The Final Battle for Earth: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Coming Great Tribulation and Wrath of God

By Obinna C. D. Anejionu

The Final Battle for Earth presents events contained in the Book of Revelation (a 2000-year-old prophetic book in the Holy Bible) as a well-orchestrated divine plan to take over the control of the earth from Satan. This final battle to crush Satan and his minions will be accompanied by a series of cataclysmic natural and anthropogenic events (hunger, economic crisis, war, pandemics), and unprecedented natural disasters that may be attributed to climate change.

There is a consensus that the earth is facing a dangerous future. The United Nations projects that almost half of humanity is at risk of dying. While the scientific community link this danger to climatic impacts, many Christians believe that the end of age is imminent. Cryptic details of the events surrounding the Second Coming of Christ and end of age carefully hidden in the Revelation, predict a series of catastrophic events that will cause the death of over half of the world's population.

The Final Battle for Earth thoughtfully outlines the end-time events and challenges long-held ideas and theories concerning the end-time--especially those surrounding the fall of Satan, the great tribulation, the rapture, the first resurrection, the Battle of Armageddon, and what is expected of Christians during the end-time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Aug 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781666748147

Book preview

1

Introduction

1.1. In the Beginning

The coming events relayed in the book of Revelation are not random events, but rather a well-thought-out plan to take over the world from Satan and hand it back to God. The events are in a real sense a culmination of those that started from Genesis, when God’s original plan for man was disrupted by events orchestrated by the fall of Adam. The story could be summarized thus: God handed the earth over to Adam to take charge of. Adam lost this mandate/authority after the fall, when Satan deceived him and Eve. Hence, Satan surreptitiously usurped the authority of Adam to become the ruler of the world. Satan reminded Jesus that he has authority over the earth while tempting him, and Christ did not refute this claim:

Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. ⁶ And the devil said to Him, All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. ⁷ Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours. (Luke

4

:

5–7

NKJV)

Christ also referred to this ruler of the earth in John 16:

And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: ⁹ of sin, because they do not believe in Me; ¹⁰ of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; ¹¹ of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged (John

16

:

8–11

NKJV)

Also, St. Paul wrote:

Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. (

2

Cor

4

:

4)

Jesus Christ paved the way for the legitimate reclamation of this authority from Satan by his death on the cross and eventual resurrection. Since Satan took the kingship of the earth from a man (Adam), through sin, only a man can legally reclaim this kingship, by overcoming the power of sin. However, no man prior to the coming of Jesus was able to achieve this feat of raising man from his fallen state. Therefore, to salvage humanity from its fallen position, and bring it back to its rightful place originally ordained by God, Jesus Christ had to come as a man to overcome the power of sin and open the gateway for the redemption of man. In other words, God had to come as a man to defeat Satan. Jesus was very emphatic in referring to himself as the Son of Man, because only a man can legally defeat Satan and reclaim the authority. Jesus hinted at the purpose of his mission when he declared thus:

Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. ²⁸ Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven: I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. ²⁹ The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, An angel has spoken to him. ³⁰ Jesus answered, This voice has come for your sake, not mine. ³¹ Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. ³² And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. (John

12

:

27–32

)

This reclamation of the authority from Satan was reechoed by St. Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians. He hinted that the death of Christ on the cross and his resurrection was essentially a coup d’état to dethrone Satan from being the ruler of this word. This is the reason the essence of this project (Project Jesus Christ) was kept as a highly classified secret until it was fully accomplished:

But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (

1

Cor

2

:

7

–

8

)

This was reiterated in Revelation, that Christ redeemed humanity from every tribe for God:

You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.¹⁰ You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth. (Rev

5

:

9–10

)

Hence, Christ’s salvation extended beyond the Jews. People from every tribe, language, and nation were rescued for the kingdom of God.

