God's Anger Brought to a Finish -The Gathering to Armageddon

 What, though, is implied by the warning that those found sleeping would be shamed by losing their  "outer garments"?  In ancient Israel, any priest or Levite on guard duty at the temple had a heavy responsibility.  Jewish commentators tell us that if anyone was caught sleeping on such on such duty, his garments could be stripped from him and burned, so that he was publicly shamed.

Jesus here warns that something similar can happend today. The priest and Levites foreshadowed Jesus' anointed brothers.  (1 Peter 2:9)  But Jesus' warning applies by extensions to the great crowd too.  The outer garments here referred to identify the wearer as a Christian Witness of Jehovah.  (Compare Revelation 3:18; 7:14.)If any  allow the pressures of Satan's world  to lull them to sleep or into inactivity, they are likely to lose these outer garments-in other words, lose their clean idendificatioon as Christians. Such a situation would be shameful.  It would put one in danger of losing out completely. 

The need for Christians to stay awake becomes even  more pressing as the next verse of  Revelatioon comes closer to fulfillment:  "And they [the expressions inspired by demons]  gathered the [the earthly kings, or rlers] together to the place that is called Har-Magedon." (Revelation 16:16)  This name, more commonly rendered Armageddon, occurs  only once in the Bible.  But  it has fired mankind's  imagination. World leaders  have warned of a Megiddo, the site of many decisve battles in Bible times, and some religious leaders have therefore speculated that the final war one earth will take place   in that limited area.  In this, they are far wide of the truth. 

The name Har-Magedon means "Moutain of Megiddon." But rather than being a literal place, it represents the world situation into which all nations are gathered in opposition  to Jehovah God and where he will finally destroy them.  This is global in extent.  (Jeremiah 25:31-33; Daniel 2:44)  It is similar    to "the great wine press of the anger of God" and the "low plain of the decision," or "the low plain of Jehoshaphat," where the nations  are gathered for execution by Jehovah.  (Revelation 14:19; Joel 3:12, 14)   It is also related  to "the soil of Israel"where the satanic armies of God of Magog are destroyed and that location "between the grand sea and the holy mountain of Deoration" where the king of the north   comes "all the way to his end: at the hands of Michael the great prince. - EZEKIEL  38:16-18, 22, 23;  DANIEL 11:45-12:1. 

When the nations have been maneuvered into this situation by the croaking propaganda orginating with Satan and  his earthly  agents, it will be time for the seventh angel to pour out the final bowl of the anger of God. 

Next time: God's Anger Brought to a Finish - "It Has Come to Pass!"

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