(Isaiah 14:24-27) “The Lord of hosts has sworn saying, “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand, to break Assyria in My land, and I will trample him on My mountains. Then his yoke will be removed from them and his burden removed from their shoulder. This is the plan devised against the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out against all the nations. For the Lord of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?”
In the Bible the King of Assyria like the King of Babylon are major types of the final man of sin, the Antichrist who will arise at the end of this age. Nimrod, “the mighty hunter in the face of God” the arch-rebel against God who founded Babylon and Assyria, is also a major type of the Antichrist and his end-time Beast Empire which will be one of global proportions (Revelation 13:7). The time is coming in the near future when Israel will be invaded by Islamic armies and possibly other non-Islamic nations accompanying them (Ezekiel 38:1-6).
Jerusalem will fall to the invading armies, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city (Zechariah 14:1-2). Of course the site of the Temple Mount is located in east Jerusalem. The city will be divided. Many Jews will once again go into exile. For three and a half years after the Temple Mount Has been defiled the Lord will go out to fight those nations and the Messiah will return to the Mont of Olives to commence His military campaign against all aggressors that have attacked the Jewish people (Zechariah 14:3).
When His feet touch on the Mount of Olives it will be split from east to West and the surviving remnant of Israelis still living in Jerusalem will flee into the cleft of the Mountain to safety. As it is written; “The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe” (Proverbs 18:10). In that day the Lord Jesus accompanied by His angels and His glorified, raptured and resurrected saints, will form a rear-guard action to protect the fleeing Jews (Zechariah 14:4-5). Jude also tells us “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him” (Jude 1:14-15).
Let’s now briefly look at this passage of scripture found in the prophet Isaiah Chapter 14:24-27.
“The Lord of hosts has sworn saying, “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand, to break Assyria in My land, and I will trample him on My mountains.”
In the prophet Micah Chapter 5:1-15 we also have a reference to “the Assyrian” (prophetically a reference to the Antichrist) of whom we are told will invade Israel but that the Triune God will raise up eight leaders of nations to resist the Antichrist’s armies that have invaded Israel and sacked Jerusalem. We are not told who these leaders of men will be that God will raise up and they may not necessarily be Godly nations but they will be the Lord’s instruments in resisting the Antichrist and His military campaign. However, it will be the Lord Jesus Himself who destroys the Antichrist and his army when He returns to save the planet from annihilating itself (Psalm 45:4-7) (Isaiah 63:1-6) (Revelation 19:11-16) (Matthew 24:21-22).
As we are told in the New Testament; “Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the splendour of His coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8). It will be a fierce battle in which redeemed Jews will fight alongside their Messiah. As the prophet Zechariah writes; “Judah to will fight at Jerusalem” (Zechariah 14:14a). The Prophet Ezekiel also tells us that the Antichrist and his armies will fall on the mountains of Israel and the armies given to the birds to fed upon and that fire will also fall on other nations designated for this fiery destruction (Ezekiel 39:4-6). We see this huge supper prepared by the Lord for the birds of the air also mentioned in the Book of Revelation where the carrion birds will feed upon the carcases of the slain (Revelation 19:17-18).
Satan can never outwit the Lord. God is sovereign and has all of this planned and will see to it that it all comes to pass just as He has decreed it to be in His Word the Bible. As He says of Himself; “Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me. I declare the end from the beginning, and ancient times from what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish” (Isaiah 46:9-10). God always has His way and He does what He wants, in the way He wants and when He wants and asks no man’s permission! Now let’s continue reading…
“Then his yoke will be removed from them and his burden removed from their shoulder.”
The yoke of totalitarian dictatorship the Antichrist will have placed on Israel will be broken and the oppressive tyrannical despotic rule of the Antichrist Himself towards Israel removed. He and his Islamic armies will all go down into the pit of Hades (Hell) (Isaiah 14:9-12). The nations mentioned by name are all Islamic today (Ezekiel 32:18-32). In that day Israel will be a spiritually refined people having encountered the Messiah and they will remain intact and secure as a nation and no one will ever make them afraid again (Zechariah 3:13). Now let’s continue…
“This is the plan devised against the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out against all the nations. For the Lord of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?”
In this passage of scripture we not only have the demise of the Antichrist and his Islamic armies described but also the judgement on the nations of the world. When the Messiah our Lord Jesus comes back it will not only be to rescue Israel, destroy the Antichrist and his armies and to rapture and resurrect all the saints, but to also judge the whole world in righteousness and with justice and ultimately to rule the surviving nations with a rod of iron (Isaiah 9:7) (Psalm 2:9) (Revelation 19:15) (Isaiah 11:4). In that day “the LORD will be king over all the earth; in that day the LORD will be the only one, and His name the only one” (Zechariah 14:9). In that day His Law will be the only law by which the nations will be governed in the Millennial Kingdom. As we read; “For the law (Torah) will go forth from Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:3).
After He has established His rule the redeemed and those living in the Millennium will go out from the city of Jerusalem to look upon their enemies being tormented by the flames in the fiery pit of Gehenna. As we read in the prophet Isaiah what the Lord says; “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against Me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind” (Isaiah 66:24). It has been said that man proposes but God disposes and so it will be at the end of the age when the power of the ‘Assyrian’ is broken beyond remedy. What God Has Planned Will Stand!
