Pete Hegseth is the U.S. Secretary of Defense. (I refuse to call it by President’s Trump’s name change Department of War, which I understand came from Hegseth.) Hegseth has been orchestrating a program of teaching U.S. military commanders that the new Iran War (now one week old) is Armageddon to enhance the second coming of Christ. What a lie! Whatever it is they’re teaching, anything that Christians believe about eschatology should have no place in what the military leadership of this nation is teaching its troops. I believe in the separation of church and state. Why? For one thing, many supposed Christians get so much stuff wrong about this, forcing their doctrines onto other people.
Moreover, Iran is an Islamic theocracy run my Shiites. They are the most eschatological of any of the Muslim sects, especially compared to their counterpart, the Sunnis. Thus, the U.S. military is now being indoctrinated with eschatology just like their enemies the Iranian leadership is. This is crazy. This Iran War is moving toward a religious war.
Gog and Magog
George W. Bush got the U.S. in the Iraq War because of his belief in eschatology, and now we are going in the same direction. Bush told France’s President Jacques Chirac that “Gog and Magog” of Ezekiel 38-39 were happening in the Middle East. He was dead wrong due to being ill-taught about that text, and it was his main impetus for going to war. The whole world ever since has condemned that decision, and George W. has suffered for it. For instance, I suspect he remained silent about all the crazy stuff President Trump has done because if he did, Trump would blast him about the Iraq War.
Troops Being Taught God Anointed Trump
Hundreds of U.S. members of the military have complained in the past week to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation in the U.S. that their commanders have been telling them that God made Donald Trump the U.S. president and that he has been “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to earth.” That is being done by Secretary Hegseth.
I live in Arizona. I wish our Democratic Senator Mark Kelly would become our next president. As a former astronaut and Air Force fighter pilot, he has his head on straight, and these dumbbells Trump puts in his cabinet do not. They are mere sycophants of the megalomania, narcissistic Trump. Kelly said this week, “Hegseth is the worst Secretary of Defense this nation has ever had,” and I suspect he is right.
Jesus’ Second Coming
I am both a vet and a lifetime student of biblical prophecy, with five of my ten published books about it. Some Christians, mostly evangelicals, have wrongly believed that governments, such as the U.S. government, could hasten the second coming of Christ. That is a wrong! God decided that day and hour even before Jesus lived on this earth. That is clear in Zechariah 14.6-7 which says in the NRSV, “One that day,” referring to what scholars call the eschatological day, which is the same as the second coming of Christ, “there shall not be either cold or frost. And there shall be continuous day (it is known to the LORD), not day and not night, for at evening time, there shall be light.”
I won’t get into explaining all of that. I only mention it because Jesus alluded to this text when he said of that time, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son,” referring to himself, “but only the Father” (Matthew 24.36; cf. Mark 13.32). So, not even Jesus knew when that time will be. But the reason I cite it is that it reveals that God the Father had already decided when that time will be.
That Day Is Fixed and Humans Don’t Hasten It
The apostle Paul said likewise. In his sermon at the Areopagus, Athens, Greece, speaking to some who would have been philosophers, Paul said, “He,” referring to God, “has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed,” which is Jesus (Acts 17.31).
Therefore, in light of such biblical texts, it should be apparent that humans do not decide or do anything which results in establishing that date, such as hastening it.
Armageddon Doesn’t Mean What Most Think
Furthermore, the Armageddon entered the American culture’s lexicon during the latter 20th century, largely due to evangelicals. Armageddon has been used to refer to something catastrophic. This word occurs only one time in the Bible, in Revelation 16.16. But it is necessary to get the context to understand it. The context says that three demons sent from Satan will perform “signs” and “go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. … And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Harmagedon” (vv. 14, 16), which is also rendered Armagedon or Armageddon.
I have been an evangelical all of my adult life and attended regularly only evangelical churches, which has been three over a period of over 60 years. It is mostly evangelicals who have taught that this text means that the “battle on the great day of God the Almighty” will be fought at Armageddon, and that is why they call it the battle or war of Armageddon. This is absolutely wrong! The text only says that the demons will gather the kings at Armageddon. It does not say the battle will be fought at Armageddon. Rather, there are several biblical texts, mostly in the Old Testament, that predict where this battle will be fought. It will be fought at Jerusalem. The kings and their armies lay siege to Jerusalem and then attack it according to Zechariah 14.1-2. Then it says, “the LORD will go forth and fight” (v. 3), and then “his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives” (v. 4). LORD refers to God the Father, but “his feet” refers to Jesus. The meaning is that God will fight through Jesus Christ as his agent.
Jesus Will Return Where He Left—Mt. of Olives
When Jesus ascended to heaven before his disciples gathered on the Mount of Olives, we read, “He was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men,” that is, they were angels who looked like men, “in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will com in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1.9-11). This is to be understood literally, so that when Jesus returns, he will come down from the sky and land on earth on the Mount of Olives, likely in the same place from which he left, which is just what Zechariah 14.4 says without naming him as Jesus.
The Antichrist Must Arise First
Moreover, this teaching that the U.S. military commanders are giving their troops is so wrong because the Armageddon has nothing to do with Iran and the second coming of Christ cannot occur for many years yet because there are so many biblical prophecies that must be fulfilled before that time. One that many Bible prophecy buffs know about is that there must be a temple at Jerusalem with the Jews’ ancient animal sacrificial system restored. This is stated multiple times in the book of Daniel. Also, the apostle Paul taught that some believers were wrongly expecting “the day of the Lord is already here. Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless on, “referring to the Antichrist, “is revealed” (2 Thessalonians 2.2-3). And the book of Daniel reveals that a ten-nation empire must be in place in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa as a revival of the Roman Empire from which the Antichrist will emerge.
Conclusion
So, the upshot of all this is that Armageddon has nothing to do with an Iran war and it is still at least decades from now before Jesus can return. I set forth in my book, The Third Day Bible Code, that Jesus’ return will not happen before the year 2070, and it may not happen until the 23rd century. So, not only are these military commanders being taught wrong about Armageddon the Jesus’ second coming, those predicted events in the Bible are still a long way off, and nothing the U.S. government does in pursuing its wrong-headed war in Iran will have anything to do with those events.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In