Tel Megiddo: Guardian Of The Valley of Armageddon

What ancient biblical city is believed to have witnessed more battles than any other location in the world? It's none other than the city of Megiddo. The ruins of Megiddo was our third stop on the first day of our tour of Israel.

We had just left Mount Carmel, drove a few miles down the road, and stopped at Megiddo to eat lunch, and afterwards we walked up the hill to hear a lesson from Dean and Dale. Stick around after the Bible lesson and I'll tell you a little bit more about what a tell is and also show you some of the sights and scenery from the top of the ancient.

City of Megiddo. So the reason that we want to eventually go up to the top is because you will have a spectacular view of the Valley of Armageddon or the Jezreel Valley, and so it's very similar to the view that we saw at the top of Mount Carmel, but we want you to see that.

Plus you will also get a much better view of this altar, this dark dark Canaanite, I mean dark by pagan, altar that's over here that's 6 ,000 years old. And I want to, here's what I want to do, I want to share with you the outline that's on page 38.

I want to share with you that outline and then I'm going to ask Willie to read a scripture verse for us out of Revelation 16, and then I want Dale to share a teaching that, by the way, some of you may not know Dale is an incredible teacher, and he teaches a little tiny Sunday school class in our church that has 150 people in it, and so he's a tremendous teacher.

So I've asked him if he would just share with us some thoughts, but let me share with you this outline and the way this outline is constructed, it will help you to go back, look in your Bible, mark these things, and say I was there, I know what this place looks like.

So look at it, Megiddo literally means the place of troops, and remember this was a major fortification. In fact, if you will see that, we're going to talk about it here in just a moment, it was one of Solomon's fortified cities, but look at it, there are at least 19 layers, but the number you want to write in there is 26.

There have been as many, some archaeologists say as many as 26 layers of civilization that have been built here. What is a tell? Anybody remember? A man-made mountain. How was it made? One city leveled, build another on top, leveled, build another on top, like grandma's layer biscuits, just one layer after another, and so it became a mount or a mountain because it is a man-made mountain of civilizations, and you will see a couple of other examples of tells.

Tel Aviv, you will see some other examples of tells that haven't even been excavated yet, but they are man-made mountains. So look at the outline, let me share this with you very quickly, and then I want to have a reading, and then Dale to share with us.

How can we describe Megiddo? This will give you an outline. First of all, it was a place of darkness, a place of darkness. Again, during the Canaanite period, this pagan altar that we see over here to your right, my left, it was used for both animal and later children's sacrifice, and there's the reference you can mark in your Bible in Numbers 33.

Secondly, we can also describe this area as an area of defense, of defense. Megiddo was one of King Solomon's three fortified cities, along with Hazor and Gezer. Hazor to the north, we will go right by Hazor when we go up to the north.

Gezer to the south, so Megiddo was here in the middle, and it was one of his fortified cities. By the way, Deuteronomy 17, 16, the Lord expressly forbade Israel from multiplying horses and chariots and depending on their own strength rather than depending upon him, and so this was a direct disobedience to the Lord's command as Solomon amassed all of these chariot cities and the horses.

We see the stables, we'll see the stables up here all around where the horses were kept, all right, so it was a place of defense. Thirdly, it was also a place of defeat, of defeat. You see the scripture references there.

Numerous wars, battles, conflicts took place at Megiddo, both biblical and non-biblical, and so even in World War I, there was a major battle that was fought here with General Allenby of the British troops.

He came in to Megiddo and defeated the Turks here and they called him the Lord of Armageddon, and so again, you know, you see the position of this place in terms of its strategic value, all right, and then here's the fourth thing.

It also, according to the Word of God, will be a place of destiny. Why do we say that? Well, there is a reference that I want you to hear, and then I want Dale to give us a teaching and an exclamation, or explanation rather, about the whole word Armageddon, all right.

Willie, where are you at? Come over here, brother, so they can hear you, and if you would read for us, come over here on this side, read for us Revelation 16, 13 through 16, and then Dale's going to share some things.

And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and his name was called the Word of God, and the armies which were in heaven,. Am I in right? No, I'm in 19. I'm sorry. That's all right, no problem.

That sounded good too, yeah. Okay, and I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth, out of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, for they are the spirits of devils, working miracles which go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them to battle of that great day of God Almighty.

Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watches and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame, and he gather them together into a place called in the Hebrew.

