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Today, the news is filled with military posturing and rumors of war. Notice, for example, the following:

North Korea: Missile Test ‘Stern Warning’ to US Against New Sanctions

July 30, 2017

North Korea said Sunday its latest test missile, deemed by weapons experts as capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, was a “stern warning” to Washington against a new round of sanctions aimed at Pyongyang.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry said Washington should “wake up from the foolish dream of doing any harm” to the reclusive communist nation.Pyongyang’s statements came hours after the U.S. Air Force flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean Peninsula, accompanied by South Korean and Japanese jet fighters, as a show of strength against North Korean threats.Meanwhile, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said it conducted its 15th successful shoot-down of a medium-range ballistic missile in 15 tests of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system.  …Following Friday’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed west of Japan, Trump singled out China for blame on Saturday evening, saying Beijing could “easily solve this problem.”I am very disappointed in China,” Trump wrote on his Twitter account. “Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue.”

… North Korea’s official news agency said leader Kim Jong Un boasted that the latest test was “meant to send a grave warning to the U.S.” https://www.voanews.com/a/north-korea-missile-sanctions/3964955.html

North Korea’s statements bring to mind the following from the Book of Joel:

9 Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare a war; rouse the mighty men! Let all the soldiers draw near, let them come up! 10 Beat your plowshares into swords And your pruning hooks into spears; Let the weak say, “I am a mighty man.”

11 Hasten and come, all you surrounding nations, And gather yourselves there. Bring down, O LORD, Your mighty ones. (Joel 3:9-11, ESV)

North Korea is weak militarily in comparison to the USA and its boasts are not wise. It has been boasting that its latest missile test proves it can hit anywhere in the USA. This will likely increase the resolve of the USA to actually intervene militarily.

But the situation with North Korea is not the only potential conflict that made the news because of military displays and posturing.

Notice some other news items:

30 July 2017

Russia has paraded its warships and submarines off Saint Petersburg and enclaves such as Kaliningrad and Vladivostok. US troops are leading a joint military exercise in Georgia, which broke with Moscow in 2008. …

“Today, much is being done to develop and modernize the navy,” Putin told servicemen off Saint Petersburg from his presidential cutter.

Sanctions, drills

His remarks coincided with new US sanctions on Russia and the start of military exercises in Georgia involving 1,600 US troops and 400 service personnel from Armenia, Germany, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine and Britain.

NATO-candidate Georgia has waited to join the Western alliance since 2008, when it fought a brief war with Russia and lost two breakaway regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. http://www.dw.com/en/putin-oversees-naval-parade/a-39894338

July 30, 2017

BEIJING — China’s military has the “confidence and capability” to bolster the country’s rise into a world power, President Xi Jinping said Sunday as he oversaw a large-scale military parade meant to show off China’s fighting prowess.

Live state television broadcasts showed Xi, dressed in fatigues and speaking from an open-top jeep, telling his troops that China needed a strong military “more than ever” as it moved “closer to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

Xi, who commands the People’s Liberation Army as chairman of the Central Military Commission, has frequently spoken of his “China Dream” to restore China to a leadership position in international affairs with a modern, far-reaching military force to match. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-07/30/c_136486084.htm

The Danube River shore was shrouded in mist from smoke grenades as shells fired from naval guns burst in midair and legions of Romanian infantrymen, paratroopers and armored vehicles amassed on the beach. From behind them, a small contingent of U.S. Army Stryker vehicles cleared the way for the troops by raining gunfire down on the beach sands.

The event, a river crossing exercise that took place July 16 outside Bordusani, Romania, was one of dozens of combined combat-training exercises that U.S. Army Europe and the armed forces of 21 European partner nations conducted together as part of Saber Guardian 2017. The exercise was the military’s largest land-force exercise in Europe this year …

“This is a tremendous experience. We’re getting better in interoperability and in establishing secure communications, secure fires and a common operational picture,” said Army Col. Jeff Shoemaker, chief of training, readiness and exercises for U.S. Army Europe. … the exercises can better prepare the militaries of NATO member nations if new crises emerge, Shoemaker said. But he, too, foresees Saber Guardian offering NATO some pathways forward.

“The goal is to synchronize the NATO exercise program with the USAREUR exercise program so that they complement one another,” he said. “We have a number of countries that will leave Saber Guardian at a much better level of training, and certainly NATO will benefit from that. It builds the entire multinational military capability.” https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1260953/us-nato-forces-train-to-deter-and-defend-in-saber-guardian-2017/

So, a lot of military posturing is going on. I could also add that Iran test launched an offensive missile last week, China and India are having a border dispute, there are issues in Africa, and there are many other areas of conflict and rumors of conflict in differing parts of the world.

