There appears to be growing majority within Christendom today who are more than happy to straddle the fence of conformity. They do not see that the world has become increasingly dark and wicked, primarily because their eyes have adjusted to the darkness. They think they are open-minded for embracing cultural decadence and rejecting the objective truths the Bible puts forth. They reject the exclusivity of the gospel as being too offensive for our progressive age. They think their post-modern, ecumenical approach is somehow more tolerant and loving. They do not realize that war is on the horizon, and soon all have to take sides. Our enemy is not interested in a peace, nor does he believe in live and let live. He is waging war because he knows he has but a short time.
Simply put, total war is a war without limitations or boundaries. We could think back to World Wars I and II as examples of this. The Bible forecasts four future total wars, as well as several other scenarios in which war is strongly implied (albeit at the regional level). These wars of the future will not only reorder the world geopolitically, but will also abolish most of the world's religions. Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, and the rest (save Judaism and Christianity) will be rolled up into a mystery religion known only as the whore. Even she will be overthrown, and will have her idolatrous focus turned into worshipping the man known as Antichrist.
(?)-timing unknown
(R)-timing after the Rapture, but before the 70th Week (aka the Tribulation) officially begins
(T)-occurs during the Tribulation
Regional Wars
(?) Psalm 83-All of the Arab-speaking Sunni nations/groups who currently border Israel, attack her in one final attempt to push her into the sea. They not only lose this battle, but Israel ends up doubling in size.
(?) Isaiah 17-The destruction of Damascus. Essentially, Syria has gone from being a nation, to just another war-torn battle zone. How this total destruction comes about, along with its permanence, implies a nuclear event. Nuking Damascus may solve the problem of vaporizing the tons of toxic chemical weapons stored in hardened bunkers underneath the city.
Total Wars
(R) Ezekiel 38-39-The Battle of Gog and Magog primary players are Russia, Turkey, and Iran (Persia). Also in their coalition is Sudan and Libya. Those who you would think be there, but are not, is Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt. Also conspicuously missing is Israel's greatest benefactor, the United States.
(T) Revelation 6:3-4-The Rider on the Red Horse sweeps in global war after the Rapture and while the EU is trying to consolidate her global authority. These nations are those who rebel against that authority.
(T) Rev. 9:13-19-The Two-Hundred Million Horsemen sweep across Asia and kill millions.
(T) Revelation 19-The Battle of Armageddon is the last battle in the 70th Week and is where all the nations of the world gather in one last attempt to destroy Israel. They are interrupted by Christ (and His armies) who return and destroy them instead. See also Zechariah 14.
Granted, these wars are primarily in the view from Israel's perspective. There could be other scenarios that play out before, during, or after the ones mentioned above, which affects other nations or regions. Furthermore, we are not told exactly how and when all the above happen, with the exception being Armageddon.
The Grand Plan
The speed at which modernization is occurring finally brings us to man's propensity for destruction and Satan's lack of alternatives. Once you realize that humans on planet earth are the only options Satan has to use in his war against God, you can see Satan's hand behind our rapidly advancing civilization. Especially since Israel became a nation again in 1948. However, from a military standpoint, we must look at Satan's agenda from three different perspectives: the strategic, operational, and tactical realms.
Strategic: the campaign plans and themes, which encompasses the art and science (at the national level) to achieve either national or multinational objectives. From a spiritual perspective, this is the big picture of war at its highest levels. Satan's overarching plan is to prevent God's plans from becoming reality.
Example: Since Abraham and his descendants were first identified to become God's chosen people (Ex. 19:5, Deut. 14:2, Jer. 31:9-11, etc.), Satan's strategic objective has been all about wiping them off the face of the planet. He has used every major Gentile world power for the past 4,000 years to do so. The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Nazi's, and now the Muslim world have all tried to destroy them, albeit, unsuccessfully.
Operational: the medium or mid-level engagements broken down by specific campaigns all used to achieve the strategic objective.
Example: Some campaigns were purely about destroying the Jewish people (Pharaoh, Philistines, Sennacherib, Haman the Agagite, Antiochus Epiphanes IV, Adolph Hitler). Some campaigns were all about corrupting them as a people (Korah, Balaam, Pharisees, Gnostics, Rothschild's, Adam Weishaupt, Karl Marx, etc.). Some serious misinformation campaigns have also falsely been waged against the Jewish people vis a vis anti-Semitic propaganda (Scrolls of the Elders of Zion, Islam).
