just to kind of generally rough them up and get the truth out of them. And then they would have, once sentenced, Then they would have the heavy beating. So he had both. And then a violent mocking. Whack him across the face.

And as I told the elective here before, once a sentence of death was given, the Roman soldiers had no legal limitation on how cruel they could be. They had no legal limitation. There was nothing to stop them from being exceedingly cruel at that stage.

Carrying the cross piece, the petibulum, with Simon of Cyrene, he wasn't carrying the whole cross as you'll see in some of the movies, but actually the cross piece, the petibulum, they would tie that onto them. In this case, Jesus was so badly beaten that by the time he was supposed to carry this, he stumbled and just couldn't get up. And that's when they forced it onto Simon of Cyrene. Others were also free to hurl many abuses upon him.

Not only were the soldiers free to carry on whatever cruelties they wished, but others were able to insult him, spit on him, throw things at him, call him whatever names. The greatest suffering, however, was not those things as great as they were. but bearing of our sins upon himself and the wrath of the Father against those many sins that he bore.

Imagine, Jesus in all eternity past had never had even the slightest break in complete and total and pure fellowship with the Father up to that point. That's why Jesus, on the cross, called out, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? His fellowship with the Father was broken and He had never known that, nor after this time would He ever know it again. A break in fellowship with the Father, bearing our sins upon Himself as the wrath of the Father against those sins was put on Him.

You know, we talk about grace, we talk about how immensely gracious God is, and He is. But in order to show us that immense and amazing grace, the Father had to show no mercy, no grace against all of our sins that Christ bore. It had to be exacting every single one, every single sin. The Father had wrath against all those so that God could be gracious and save us.

He had to be rejected by this generation. Christ's Roman condemnation by the false accusations and manipulations of the Jewish leaders By human perspective, of the strategy announced by Caiaphas. Caiaphas had the strategy, he's gonna die. Die for the people. And they carried out the strategy. Worked, didn't it?

But... We must not think of Jesus as a victim. He kept telling the disciples this was going to happen because this is exactly what had been intended by God before God said, let there be light. Jesus knowingly gave himself up to be subjected to all these terrible sufferings. Why? Out of love for you and me. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross. Love for you and me that gave, joy set before Him, looking forward to eternal fellowship and relationship with us.

Here's John 3.16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.

Galatians 2.20, The Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Ephesians 5.2, Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us.

Ephesians 5.25, Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.

And Hebrews 12.2, Jesus, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.

Here's Luke 17, 26 and 27. And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so also be in the days of the Son of Man. Here's that Son of Man term again. The days of the Son of Man. And they were eating and they were drinking and they were marrying and they were being given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Going through all the regular things of life, everything seemed normal up to that moment. So before the days of the flood in Noah's time, life was going on normally, or so everyone thought. Noah preached to the people while also working on the ark for 120 years. By the way, what grade do you give Noah as an evangelist, persuading people? How did he do? We get impressed by numbers. Noah's numbers were not that impressive. How about zero? Zero. He didn't convince it. Not even a couple. Right? One, two, three. Zip. Nada. None. Okay?

There was no sense of what was coming upon them as they just continued with what seemed like normal everyday life. The door to the ark is down. By the way, who closed the door to the ark? God did. Okay? God cut it off. Noah may have wanted to just say, well, let's just wait a little longer. Can we wait a little? No, no, it's time, okay?

Until suddenly, normal everyday life just stopped. Normal for all those people, it just ended. In the time before the tribulation period, the human population would be going about the usual activities of life. Everybody just doing exactly what they used to do, right? Day after day after day. Most will give little thought to Christian believers having been removed from the earth beforehand. Oh, it's just an opportunity. I don't know what those crazy Christians were doing that they disappeared, but I don't mind living in their houses and driving their cars and all those other things, right?

So what a shocking surprise it will be for millions and millions of people It would begin at any time. It could begin at any time. There is no prophetic event that has to happen first. We're not waiting for this and this and this to happen in the Middle East. When the Middle East gets heated up with military stuff, people think, oh boy, prophecy. No, there's nothing stopping this from happening. There is no event we're waiting for. Anytime. Anytime.

Luke 17, 28 and 29, it was the same as happened in the days of Lot. They were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building. But on the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. So the angels said to Lot and his family, Escape for your life. Do not look behind you and do not stay anywhere in the valley. Escape to the mountains or you'll be swept away. Escape. Run. Run for your life.

So in the days of Lot. So here's Lot, the nephew of Abraham, had chosen Sodom in which to make his home. He chose it. Abraham said, you know, you pick. He picked Sodom. It looks pretty good. He's even well regarded among the people of Sodom, sitting at the gate of the city, which was a figure of speech, meaning he's one of the elders. He's highly regarded.