This brings to mind something that Jesus said:

4 “Take heed that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows. (Matthew 24:4-8)

While we are in the ‘beginning of sorrows,’ the end is not yet. Why? Because other events in the Bible, such as those that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24:9-20 have not happened yet (see also When Will the Great Tribulation Begin? 2017, 2018, or 2019?). Jesus spoke of a time of troubles prior to the Great Tribulation (Mark 13:8) and we seem to be in it.

We could be at or near the time of the ride of the red horseman of the apocalypse.

Red Horseman of War

Notice what Jesus had the Apostle John record:

3 When He opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come and see.”  4 Another horse, fiery red, went out. And it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another; and there was given to him a great sword. (Revelation 6:3-4)

The specter of war is haunting the world right now. And though we expect, after conflict, to see temporary peace in places like the Middle East (cf. Daniel 9:27; see also The ‘Peace Deal’ of Daniel 9:27), many are preparing for war.

The fact is that the 6000 years God gave humankind to rule itself is about to come to an end.  Because of that, we are to expect wars, rumors of wars, and various sorrows.  And then the end of the nations of the USA and its Anglo-Saxon allies once the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7), the great tribulation (Matthew 24:21), begins.

Here is something that the old Worldwide Church of God published back in 1975

4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse – The Red Horse – War

John writes: “And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword” (Rev. 6:4).

John was not speaking about the fall of Jerusalem. That war was already some twenty years behind him. John was referring to future events that would bring 6000 years of human history crashing to a cataclysmic close.

The context of the book of Revelation alone demonstrates this. In chapter 9, verse 16, John writes of an army of 200 million men. There were barely that many men, women and children on earth in the days of Christ or the apostle John. Until the nineteenth century

it would have been impossible to field an army this big, even if all the nations of the world had pooled their manpower resources.

During the height of World War II the combined armies of both Allied and Axis forces were only a fraction of this total.

So John is referring to a time yet ahead of us when “peaceful coexistence” will be a thing of the past. But specifically what is it that leads to this intensified period of global wars and conflicts?

In the twelfth chapter of Revelation, John gets right to the heart of the problem. He describes the fall of a great archangel, Satan the Devil: “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Rev. 12:7-9).

A Demonic War Maker

   This is the same great being who took peace from the earth back in the Garden of Eden. This is the same Satan who had a face-to-face confrontation with Jesus Christ over the eventual rulership of the world. In that particular encounter the devil offered Christ rulership of “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them” (Matt. 4:8). Satan had them to offer and Christ didn’t dispute that fact.

It is this super archangel known as “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2) who stands as the power behind every national throne (see Dan. 10:12-13). He has been responsible for the war-making machinations that have gone on in virtually every world capital since the beginning of recorded history. But this time he pulls out all stops. Satan with his great perverted intellect can read the signs of the times. He knows that his six-thousand — year-old world dynasty is almost over, and he’s not about to give it up without a titanic struggle.

That means things are going to get extremely hot for the inhabitants of this world. As John writes: “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come

“And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another. …”

down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Rev. 12:12).

But that’s only the beginning of the devil’s desperate eleventh-hour campaign. The following chapter continues the narrative of John: “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy . . . . And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” (Rev. 13:1, 4.) Satan’s last-ditch stand centers around his favorite instrument of destruction — a revitalized Roman Empire. It is the same system described in the seventh chapter of Daniel, now raising its ugly head for one final fling at world power. Like the ancient empires of old, this one will also be centered around the familiar church — state partnership with the nation, the ruler, and the governing system held in idolatrous esteem (Rev. 13:11-15).

Once it decides to wage war, virtually nothing will stand in the way of this gigantic military juggernaut. Like its predecessors, it will quickly roll up an impressive string of military victories with lightning — like thrusts, this time in the Middle East. Speaking of this yet — future campaign, the prophet Daniel wrote: “And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over. He shall enter also into the glorious land [Palestine], and many countries shall be overthrown…. But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many” (Dan. 11:40, 41, 44).

A Decidedly Unconventional War

   Even more terrifying is the way these wars will be fought. Again the apostle John paints a grisly picture in the ninth chapter of Revelation: “And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power . . . . And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breast — plates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months” (Rev. 9:3, 7-10).

