Revelation 19: 11-21

Jesus returns with His army following Him on white horses. The end-time apostate religious system has been destroyed, but the end-time confederacy of nations, led by the beast and the false prophet still remain. But not for long. In anticipation of that fact, an angel standing in the sun calls upon all the birds flying in mid-heaven: “Come, gather together for the great supper of God.”

The angel foresees the devastation upon the beast, false prophet, and the ten kings (representing the world’s nations), who though having turned against the prostitute Babylon, are now arrayed as an army ready to take up war against the Lamb.

All the civil and religious leaders; all the commanders and soldiers of earth’s armies, including their horses; and all others of every social-economic level who have taken the mark of the beast are about to suffer a ghastly fate.

With Jesus’ personal appearance, the beast (Vatican City) and false prophet (probably the leaders of apostate Protestantism) are captured and thrown into a lake of fire. This lake, appearing before the millennium, is a fiery judgment from God that is apparently separate from the lake of fire appearing in Rev. 20: 10, which is after the millennium. Both lake appearances are a place of total annihilation.

The rest (the nations) are slain by the sword that proceeds from Jesus’ mouth. Obviously, the sword is figurative. That it is in His mouth is an allusion to the sword being the Word of God. By God’s Word was humanity brought into being. Now, by God’s Word, wicked humanity (not burned up in the beast and false prophet’s lake of fire) is terminated by the brightness of His coming (2 Thessalonians 1: 7-10), resulting in the gruesome supper to which the angel invites the birds. The supper table is the whole of the earth serving up the flesh of the unrepentant wicked. All the birds are filled.

Jeremiah prophesied the scene. “Those slain by the Lord on that day will be from one end of the earth to the other. They will not be lamented, gathered or buried; they will be like dung on the face of the ground” (25: 33).

The believers meet Jesus in the air. The earth is then devoid of humanity. “I looked, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens had fled” (Jeremiah 4: 25).

Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a secret rapture and people being left behind when Jesus returns. Once He arrives, probation has already closed. There aren’t any more chances to repent. The Millennium begins as the righteous go to heaven and the wicked are slain.* After the Millennium, the wicked are raised in the second resurrection. Shortly after that event, eternal judgment against them ( the lake of fire) is executed.

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*Read the truth about the Millennium. Click here