So nobody in Sodom was expecting, not even Lot, was expecting this judgment to come. But the angels who came to warn Lot and his wife and daughters told them to escape for their lives, run for your lives, and not even look behind them as they ran. Don't even turn around to look. Run, run, run. Nothing else.

Sodom and Gomorrah, written of in Genesis 13, 18, and 19. It was well watered everywhere, which of course doesn't look like now, right? Some identifications have been made by Dr. Bryant G. Wood, who has spoken in this room here, by the way, just a little over a decade ago. And so he's identified locations of Sodom and Gomorrah and Zohar, which is where they were to run. And this is what Gomorrah looks like in the excavation. And interestingly, see here's the excavation at Gomorrah and what you see are skeletons and burnt material.

The fire and brimstone came down so heavy and so fast they couldn't even get out of the building in time. It just immediately burned and collapsed the roof onto them, and the people died right there. That's what the archaeological evidence says, and that matches what the Bible describes. There's the excavation, the plan and section view. Dark areas in the lower portion of the sketch are ash and bones.

The Bible says, then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. He overthrew those cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground out of Genesis 19, 24 and 25. The geology reveals that there is a fault there. And so we have a fault line that carries through there and up north through the Sea of Galilee and then over to the coast from there. And so breaking along that fault and breaking out fire and brimstone from that fault down on Sodom and Gomorrah, it fits the geology as well.

So it won't do any good to run, with one exception, in the tribulation that is coming up the whole earth, it won't do any good to run somewhere, per se, with some exceptions that Jesus will bring out here. No place on earth is going to be safe. Only heaven is going to be a safe place. Very safe. But only heaven. Those who survive the tribulation and live on to populate the millennial kingdom that follows will have much to enjoy. It will only include those who have come to believe in Christ. Only.

Here's Luke 17, 30-32. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down to take them out. Likewise, the one who is in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot's wife.

Don't hesitate. Run! Except for those. Run! Matthew 24 15 through 18 which has a similar message therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which is spoken through Daniel the prophet standing at the holy place then let those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains whoever's on the housetop must not go down to get the things that are on his house whoever's in the field must not turn back to get his cloak don't hesitate even that long there's no five-minute warning okay when it's time to run run okay he's speaking here specifically to Jews in Israel And so that's a key thing. The warnings in these passages are directed to Jews living in the land of Israel at that time during the last half of the tribulation in order to physically survive the attack. There's going to be a massive attack. We're going to take a look at that attack pattern.

It does not apply directly to any other people. So should you get really worried and concerned about this and should you start preparing for this? No. It does not apply to any other people and you and I will not be here presently during this time. So we shouldn't be reacting to this. We shouldn't even be getting afraid by it. It does not apply to us.

It's a warning for the Jews in Israel during the last half of the tribulation. And by the way, it's location specific. It's location-specific. Okay, so here's Luke 17, 33. Whoever seeks to help keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. And that's similar to something he said somewhere else. Let's get it clear here. So whoever loses his life will preserve it. Any man who hesitates for the slightest thing will risk losing his life at that time. When the time comes, run! Escape! Now!

For the Jews living in Israel at that time. This will be the warning for Jews living in Israel. It's not for us. In the same way that Lot's wife looked back, likely longing, for what she'd enjoyed in her home. Savoring the memories, you imagine. Oh, I remember we did this, we did that. Oh, I'm going to miss those times in that house. I loved that house, you know. I had everything decorated just the way I wanted it. Oh, can I just stop and look back for a few minutes? Just a few. Whoop, too late. Too late.

Here's Luke 17.34, I tell you on that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other will be left. Now, this is not the rapture. Get this clear. This is not the rapture. The rapture has already happened. This is not the rapture. This is speaking, however, to the time of the end of the tribulation period. So on that night, the hazardous moment, that time could come at night when one is taken in judgment and another is left.

Also it says that those impacted by the judgments to come will be many rather than few. So you pick a nice ratio, one out of two. That's a lot of people when you start carrying that across the population. These are also ones who have been unbelievers coming into the tribulation, so that a great many of them are still unbelievers at the time they are taken. It is a very sad moment.

Luke 17.35, there will be two women grinding in the same place. One will be taken and the other will be left.

So that grinding was typically done when? Not at night when you're sleeping, but during the daytime. So it could be night, could be day. So what would happen is this was a typical part of food preparation in those days, and so what they would do is they would have a mill, the active part was the top part, round, and they would have a handle on it, right? And then the passive part was the bottom part where you grind the wheat or other grain into flour and then it would be received on the receptacle at the end of the passive part of the mill.