Tactical: the smallest or lowest levels of engagements. These are battles or engagements, and are usually rolled up into campaigns, which all are centered on achieving the overarching strategy.
Example: When Satan personally tempted Christ in the wilderness to use His power or to worship Satan, or how he (or his minions) target each of us every single day to wear us down so that we become ineffective.
Satan knows he cannot destroy the Church, because Christ said as much (Matt. 16:18-19). However, Satan also knows he cannot defeat God, well, because he has tried before and lost. What he is aiming for here, is a zero-sum ending. The only card he has left to play is in trying to destroy the nation of Israel before Christ can return. He figures if he can do that, he's broken prophecy, and Christ will have to renegotiate the terms of Satan's damnation.
"For 4,000 years the Jewish people have faced relentless persecution, opposition, and attempts to annihilate and destroy them; and in the future, the struggle against Israel continues. If it concerned any other people, this campaign would seem totally irrational and insane. However, with Israel, a rational but very satanic strategy sustains this animosity. For Satan, the destruction of Israel is a matter of self-preservation. Ultimately, the survival of Israel results in the eternal perdition of Satan. How can this be? Because when Israel repents and nationally invites the Lord Jesus Christ to be its own Redeemer / Messiah, that generation of Israel will be saved, and Satan's plan to destroy the Jews will be finally defeated. Christ will return to the Earth, destroy the satanic antichrist and his armies at Armageddon, establish His Kingdom over Israel and the world for 1,000 years, and then cast the still rebellious Satan into the Lake of Fire forever and ever." (Rev. 20:10) (Thomas S. McCall, Zola-Levitt Ministries)
Corrupting the Land
During the almost two-thousand yearlong diaspora, the land of Israel lay a perpetual wasteland. Like an ancient Chernobyl or Fukishima, the land of Israel seemed cursed and forbidden, as if a dark, poisonous cloud hung over anyone who attempted to inhabit it through conquest. God's intent was that it lay dormant until its rightful rulers (i.e., the Jewish people-see Ezekiel 37) came back into the land exactly when God intended them to do so. And so it has been.
When the Romans under General Titus sacked and conquered Jerusalem in 70AD, up until the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 132AD, a semblance of Jews still remained in the land, albeit, in more of a squatter-status, than as citizens. But by the end of the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135AD, the Roman Emperor Hadrian ousted every last Jew from the land, salted the ground so nothing would grow, and then renamed the area Syria Palaestinaso that even the land no longer bore a Jewish name. He attempted to erase their ties to the land forever.
From 135AD until 1517, the ownership of the land of Israel was turned over and over again and continuously fought over by various succeeding Gentile kingdoms: The Romans, Byzantines, Sassanid's, Umayyad's, Abbasids, Tulunids, Fatimid's, Crusaders, and Mamelukes all had their day in the sun. It wasn't until the last kingdom, the Ottoman Turks, held the land for 400 years (or eight Jubilees) until they eventually lost it at the end of World War I. Jerusalem was still divided and would remain so until the Six Day War (1967). At the conclusion of that war, the Muslims were strangely allowed to retain authority over the last and most important part of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount. At some point in the not too distant future, the Muslims will finally lose control over this, and then the Jews will build their third temple.
Corrupting Their Legitimacy
Throughout the 1,878-year Jewish diaspora, Satan has been exceedingly busy corrupting anything Jewish. From the reintroduction of pre-Christian Talmudic writings, to the first century Pharisees and Judaizers, Christianity was challenged at every step. The reason for this, is that Christianity is fulfilled (or realized) Judaism through the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Following Christ and His Apostles rose the Gnostics and proponents of Jewish mysticism. They produced such aberrant teachings as the Zohar and other Kabbalisticwritings. Satan was particularly busy in the 17th-18th centuries corrupting particular Jews into propagating such nefarious deeds that it would poison their ethnic identity forever. The Rothschild's, Adam Weishaupt (founder of the Illuminati), Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Sigmund Freud, and numerous Nazi-members who did their best to deny and ignore their own heritage.
These all did terrible and staggering damage to the human race by bringing in new world order ideologies, Social Darwinism, and other socio-political models responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people in the 20th-century. In fact, almost every modern conspiracy theory today can in some way be traced back to the Jews in some form or fashion. Whether it be from the Elders of Zion propaganda, or some other nonsense that shows them trying to take over the world, the Jews are continually blamed for everything.
