As we continue to examine together the Second Coming of Christ found in Revelation 19, we have looked at the King – Christ Himself and His army which is the church in Revelation 19:14 that comes with Him. Now we are going to shift direction a bit and look at the King and His victories. There are three enemies that are found here in our text that need to be overcome for Christ to set up His Kingdom. These enemies must be defeated as Christ begins to rule.
The first enemy are the armies of the world who have come out to oppose Him. In Revelation 19:17 it says, “Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in midheaven, “Come, assemble for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great.” And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army.” We skip to Revelation 19:21 where it says, “And the rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh.” We have a rather gruesome picture here. What we have when we look at the rest of Scripture and other descriptions is called the Battle of Armageddon, if we look back at Revelation 14, you will see that terminology used. This is a time when the armies of the earth have come together to do battle. It would seem from other texts of Scripture in the Old Testament in particular, that the armies of the world have come together to do battle over who will rule the earth. The antichrist has his armies. There are armies from the east and perhaps the north. It is very likely that this is the greatest world war of all times. This is not just one battle but had been going on for some time. Now we have this great gathering of all these armies to determine who will rule the earth. At that time, Christ Himself returns and as He returns the armies of the world no longer are fighting one another. They realize there is a bigger enemy here. There is someone who could destroy all of them. So, apparently, they turn all their attention to Christ Himself and join forces to try to stop the King of King and Lord of Lords from becoming the monarch of the world . . .