So we would typically do this with two people and it would be a mother-daughter, it would be a couple of sisters, that kind of thing. Two people and one person would have the job of just making the mill go around circles. The other person would have the job of dropping the grain in with a little bit of a challenge to it, that every time the person's arm goes over it, you know, you probably want to stop, right? Over the opening in the middle. So you keep dropping in the middle, it gets ground up and it comes out the outside as flour, and one person's dropping the grain in the middle and the other person is making it rotate and rotate and rotate and rotate, okay?

So that's why there would be two. And she's saying, you know, one, you'd have two grinding and one would be taken. One would be taken, which stops the grinding, by the way. It's usually done at home. This is the way it was done. Two women working together and thus making flour. Now we have Luke 17, 36. It says two men will be in the field. One will be taken. The other will be left.

But the interesting thing here is the earliest manuscripts in Luke don't have those words. Luke 17 36 it appears have been copied from Matthew 24 40 like somebody said hey that should be in here and started putting it in there and then it was copied that way afterwards but the earliest manuscripts don't have it that way so it was something that Jesus actually did say later as recorded in Matthew but it doesn't look like dr. Luke wrote that in his gospel at this point in time okay so we'll move on to the next one so this is true Jesus actually said it but it doesn't appear like it happened at this time So here's Luke 1737, and answering him, they said to him, Where, Lord? Simple question.

And so he told them right there in Jerusalem. He told them right over here by Jericho, right? No. He gave them a different kind of answer. Where the body is, there also the vultures will be gathered. So did he answer their question? Well, let's find out.

So why didn't Jesus just say where? The disciples asked Jesus where all these things are going to take place. Where, Lord? Interestingly, Jesus does not come back with a direct geographical answer as to where this is going to happen. Jesus said to the disciples, where the body is, there the vultures will be gathered. At first that might not seem to answer the question the disciples were asking.

But actually it does. Back into the Old Testament and on into the New, all the way into the Book of Revelation, there's multiple references to birds and beasts eating, and in particular reference to actually this series of events that we're going to be taking a look at shortly, and we're going to see the exact locations. So the answer is to where we put all these locations is that number of different places scattered about Israel will be gathering places for bird and beast. So what we'll have is the second coming.

This is an artist's rendering of what the Book of Revelation describes. And one of the things, of course, that we've said repeatedly before is that what John described in symbolism was Jewish symbolism He talked about what things meant, not what they looked like. So the artist here has this five-foot-long barbarian battle sword coming out of Jesus' mouth, and has Jesus coming on a white horse with us, right, and the angels, to earth and returning, as we'll see, to Israel. You have on page four of your handout a very simplified map that shows this.

We frequently will hear about some term like the Battle of Armageddon. And the truth is that it isn't a battle at Armageddon. Matter of fact, there's not an indication that Har-Megiddo, that is the Valley of Megiddo, is the place where the great battle is going to take place. And Bruce Willis will have nothing to do with it. Let me tell you. And it'll have nothing to do with asteroids. It has nothing to do with that either.

Here's how it's going to happen. You have the eight stages of Armageddon. Those eight stages are pointed out. We give multiple scripture passages for each one. So there's lots of scriptural backing. You'll notice that a lot of the reference material that's given here, not all of it, but a lot of it is out of the Old Testament prophets. So those eight stages of the campaign of Armageddon, as we'll call it, are spelled out here.

Now, the number one is that's Armageddon or Harmegiddo, the Valley of Megiddo. That's up here. The port there is called Haifa. That's the modern city name. And so here is the Valley of Megiddo. I think Nancy took this shot. It's the Valley of Megiddo looking towards the coast. That's the Valley of Megiddo.

And as you go the other direction, it starts sloping towards the Jordan River. And that's the Valley of Jezreel. It's that valley, broad and flat. And by the way, there's not that many broad, flat valleys in Israel. So this broad, flat valley will be the staging area for the armies of the Antichrist. They will be coming in and filling up this place that's now just mostly agricultural field, filling it up with armies and equipment. And this will be their main staging area to begin their attack on the Jews, and specifically heading for the Jews in Jerusalem.

All right, the next cluster of areas is at the south end. Basra and Petra. Basra and Petra. And what you have there is this is four, five, and six on the map at the south end. And one of the things you see there is number five is the national regeneration of Israel. You read in Romans chapter 11, all Israel will be saved. This is the national regeneration of Israel right here. Takes place there.

Why? Because the Jews, who right now, most of whom in Israel are agnostic or atheist, will suddenly realize we are doomed. Only God can save us. And you know what? He will. That's exactly what he'll do. They'll realize only God can save us, and that's exactly what he's going to do. That's what we read in that Zechariah 14 passage.

The area around Petra, you may have even seen it in one of those Indiana Jones movies. The Last Crusade or something like that. There's the area around Petra. Narrow, high canyons and places to hide out. And this may also be the exact area where Jesus met with the Apostle Paul. Here, in and around Petra, meeting in these little canyon areas.