What we see today in the Middle East and now Europe is the rekindling of these irrational flames of Anti-Semitism, primarily amongst Muslim and socialist populations worldwide. This began toward the end of World War II when it looked like the Nazi's were not going to win the war. This was and still is, a satanically inspired failsafe measure Satan put in place should Hitler and the Nazi's fail to complete the Final Solution. Thus, we can see the complexity, intricacy, and lengths Satan has gone to destroy the land of Israel and their legitimacy. However, all of Satan's schemes have failed and God still got the land and the people back in there, who would fulfill their role in these last days.
Destroying the People
As prophesied (Deuteronomy 28:64, Leviticus 26:33), the Jews would be scattered throughout the world during their diaspora. However, their ability to remain a unique and distinct people group, is every bit as much a miracle as was the rebirth of their nation in 1948. God sustained them (Isaiah 49:15-16, 66:22) as promised despite the fact they rejected their own Messiah and had Him condemned to death (Matt. 27:25). Although their preservation was supernatural and divinely appointed, it would not be without first being disciplined and through much suffering (Deut. 28:65, Jeremiah 30:11).
Just about every major kingdom that rose to power during those two millennia persecuted them. The Jews would find no respite from the Romans or the Byzantines, nor the French, the English, the Spanish, the Russians, and just about every major European power that existed until the founding of the United States. The Roman Catholic Church would be particularly cruel to the Jews during its various Inquisitions. Even the newly formed Protestant leader (Martin Luther) was so frustrated at his initial attempts to convert them that he ended up cursing them as anathema.
Satan tried to prevent the coming of the Jewish Messiah on at least two separate occasions. The first time, he influenced Pharaoh to have all the Hebrew males who were born there in Egypt, to be drowned in the Nile (for population control purposes) (Exodus 1:16, 22). The second time was under King Herod. He two targeted male children under the age of two, to destroy the One who was born King of the Jews (Matt. 2). While these human leaders may have had different justifications, Satan did not know when this Messiah would be born. So we can reasonably assume Satan was there whispering in their ears of these leaders that the Jewish boys had to be destroyed, because both of these were attempts at preventing the birth and life of a Messiah. This persecution will only intensify as we draw closer to the end of the age.
"Through his cunning He shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule; and he shall exalt himself in his heart. He shall destroy many in their prosperity. He shall even rise against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without human means. Daniel 8:25
This man, the Antichrist, also called the man of sin and the son of perdition (2 Thess. 2:3), will be Satan's instrument to gather all the nations of the world against Israel. He uses 1) economic and political control, 2) religious power through false signs and wonders, and 3) united military might. While all these seem disconnected and disjointed in today's modern world, Satan will use crisis to bring all three together under one final governmental system.
Furthermore, the massive ramp up of increasingly complex weapons seems very much like overkill. Considering that, around ten nuclear bombs could ruin life on planet earth for everything, why would we need thousands? Why would we need anti-matter weapons? Why does CERN operate a machine that could potentially create a black hole and destroy all life on earth? The reason is relatively simple. If Satan cannot prevent Christ from physically returning, then he will execute what the Israelis today call the Samson Option. He will attempt to destroy Israel and the world in one fail swoop in an attempt to break bible prophecy.
Think about it, if Satan could destroy the Jews, Israel and Jerusalem, then theoretically, he could break God's word. We know that he cannot do that, but he probably thinks he still can. Secondarily to that, a theory posits that Satan is attempting to introduce such catastrophic weapons that he can levy against Christ and His armies at His return, should he not achieve his first goal. This is why we are seeing the proliferation of quantum physics gain much traction in the last few years. Not only have that but also energy and particle beam weapons, and armaments that attack things at the molecular level. Furthermore, he is behind CERNs attempt at opening up another dimension, which my theory believes will unintentionally open up the abyss. He is down on his numbers (he only began with a third of the angelic hosts), so he is attempting to add more fallen angels back to his forces who are currently confined.
In fact, Jesus warned that this coming period was so bad, that if He did not intervene, no flesh would survive (Matthew 24:21-22). That would not be possible if mankind did not have the weapons capable of destroying the earth.
And it shall come to pass in all the land,"
Says the Lord,
"That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die,
But one-third shall be left in it:
I will bring the one-third through the fire,
Will refine them as silver is refined,
And test them as gold is tested.
They will call on My name,
And I will answer them.
I will say, 'This is My people';
And each one will say, 'The Lord is my God.' "
Zechariah 13:8-9
