the next battleground

Not Armageddon.  Not World War III.  Though those unspeakably destructive wars are very soon to come.  But sooner still there is going to occur a far greater war, one of truly cosmic proportion.  Represented in the above image, is the battleground of that soon coming war which will be fought ~ in the heavens.

A man ~ a professing Christian ~ said to me, today: "I don't bother to study Bible prophecy, because there are so many differing views and opinions related to that."  To which I replied, "There are indeed very many different views and opinions.  But there is only one truth."

God, according to his own will, incorporated in his sacred Word a great deal of prophecy.  Father did not give us those great revelations to confuse or mystify us.  But God wants his children to understand the prophecies of his Word.  The Apostle Peter acknowledged in his own writings, that certain of the Apostle Paul's writings were "hard to be understood" (2 Peter 3:16).  Hard, yes, but not impossible ~ with the help of the Holy Ghost (the Spirit of truth).

The pre-Tribulation Rapture is a fact of Scripture; a fact, which I am well able to demonstrate.  Moreover, the revelations involving the facts related to the Rapture, serve to teach us a number of immensely important truths regarding God's purposes and promises, pertaining to our own near future.  Now, about that war...

Psalm 149:5-9

"Let the saints be joyful in glory: let them sing aloud upon their beds.  Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a twoedged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them THE judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD."

Those words are not meant to be interpreted in some mystical way.  But they are to be understood literally ~ and taken very seriously.  The saints ~ that is, the glorified (post-Rapture) saints, are (very soon) going to war.  How do we know that the foregoing passage involves events that will take place AFTER the Rapture of the Church?

1. The conjoined phrases, "joyful in glory," and "upon their beds," seem to allude not to a mortal state of being but, rather, to a glorified state;
2. Nothing in Scripture suggests that the saints of God ~ either during the present Church Age, or during the coming Millennial Kingdom Age ~ are supposed to "execute vengeance upon the heathen."  Thus, there is no other possible time period during which that prophecy could be fulfilled, except, during the coming so-called Tribulation.

It is also important to note, that while the glorified saints will "execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people;"  yet, at the same time those saints will 'merely' "bind" with chains and fetters of iron, the "kings" and "nobles" of the people.  The reason being that those "kings" and "nobles" alluded to, are not human political leaders, but they are those "rulers of the darkness of this world" (Ephesians 6:12), who are the willful servants of that evil being which is called, in Scripture, "the god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4) and "the prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2), that is, the devil.

"Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?... Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?"  (1 Corinthians 6:2-3)

It is certain that the saints shall not judge the holy angels; which stand in no danger of judgment.  Yet we know that Satan, together with his angels, shall first be cast down to the earth, from out of the heavenly realms ~ at a time about the midpoint of the Tribulation (Revelation 12:7-9).  Which means that that "war in heaven" must occur sometime before the midpoint of the tribulation!  Then, three and a half years later, Satan (and his angels) shall then be bound in the bottomless pit ~ at the end of the Tribulation.  The glorified saints shall be the ones who "bind" those fallen angels with "chains and fetters of iron," which angels, together with Satan, shall then be cast into the bottomless pit.

Let us not forget, too, that in addition to thus binding the hosts of darkness, during the Tribulation; the saints shall also then rid the world of all those who will have given their allegiance to the Antichrist.  All of which suggests a radically different view of the Rapture and the Tribulation than what traditionally has been believed and taught.

This little essay provides barely even an outline of what glorious circumstances are just ahead, for true disciples of Jesus Christ.  Nevertheless, my hope is that even such a scanty glimpse of true prophecy involving the soon coming Rapture, may help to shake some out of their apathy and spiritual slumber.