The battle of Armageddon #1

It seems that every time the country has a recession, Premillennial speculations go on the upswing. The opposite is true for periods of prosperity: Premillennial speculations decrease. When these speculations begin to circulate, people want to connect biblical events to events in the Middle East. I have heard it said that whenever someone sneezes in the Middle East, someone in America thinks it is the end of the world!

One of the events we have heard the most about is the battle of Armageddon. Revelation 16:16 says, “And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” This is supposedly the one final battle after the seven year tribulation period and before Christ sets up His earthly throne in Jerusalem to rule for 1,000 years. Most Premillennial theories revolve around two major events in Revelation: the battle of Armageddon in chapter 16 and the millennium in chapter 20.

In Hebrew, Har-Magedon literally means “Mount Megedon” or “Megiddo.” Megiddo is on the southern edge of the valley of Jezreel, now called Esdraelon. Megiddo was in the territory of Manasseh (Joshua 12:21; 17:11; Judges 1:27), and was the site of many significant events in the Old Testament (Judges 5:19; 1 Samuel 31:1-6; 2 Kings 9:27; 23:29-30; 2 Chronicles 35:20-27). Thus, Megiddo fitly symbolized the worldwide distress of righteousness and evil engaged in combat. Because of Megiddo’s significance, Thutmose III of Egypt fought the Syrian forces and urged his army to seize it, “for the capturing of Megiddo is the capturing of a thousand towns! Capture ye firmly, firmly!” We will continue its further significance in the next article.

Kyle Campbell