Tongue Armageddon. All right. Brother Dale, it's found on that brother. It's good. Okay, are you, can you hear fine? Okay, I want you to zero in on what Willie said about the term Armageddon. He said it's explained in the Hebrew.

In other words, for us to, okay, for us to, can you hear me? For us to understand that word, it means we have to go to the Hebrew language to understand that. You with me? One thing that I like to, or that we like to talk about, about the word Armageddon, it is universal, completely.

It's the, it's the only time, he read, Willie read, that's the only time you will see that term in the Bible, is in Revelation 16, 16, but you can go to China. They may say chicken with a different word in China than what we use, but if you go to China, they will pronounce Armageddon, Armageddon.

Anywhere in the world that term is pronounced, it's pronounced Armageddon, but we just heard go to the Hebrew to understand it. Okay, now let me, let me give you another illustration before we get too deep into it, and then we'll have some, some people come up and share some scripture with us.

A good scholar once said that our Bible is like a hologram, and all of us are familiar with holograms. We have those on our driver's license, right? And a hologram is a, is a image that is produced with a laser, and it can only be illuminated with the laser that creates it, the true hologram.

By the way, you're going to see a hologram when we go to Shiloh, to Shiloh, you'll see a real hologram there. If you took your driver's license out, and it had the, has the hologram on there, and you cut just a portion of that hologram off, and you had a big piece and a little piece, both pieces would show the entirety of the image that was produced there.

You could see it on the little piece, and it's a 3D image, okay, or the big piece. Now, get it this way, the little piece is going to be the same picture, but with a lot less resolution than the big piece, you with me?

The big piece will have less resolution, because you've torn part of it away. I tell you that because we're told in Isaiah chapter 28, that concerning knowledge, that Isaiah says, God has built the Word of God, precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.

For example, there's not one chapter in the Bible that's about baptism, is there? There's not one chapter in the Bible about salvation. It's spread through the entirety of the scriptures. So, if we took out Matthew and Mark from the Gospels, will we still get the message everywhere else in the Bible?

Yes, but with a little less resolution, okay? So, with that understanding, let's go and find out about this term Armageddon, and I want David to come up first and read a piece of scripture, and then I've got three, two others besides myself.

We're going to find out what this word Armageddon means. David, I think, can you hear him? Can you hear him? Yeah. Okay. All right, this is Micah 4, beginning with verse 11. But now many nations have assembled against you, those who are saying, let her be defiled, and let our eyes gaze on Zion.

But they do not know Adonai's thoughts, nor understand his plan, for he has gathered them like grain to a threshing floor. Arise and tread, daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hooves bronze.

You will thresh many peoples. I will devote their unjust gain to Adonai, their wealth to the Lord of all the earth. All right, and David read from the Hebrew translation, but in the correct Hebrew, it says he's going to gather them like a heap of sheaves.

Where did he say? Did you pick up where he said that was going to happen? He used the word Zion. Zion is in Jerusalem. It's the city of David, okay? Now, let me read you another verse very quickly. This is coming from Zephaniah 3, verse 8.

Therefore, wait for me, says the Lord, until the day I rise up for plunder. My determination is to gather the nations to my assembly of kingdoms, to pour out on them my indignation. All my fierce anger, all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.

All right, Nathan has a verse from Zechariah, chapter 14, verse 2. For I will gather the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured. The houses plundered, the women ravished, and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.

Okay, what city is he talking about? Jerusalem, okay? Now, let's go to Zechariah. Let's go to Joel. Who's got Joel? Joel, chapter 3, verses 1 and 2. Hello. For behold, in those days, at that time when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will enter into judgment within there on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and divided up my land.

Okay, now, why did he do it? First of all, you read what's going to happen, but why did he do it? They divided up my land. No, no. Anytime the United States even thinks about a two-state solution politically, something bad happens in our country.

There's a book written about that. That's another topic altogether. But he named a place called the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The term judge in Hebrew is shaphat. If you looked in the Hebrew Bible at the book of Judges, it would say shaphatim, okay?

Who's the greatest of all of the tribes of Israel that is known for the judge? There was a great big guy. His name was Samson of the tribe of Dan, the judges, okay? And he said in the valley named after Jehoshaphat.

Jehoshaphat, right? That's the Kidron Valley. We will see that very soon. Now, Nathan, read one more verse for us. Zechariah 14, 12. 14, 12? No, 14, 4. 4, yeah. In that day, his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley so that half the mountain will move toward the north and the other half to the south.