Despite having legally lost his authority over the earth, Satan, who neither plays fair nor according to the rules, is still holding on to power and his influence on the affairs of men. Thus, he must be crushed and imprisoned for all his atrocities. The purpose of the second coming of Jesus is to complete the job of wresting power from Satan and establishing the kingdom of God on earth. This final battle to crush Satan and his minions and wrest power from him (events contained in the book of Revelation) will be accomplished during the end of age. This will be accompanied by a series of cataclysmic natural and anthropogenic events (hunger, economic crisis, war, pandemics) and unprecedented natural disasters (most of which may be attributed to climate change) that will be experienced by humanity in the last days. These events will be increasing in both frequency and intensity as God wraps up the agenda to reclaim the world from Satan. At the fringe of the last days, Satan will be allowed a brief period to reign on earth before he is defeated by the armies of heaven, and Christ will regain control of the earth and set up the kingdom of God on earth for a thousand years.

Hence, the declaration at the blowing of the seventh trumpet:

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. (Rev

11

:

15

)

This initial one thousand-year period of the reign of Christ on earth is commonly referred as the millennial reign of Christ. After this, Satan will be released from prison for a short time to face Jesus Christ yet again in a final battle, where he will be ultimately defeated and finally sent to the lake of fire. This will mark the end of the present earth. A new earth and new heaven will be created as a new cycle commences.

Satan knows about this, and his key strategy is either to delay this or take as many people as possible to hell. He wants to deprive them of the bliss of eternal life with God, as has been promised.

1.2. Authentic and Updated Revelation of Jesus Christ

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, ² who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. ³ Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

⁴ John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, ⁵ and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood ⁶ and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. ⁷ Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

⁸ I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

⁹ I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. ¹⁰ I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet ¹¹ saying, Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.

¹² Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, ¹³ and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. ¹⁴ The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, ¹⁵ his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. ¹⁶ In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

¹⁷ When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, "Fear not, I am the first and the last, ¹⁸ and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. ¹⁹ Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. ²⁰ As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. (Rev

1

:

9–20

)

The book of Revelation starts with an elaborate description of St. John’s encounter with Jesus Christ. At the point of encounter, John is on the island of Patmos where he has been exiled. This revelation of events that will happen during the last days is given to John by Jesus Christ. It adds extra details to previous insights of end-time events he had given to his disciples while on earth and to those in ancient prophecies of Daniel and other prophets who had hinted at the things that would happen towards the time of the return of Jesus Christ. Hence, for believers, this account of end-time events is authentic, true, and trustworthy and supersedes any other eschatological prophecy previously recorded in the Bible. For the yet to be converted to the Christian faith, they are also encouraged to read this book with an open mind, assessing the revelations and interpretations based on the merits of the facts presented.

1.3. The Revelation of future and not past events

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, ² who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. ³ Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. (Rev

1

:

1–4

)

The first verse of the book of Revelation clearly sets the mind of the reader to the fact that what is going to be revealed are things that must happen in the future (that must soon take place) and not what has occurred in the past:

Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now and what will take place later. (Rev

1

:

20

)

John was clearly instructed to write about what is present and will soon take place and not what has happened in the past. It is vitally important to note this fact, as there are some aspects of the visions in the book of Revelation that seem to present a recap of past things. It is obvious that God decided to make this clear from the outset, so that readers would properly be guided on how to read and understand the words being revealed.

Admittedly, the manner through which the facts were revealed in the book of Revelation is a bit convoluted, so that many readers tend to be confounded with the core message being revealed. Many prominent Christian preachers and Bible scholars have concluded that some aspects of the book are flashbacks of things that had happened in the past. Many doctrines have been built on this erroneous assumption. This is essentially due to the inability to link the sequence of events revealed in the book in the correct order. This logic of reading the book as a vision of past, present, and future things adds more confusion, which makes people miss the core message. Another point to note is that past events, such as events surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ, cannot in a true sense be revealed after the fact, as people who had experienced those events already would have known about it. We cannot really pass off what happened in the past as a revelation. Hence, God could not have told us he was revealing things that must happen soon, only to loop back and show us things that had happened previously.

The events in Revelation were unfolding as the seven seals were being opened by the Lamb that was slain:

Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. ² And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals? ³ And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, ⁴ and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. ⁵ And one of the elders said to me, Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.

