Jerusalem – Trouble in the Holy City
Zechariah Lesson 33, Chapter 14: 1-5
“Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle.
“And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; Half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south. Then you shall flee through My mountain valley, for the mountain valley shall reach to Azal. Yes, you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah.”
When it rains it pours, I have heard many say over the years. Right now, Israel dwells in relative peace. But the time is coming when peace will run from them and they will wish for it and not find it. Some will make a claim that this event occurred in 70 AD when the Romans sacked Jerusalem. Now there may be a reference to this event that is well-recorded in history, but as we can see in verse 3, there has been no deliverance by the Lord to make this a fulfillment event.
Thus, we are looking for a future fulfillment of this prophecy. We are looking past the events of 70 AD and to a time when the nation will be under true invasion from a multinational force. The battle will be real; millions will die. As bad as it gets, Jerusalem will not fall to the enemy, and a small remnant will be left to defend the city and witness the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus.
At the time of the end, there will be two major battles. One will be the nations of the earth against the nation of Israel as recorded here. The second will be the nations of the world led by Satan himself attacking Jerusalem when Jesus is the king of Israel. These attacks are 1,000 years apart, and this needs to be noted.
Make no mistake; Satan knows that whoever rules from Jerusalem is the one who rules the world. The resurrection of Israel is one of the greatest attests to the validity of the Bible in the history of man.
The mere fact that the world is still focused on the nation of Israel, and in particular the city of Jerusalem, is the reminder that we should be looking for the emergence of the New World Order. It is running rampant in the USA, it is technically running Europe, and we are seeing the Globalization of the world come to life right in front of us.
Ezekiel 38
There are two attacks that will come on the nation of Israel. The first will come from the surrounding armies; they are Iran, Ethiopia, Libya, Russia, Turkey and others. We are told that ‘thoughts’ will come into their minds and they will decide to collectively invade Israel. Man, what a bad idea! God will show up, not like Jesus does in our text, but God will mess with their minds and they will turn on each other. Ezekiel 38: 21 tells us,
“I will call for a sword against Gog throughout all My mountains,’ says the Lord God. ‘Every man’s (invading soldier’s) sword will be against his brother (ally) [in panic and confusion]’” (AMP).
God did this at least once before with the invading armies of Sennacherib in 2 Kings 18-19. This massive army surrounds Jerusalem, and God turns them on each other; and overnight, an army of 185,000 men is decimated.
People just will not learn. This great war will change the landscape of Israel; there will be earthquakes and maybe even a volcano, in the understanding of some commentators. Nevertheless, the end result will be the total destruction of Israel’s enemies.
Zechariah 14
This is the second of the two attacks. This one will come closer to the end of the Tribulation. The governments of the world will enter into a treaty, we are told in Daniel, with the nation of Israel, driven by some factor – either the Rapture or the defeat of the previous military endeavor. The nations of the world will enter into a 7-year treaty with Israel. We see this in Daniel 9: 26-27.
“And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined. Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; but in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.”
Each day of the weeks mentioned above represents a year. So, as we see in verse 27, the ‘he’ – the Anti-Christ, the leader of the world after the Tribulation – will sign a treaty that lasts 7 years (a week) with the nation of Israel that will allow them to rebuild the Temple and will appear, on the surface, to offer lasting peace with their enemies.
Halfway into the treaty we are told, he, the Anti-Christ, will defile the Temple by declaring himself to be god and defiling the Temple. He will set up an image or an idol that will require worship, similar to what Nebuchadnezzar did in Daniel 2. This will open the eyes of the Jews to the fact that the man they think is the Messiah is an imposter; and the whole world will turn on them as they begin to run back to God and begin to call for a deliverer like they did in the days of Moses. God will hear their call; but before Jesus shows up, they will go through a period of great suffering, and then Jesus will show up.
Make no mistake; the entire period of the Tribulation is about Israel and God. First, they will turn to a false messiah like they have for thousands of years; and they will then repent and turn to the Lord God of Israel, who will show up and rescue His people. And, what a rescue that will be!
Revelation 19: 11-16
Jesus in all His Glory will split the eastern sky, flanked by the armies of heaven. We were introduced to them in 2 Kings 6:16-17.
“So he answered, ‘Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O LORD, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.’ And the LORD opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”
God allows Elisha’s servant to see His armies surrounding the enemies of Israel. There is constant war in the heavens. Michael, one of the Archangels, is mentioned in fights in the books of Daniel and Jude; He fought over the body of Moses. We are literally surrounded by spiritual war all the time. It will flow over into the sight of man that day in Revelation 19.
Every eye will see the Lord Jesus step foot on Jewish soil for the first time in 2,000+ years. He will cause a great earthquake, and the battle that ensues will be gruesome for the enemies of Israel. Millions will die, bodies everywhere. Blood and human remains will scatter the hillside of the Mount of Olives as the King of Israel and then of the World will come to claim his rightful Kingdom. See Revelation 19:11-16.
“Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.
“And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written:
“KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.”
Zechariah has been right about every prophecy so far. He talked about Jesus being betrayed for 30 pieces of Silver, he talked about Him being pierced, and He talked about the fact that Israel would be restored in the last days. He is right about this war as well. It is coming. We can see the hatred for Israel in places like the UN. Imagine what that hatred will be like when it is fueled by the spirit of delusion that God will allow, according to 2 Thessalonians 2: 9-12.
“The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
There is a horrible time coming, a time sent by God that will allow lies to prosper and grow at such a rate that the whole world, for the most part, will believe the lies of Satan. The world we live in is being conditioned for this. There are false churches set up to teach the doctrines of deception. Truth is being outlawed as hatred; and all that we have known to be true for millennia, even to the gender of people, is being questioned, and lies are being legislated into law by the ‘enlightened.’
The buildup to this has begun; it has been in place for hundreds of years with a determined group of persons who are as committed to the kingdom of darkness as the New Testament church should be to the kingdom of Light.
The day of the Lord is coming. Be ready to meet Him.
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