Could John have been poetically referring to modern — day weapons such as jets, rockets, or missiles? Why would men be tormented and not die? Could they be suffering from radiation sickness or the effects of germ warfare? What John was referring to is almost impossible to ascertain — but it certainly wasn’t normal, conventional warfare.

Whatever it was, it was only the beginning of man’s future wartime woes. Using stark apocalyptic language, John goes on to describe a massive army of 200 million men in verse 17: “And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.”

Notice the awesome toll these weapons take: “By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths” (verse 18).

Could the lethal smoke John describes be radioactive fallout from future nuclear weapons? And could the fire be the thermal radiation effect? Again, all we can do at this point is speculate on what could happen. But the end results speak for themselves — one third of all humanity dead.

Joel likewise graphically portrays an unprecedented period of chaos and war. “… There hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in the battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness” (Joel 2:2-6).

It’s no wonder that Jeremiah, in referring to these tumultuous times, stated: “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble …” (Jer. 30:7).

“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall

“They had … breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. They had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men….”

be.” And were this military madness allowed to continue on to its final bitter conclusion, Christ went on to say that “there should no flesh be saved [Moffatt adds ‘saved alive’]: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matt. 24:21, 22).

The Last Great Battle

   Unless God put a sudden stop to man’s misguided activities, Christ plainly states there would be no hope for the survival of the human race.

God’s dramatic, eleventh — hour intervention in world affairs does not come without warning. It is announced by the blowing of the seventh trump in Revelation 11:15: “And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.” After 6000 years of human misrule, world power is finally restored to its rightful owner — Jesus Christ of Nazareth. At one stroke this event removes one of the basic factors that has led men to war throughout all of recorded history. It means the final end of divisive, petty, narrow-minded national sovereignty. It means the beginning of the end for human misrule, intolerance and misunderstanding. Here at long last is the real way to peace mankind has rejected.

You would think with this monumental announcement the nations of the world would throw down their arms, shout hallelujah, and receive Christ with open arms. At long last here is the peaceful solution they have desperately needed, but haven’t been able to find.
But nothing of the kind — they do just the opposite. “And the nations were angry” (Rev. 11:18). Satan the Devil is angry. He knows he’s about to lose his cherished seat of power. He figures his only recourse is to fight God. So he gathers his forces for one final all-out battle with the returning Jesus Christ. Again John writes: “And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils [demons], working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. . . . And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon” (Rev. 16:13-16).

The Battle of Armageddon

   The location for this last climactic battle will apparently be well-chosen for its strategic value. Armageddon, or the “mount of Megiddo,” sits astride three important mountain passes that allow for quick access across the length and breadth of Palestine. It was at Megiddo that Josiah was slain attempting to block passage of Pharaoh Necho of Egypt northward to fight the Babylonians. Gideon and Barak won impressive battles here during the period of the Judges. And General Allenby’s forces surprised the Turkish armies at Megiddo in 1918.

But this time there is no real contest. John records in Revelation 19:19 and 17:14: “And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse [Christ], and against his army….and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings….”

Other prophets described the battle in more graphic detail. Zechariah, for instance, states: “For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle…. And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth” (Zech. 14:2, 12).

At the same time, Jesus Christ will put a final end to the power-hungry church-state system that has wracked the world with war for 6000 years. John records this earthshaking event in the fourteenth and eighteenth chapters of Revelation. It’s interesting that in speaking of this resurrected system John writes: “And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth” (Rev. 18:24).

Peace at Last

   Jesus Christ will then go about the business of establishing real world peace. With Satan the Devil bound (Rev. 20:2), his destructive church-state combine out of the way, and with the nations no longer governed by fallible men, remarkable things will begin to happen. Isaiah writes: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain [government] of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall

After 6,000 years of human misrule, world power is finally restored to its rightful owner — Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears in to pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isa. 2:2-4; see also Micah 4:1-4).
For the first time the vast majority of people will learn what it means to live according to God’s laws. No longer will they be motivated to fight and quarrel, but will learn to love their fellowman. There it is — the final solution to war.

For the sake of all humanity, the sooner it arrives the better.

As the booklet states, despite wars, ultimately, there is good news as God’s kingdom will come and those issues will be gone (Revelation 7:16).

Yet, currently we see a lot of military boasting and posturing–that ultimately will fail. The Kingdom of God is the Solution.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 30th, 2017 at 7:30 am and is filed under Prophecy.

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