⁶ And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. ⁷ And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. (Rev

5

:

1–7

)

Take note that prior to the time this heavenly assembly was convened, no one was able to open the sealed scroll. Hence, there is no chance that these events would have happened. The fact that the seals were opened by Jesus Christ after he had been crucified buttresses the point that the events were planned to happen after Christ has been crucified. This will become clearer as we go further in the book of Revelation.

1.4. The Rule of Sevens—Completion of God’s Agenda for Earth

It seems God prepared the events of the last days using a spiritual code based on the rule of seven. In ancient Israelite culture, the number seven communicated a sense of completeness or fullness.¹ The number seven was copiously used in the visions contained in the book of Revelation. The events presented in the book of Revelation are broken into stages: seven letters, seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls. Each of these marks distinct key periods connected to the end-time, with events in each stage directly flowing into the next until the culmination.

•The letters to the seven churches mark the period Christians will be making final preparations for the events of the end-time and return of Jesus Christ.

•The opening of the seven seals covers the period Satan and his minions will be permitted to physically infiltrate and briefly take over the world. It covers the precursor period (pretribulation/beginning of persecution) and the great tribulation period, when Satan, the antichrist, and the fallen ones will unleash unprecedented wickedness on humanity.

•The seven-trumpets period covers the time when God’s judgment of earth and its inhabitants commences.

•The seven-bowl period covers the time when the final wrath of God is unleashed.

In addition to the seven sequences used to mark the various events of the last days, there are other places the number seven was used. For example:

•In his right hand he held seven stars. (Rev 1:12–16)

•The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. (Rev 1:20)

•I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man. (Rev 1:12–13)

•The seven lampstands are the seven churches. (Rev 1:20)

•In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. (Rev 4:6)

•The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. (Rev 5:6).

Although the full meaning of the use of seven in this book may not be immediately clear to readers or fully grasped, it is still worth noting that something is really going on with the number seven, with respect to the events contained in the book of Revelation. Perhaps God is trying to tell humanity that the events of revelation will bring to completion his agenda for earth.This is made evident towards the end of the Revelation, when a new heaven and earth appeared, as the previous earth and heaven have passed away (completed their cycle):

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. (Rev 21:1 NIV).

1.5. Expatiation of Matt 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13

The events described in Rev 6 are expatiation of the events of the last days (sign of your coming and of the end of the age [Matt 24:3 NIV]) described by Jesus Christ as recorded in the Gospels (Matt 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13). In the account recorded in the Gospels, Jesus Christ succinctly presented the highlights of the events. However, the sequence of events outlined in the Gospel accounts throws light on how the events in the book of Revelation should be interpreted. Therefore, relevant texts in the Gospels are used in this book to enhance the understanding of the visions in the book of Revelation and ensure the consistency of the interpretations thereof. Insights are also drawn from relevant Old Testament books, especially from the books of the prophets where key aspects of the end-time are revealed. Hence, as we continue this study, pointers will be made to other parts of the Scripture where those events have been hinted at.

1.6. Sequence of End-time Events

Strictly speaking, the visions in the book of Revelation are not presented in chronological or sequential order. Although there is a semblance of chronology/sequence in certain aspects/chapters, visions from different stages of the events are inserted into previous or future stages of the end-time. Also, some events appear to be happening simultaneously, even though they are recorded in the book as if they occur in sequence. This style of presentation is what mostly throws off many readers of the book. It seems God intentionally juggled the events in order not to prematurely give out the secrets in the visions to casual readers. However, a diligent and careful interpretation of the chapters will reveal the underlying sequence of the key events of the last days contained in the book. As if to complicate matters, the key stages are presented in a nested sequence pattern (sequence within sequence). For example, the events of the seventh seal consist of seven separate events (the seven trumpets). Likewise, the seventh trumpet contains the seven bowls of God’s wrath. Table 1.1 summarizes the sequence of key events hinged on the cardinal sequence of events (i.e., the seven seals).

Table 1.1. Sequence of key end-time events