Then you find the last cluster here, and this is item 7 and 8. So the battle from Basra ends in the valley of Jehoshaphat, during which Antichrist is slain by Messiah, and then the victory is sent upon the Mount of Olives. And so as the location, that's not that big an area, right? Not that big an area.

Here looking at the kind of the overhead view of Old City, Jerusalem, and each of the gates marked and the outside wall particularly noted. And then you'll notice what is now the Temple Mount that has the Dome of the Rock. That's the area we're talking about right there. And Jerusalem Old City. Here's the Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque at the south end. Here's the Mount of Olives over on the east, across from Jerusalem, just like it says there in Zechariah 14. And the city of David, which comes right south of the Old City. And the Garden of Gethsemane, right there. There's the location. Right there is where the armies of the Antichrist will end. This is right in that valley, right there, is where the Antichrist will be killed. His armies will be completely defeated. This is the place.

When we walk, there's a little walkway that's shown in the red arrows. You have on the left-hand side, you have the Mount of Olive, Jewish graveyard. The Jews want to be buried there because they understand the Messiah when he comes back is going to resurrect people and they want front row seats. You know, that's just understandable.

So then over on the other side up against the Temple Mount wall that you see there is where all the Muslim graves are. And then down at the bottom where you see some of the graves and then you see some green grass, that's the valley where the Antichrist will end. He'll be killed, and his armies will end there, right there. By the way, one of those graves down there includes Oscar Schindler, if that name rings a bell.

So this is the valley. This is the place where the Antichrist's armies will end. The valley, as you see, kind of winds farther to the south, and probably those will be areas of battle as well. But this is it. That's the location right there. That's the last battle.

So we hear of the Battle of Armageddon where there won't be a battle, right? And it's really, it goes down to Petra Basra in the southern part of Israel and into the Jordan side and then comes up here where the end of the Antichrist and his armies will be right here in this valley. So here's the campaign, the eight-stage campaign of Armageddon, which will end with Christ with his feet on the Mount of Olives, and it goes through that eastern gate, which is now blocked, and into the Temple Mount area. It will be this area here where there will be vultures gathered and beasts from the armies of the Antichrist losing out because the Lord will fight for Israel when Israel comes to a point where they realize we're not going to come out of this at all unless God saves us and that's exactly what he's going to do here is a map of showing the kingdom as it will be set up encompassing what is right now eight different nations and showing by tribe what each one has and extending all the way to the River Euphrates. So rather amazing, astounding. Genesis 15, 18 through 21 gives us the outside boundaries and Ezekiel 48 lays out which land goes to each tribe.

So what's our perspective to be? We say, well, I'm not going to be there, so I'm just not even going to worry about this stuff. Well, these are some really intense things, and they could be fairly soon. In some cases, we have some very specific locations as to where things are going to take place, including this, where here's the exact valley where it's going to happen. So given the knowledge of these things, what ought to be our perspective for us in the body? Should we get really scared? Is that the right thing? Should we look for these things?

Should we start looking for the Antichrist? No. Jesus, in the context we have when we take the Lord's Table, He's with the 11, okay? Judas has been dismissed. He's with the 11, and He says this in John 14, 1-3, Do not let your heart be troubled. So should we be scared about this stuff? No, do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. And another word for believe is trust. Trust God. Trust me.

In my father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you. And by the way, this is very similar to the words that A groom would say to his bride just after they had become engaged, which was a legal action in those days, and he'd say, I go to prepare a place for you. And that's exactly what Joseph likely did after he and Mary became engaged. I go to prepare a place for you. Jesus says it starting in verse 3 if I go and he doesn't say to cast doubt, but just follow the logic Okay, and prepare a place for you.

I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am there you may be also So we get really really worried about these battles and events and should we go watch Bruce Willis movies about the Armageddon And you know should we do that? No, not so much. Okay because Jesus says, do not let your heart be troubled.

Believe in God, believe also in me. What am I to look forward to as a believer? He's prepared a place for me, and He's going to come again and take me to be with Him forever. That wherever He is, I'm going to be there too. That's what I ought to be looking forward to. Not with a troubled heart. Not looking for the Antichrist, trying to guess who that guy is. but looking for the Lord and looking for Him to take me to be with Him in the place that He has prepared. I hope it's today. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank You for the great assurance that You have. You had good purpose in warning the disciples and giving them an understanding ahead of time as to how this was all going to turn out. But for us, we look at passages like this and we see, no, do not let our hearts get troubled. Don't get all wrapped around the axle about what might happen or is going to happen, but instead to trust you and to be looking for your coming to take us to be with you. Let me just thank you for that blessed hope that we have. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.