Okay, one quick question. When Jesus comes back, where is he coming to? He's going to set his foot down again on this earth at the Mount of Olives. Where is that? Jerusalem. What's going to happen then?

I'll give you these two Bible verses. You go look them up. Habakkuk 3, verses 3 through 4, and let me tell you what you're going to read there. It sounds like something from Star Wars. He's coming back, and you're going to see that Jesus is coming back as the lion of the tribe of Judah.

He's not going to be very happy. He's gathering the nations of the world in the valley of judges like a heap of sheaves to do battle with them, and it says in that verse that I just gave you that fire is going to come out of his hands as he kills people.

Habakkuk chapter 3, verses 3 and 4. Zechariah chapter 14, verses 12. You see how we're skipping all over the Bible right now to find this stuff? Okay, Zechariah chapter 14, verse 12 says the flesh will dissolve on the bodies of these people when Jesus comes back.

He's not going to be very happy. When we get to Jerusalem, Dean will tell you more about that as well because he's going to point to a place. I don't want to give that away just yet. All right, now let me explain this term Armageddon.

If you go into your Bible, and we don't have time to break this all down, there are three major prophetic wars that are yet to happen. The first one that's going to occur, in my opinion, in the future is Psalms 83.

If you look up Psalms 83, you will see the the Arab nations in their ancient names that surround Israel right now. At some point in time, Israel is going to have to defend itself from those Arab nations.

A spark is going to happen, and they're going to take out Lebanon. They're going to take out the Gaza Strip. They're going to take out... Damascus will cease from being a city. Isaiah 17, verse 1. Syria.

All of the Arab nations will be taken out in Psalms 83. The next war that will occur that hasn't happened yet is the Gog Magog War. Ezekiel chapter 38. Look at that chapter, and you will see that none of the Arab nations that are around Israel right now are in that battle.

Why? They've already been eliminated. Then the final battle is what Willie just read about, the Battle of Armageddon. Now, let's talk about that term very quick. I think Dean agrees with this, because... or he wouldn't have us talking about it.

We've all heard that this place is called the Valley of Armageddon. You look out here, Jezreel Valley, 26 miles wide. Napoleon called it the greatest battlefield on the earth. We've all been told, I can remember as a little boy, that this is where the final battle is going to take place.

What's the prize in Israel? Jerusalem. Where's Jesus coming back to? Jerusalem. The verses we just read right now talk about what he's going to do in Jerusalem. Not here. Har in Hebrew is mountain. This is not a mountain.

This is a hill. A mountain is what we came off of just now, okay, up from Mount Carmel. So what's this word? Doug Hamp has a study. I recommend that you go. Don't take my word for it. He will break it all down.

But here's what it says. You remember, he said that God's going to gather people like a heap of sheaves. The word in Hebrew is armeh, for a heap of sheaves. The Hebrew word for valley, like the Kidron Valley or the Valley of Jehoshaphat, is gey.

So armeh gey. The judge tribe, what were they called? Dan. Now listen to the word. Armeh gedan. Armageddon. We believe, I think, I'm speaking for Dean too, that this word Armageddon is not two words of this place, but three Hebrew words.

A heap of sheaves in the Valley of Judgment. And we just read what's going to happen by Jesus when he shows up. So armeh gedan is Armageddon. That's the only way we can understand that word, is to look it up through the Hebrew.

Three words, not two, because we know where Jesus is coming back. So there's that teaching there. Amen. See what I'm saying? Thank you, Dale. Appreciate that very much. That, I know that that's really deep.

Let me just say this. It's very possible that this valley could be a staging area, of course, but the final prize is Jerusalem. And you will find that all throughout the Bible. And the contention right now is what's going on between Israel and the Palestinians.

The primary contention is Jerusalem. So just keep that in mind. Dwell on that. Think about that. That's a great thought and great teaching. And here's the great news. In the final analysis, we win because we're on the winning side with the one who's coming back as the Lion.

Of Judah, the Lion of God. Amen? All right. Megiddo is mentioned about a dozen times in the New Testament. In Joshua chapter 12, we learn that the king of Megiddo was one of about 31 Canaanite kings that was defeated during the conquest.

