Rule of Nine, Armageddon & Megiddo

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I do not recall which WEC event it was back in the nineties, but you projected Israel’s fate and the Rule of Nine, which showed this was the end cycle for the Middle East. Would you still have that chart lying around?

See you in London, it’s been too long since you came to Europe

Jared

ANSWER: Oh, you have a perfect memory. That means you are not qualified for public office and certainly not the head of state. Yes, the history of that region did conform mainly to the Rule of Nine. The British Mandate was right on schedule. While this is the last cycle before a major change, that still will be beyond most people’s lifetimes in the summer of 2103. My concern is more about the immediate cycle of war, which we will cover at the conference.

To the Jews and Christians, this is known as the Temple Mount, while the Muslims call it the Dome of the Rock. It contains a huge rock that the Jewish tradition says is that this is where Abraham was told to sacrifice his son. To the Muslims, the rock is the spot from which the Prophet Muhammad was taken up into heaven for an encounter with God (an event known as the Miʿrāj). Thus, it is the same rock, symbolizing the clash between these religions. It was truly an awe-inspiring place.

We have zealot Jews and Christians who want to conspire to destroy the Dome of the Rock so they can rebuild the next Temple, ushering in Armageddon. According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, Armageddon is the prophesied location of a gathering of armies for a battle during the end-of-the-world scenario, interpreted as either a literal or a symbolic location. In Islamic theology, Armageddon is also mentioned in Hadith as the Greatest Armageddon or Al-Malhama Al-Kubra (the great battle).

Megiddo is a fascinating site of twenty cities constructed directly on top of one another. It has been inhabited continuously from 3000 to 300 BC and lies at a strategic junction of north-south and east-west roads. Whoever had control of Megiddo had control of one of the major trade routes of antiquity. There were no coins produced by Egypt until the Ptolemy and the conquest by Alexander the Great. Likewise, there was no coinage of Judah. This is a reproduction of a Jasper Seal of Shema discovered at Megiddo in 1903.

Many battles have been fought at Megiddo. One great Battle of Megiddo occurred in 609 BC when Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt joined his allies, involving the Neo-Assyrians and the Neo-Babylonians. This required passing through territory controlled by the Kingdom of Judah. The Judaean king, Josiah, refused to let the Egyptians pass. The Judaean forces battled the Egyptians at Megiddo, resulting in Josiah’s death, and his kingdom then became a vassal state under Egypt. The battle is recorded in the Hebrew Bible, the Greek 1 Esdras, and the writings of Jewish historian Josephus. There is always a chance of losing whenever there is war. This is how the arrogant always fall.

There remains considerable debate about whether this is literally or symbolically a Great Battle to be fought on the plane of Armageddon, overlooked by Megiddo, which made sense in those days since it was a major link between the East and West, or are we looking at that as just symbolic of the world ar large.