Also in the book of Judges, we read about Deborah and Barak, who defeated Sisera and his armies near the waters of Megiddo, which in Judges chapter 5, we learn was the Kishon Brook, which is the place where centuries later, Elijah would kill the 450 prophets of Baal.

Now, one of the things that most of us remember from that story of the defeat of Sisera is that as he was fleeing from the battlefield, he sought shelter inside the tent of a woman who fed him and let him lay down to sleep.

And while he was sleeping, she killed him by driving a tent peg through his head. Megiddo was also one of King Solomon's fortified cities, along with Hazor and Gezer, that was mentioned in 1 Kings chapter 9.

What probably made Megiddo such an important biblical city was its location. Megiddo is on the southwest side of the Jezreel Valley. It's about eight miles from Mount Carmel. Megiddo looks out onto the Jezreel Valley, which has been the location of many, many battles, both ancient and modern.

The valley was a crossroads of sorts for anyone who was passing through the area, and whoever controlled the city of Megiddo controlled the valley. You'll hear Megiddo referred to as Tel Megiddo. The word tel is a Hebrew word, which means heap or mound.

In Joshua 8 .28, we see that Joshua burned Ai and made it forever a heap of ruins, that word heap is the Hebrew word for tel. And likewise, in Joshua 11 .13, none of the cities that stood on mounds did Israel burn except for Hazor.

A tel is a man-made hill, and it's especially noticeable in the Jezreel Valley because you've got this flat land, and then suddenly rising up out of this flat earth is a hill that looks like it doesn't belong there.

On the screen, you see Shraga ben Yosef, who is our Israeli tour guide. He's standing here with us at the foot of Tel Megiddo, and you can see the top of the tel in the background, and he's explaining to us what a tel was.

Tels were formed when ancient people would build a town in a location that was convenient, and that town stood there and thrived, but eventually war would come, an enemy would come, surround the town, and destroy it.

Time would pass, and someone else would come back and build over top of the ruins. In time, war comes again, and that city is surrounded and destroyed, flattened, and later a third city is built on top, and this cycle keeps repeating over and over and over until a mound of earth rises up around the surrounding countryside.

What you're looking at here is a huge trench that was dug down from the top of the tel. This is an archaeological trench. Archaeologists dig down so that they can expose what's underneath, but by digging in a trench, they can also see layer after layer after layer, and typically in such a trench, they'll dig down until they hit bedrock, and that way they know they've reached a point at which there was no prior settlement.

Now, at the bottom of this trench, there is an ancient Canaanite altar. This is the altar that Dean mentioned in his lesson, and it is a place where the Canaanites would have offered sacrifices to their false gods.

Moving toward the southern part of the tel is the place where horse stables were discovered. As you can see in these stables, they have discovered ancient stone troughs where the horses might have been given food or water, and this is consistent with the fact that this was one of Solomon's fortified cities where he would have had horses and chariots.

The top of Tel Megiddo is about 15 acres in size, and right in the center is this pit, and what this pit is is an in-ground grain silo, and you can see if you look closely that there's a spiral staircase that goes around the perimeter so that people could walk down to the bottom to get grain as the grain levels got lower and lower.

We encountered another deep pit in the ground, and what this hole is or was was part of the water system that the ancient people at Megiddo used. So, we were not able to go down into this shaft because our tour guide told us that it was flooded due to the recent rains that had been experienced in the area, but from what we were told, there's a shaft that goes down into bedrock until it encounters a spring, and this spring water was channeled inside the tel down in this pit, and the outside was covered over so that if the city was ever besieged by an enemy, there would be water on the inside, but the people on the outside who was sieging the city would not be able to take advantage of the spring.

The views of the Jezreel Valley at the top of the tel looking east were very similar to what we could see from Mount Carmel since Mount Carmel was only eight miles away, but you can look down a long way down the valley.

Across the valley, we could still see Mount Tabor, and you could also see the ridge where the city of Nazareth was built. We were told before we went on this trip to Israel that going there and seeing the sights will make the Bible just come alive right before your eyes, and this is certainly true.

To walk to the top of the ancient city of Megiddo, to walk through the old city gates, to see the foundations of the buildings and the pagan temples that were there, to look at this ancient pagan altar and realize that what we read about in the scriptures was right there in front of our eyes.

Keep checking back in because I'm continuing to make more videos from my trip. If you like this and want to be notified when new videos are released, please subscribe and and click the bell so that you'll get the notification when new videos come out.

Until next time!