1. A very important Bible word is found four times in our text – “purpose.”
2. I would like to speak this morning on the eternal purpose of God – one of the great themes of the Bible (cf. Romans 8:28; Ephesians 1:11; 3:11; II Tim. 1:9; I John 3:8).
3. The prophet Isaiah (and the other prophets) would often prophesy against one of Israel’s enemies (in this case Assyria – 14:25), but under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the prophet would look beyond current events to the last days.
4. Therefore, the Assyrians represent the ungodly heathens who fight against God’s people, Israel.
5. Way back in Genesis 12:3, the LORD said, “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee.”
6. Haman discovered this when he sought to destroy all the Jews in the Persian Empire.
7. Esther 6:13 says, “Then said his wise men and Zeresh his wife unto him (Haman), If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him.”
8. Esther 8:7 says, Haman was “hanged upon the gallows, because he laid his hand upon the Jews.”
9. Today Persia is called Iran, and their leader is a man called Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has said that Israel should be “wiped off the map.”
10. He made this remark at a conference called the “World without Zionism Conference” which he hosted in Tehran.
11. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Muslim friends are mistaken.  There never will be a “world without Zionism” (cf. Psalm 2:6).
12. Psalm 129:5 says, “Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion.”
13. Psalm 132:13 says, “For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.”
14. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a modern day Haman, and he will soon find out what Haman found out when he tried to destroy all the Jews in the Persian Empire.
15. God has a purpose for Israel, and God has a purpose for the Gentile nations.
16. And God has a purpose for His church (Eph. 3:10, 11).  God has an eternal purpose for His church.
17. If you are not actively involved in God’s church, then you are missing out on God’s purpose for your life.

I. GOD HAS A PURPOSE FOR THE WHOLE EARTH (14:26).

1. The Scofield Bible notes that this passage refers “not merely to a near judgment upon Assyria, but in a yet larger sense to the final crash of the present world-system at the end of the age.”
2. The “final crash” of this present world-system is certainly coming.  Are you ready?  Those who are not ready will be in for a terrible shock (cf. Matthew 25:1-13).
3. The great English evangelist George Whitefield (1714-1770) was preaching on this text, and when he said, “and the door was shut” (Mt. 25:10), a worldly scoffer in the audience laughed and said to his friend, “So what? Another door will open.”
4. George Whitefield heard the comment, and as he continued preaching, he said, “There may be someone here who is careless and self-satisfied, and who thinks, ‘What does it matter if the door is shut? Another will open.’ Yes, it will – and it will be the door to hell!”
5. God has a purpose for all of mankind, and it is not God’s purpose to send sinners to hell (cf. I Tim. 2:4; II Peter 3:8, 9).
6. If sinners go to hell it is only because they have chose to turn their back on God.
7. God’s hand is “stretched out upon all the nations” (Isa. 14:26).  Verse 27 indicates it is stretched out in judgment (cf. Isa. 24:1-12).
8. However, these prophecies in the book of Isaiah have not yet been fulfilled.  Today, God’s hand is still stretched out in grace and mercy.
9. God’s hand of judgment was stretched out against Nineveh.  The Lord sent Jonah to preach there and to warn them.  The entire city repented and turned to God.
10. Our Lord referred to this in Matthew 12:41 when He said, “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.”
11. NYC is a wicked city very much like Nineveh. Romans 5:20 has encouraged me over the years as I preached in this wicked city – “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”
12. First Peter 1:3 refers to God’s “abundant mercy.”
13. Titus 2:11 says, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.”
14. James 4:6 says, “But he giveth more grace.”
15. We are living in the dispensation of grace, but it will soon be over.  Soon the Lord will return for His saints.  And then God will pour out His wrath upon this sin-loving world because they have rejected the Gospel (cf. Rev. 6:12-17).

II. GOD’S HAND IS STRETCHED OUT UPON ALL THE NATIONS.

1. God’s hand is stretched out upon all the nations (Isa. 14:26b).
2. There is coming a day, and it could be very soon, when all the nations will join forces to attack Israel (cf. Zechariah 12:1-3; 14:1-4).
3. In the Bible, Israel’s enemies are referred to as God’s enemies (cf. Psalm 83:2).
4. Psalm 2:1-3 says, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”
5. Everything happening on the world stage today is pointing to the Battle of Armageddon, which will take place on the plain of Megiddo in Israel.
6. Ezekiel 38 and 39 describe Russia and her allies invading Israel.
7. Daniel 11:44 refers to “tidings out of the east” that shall trouble the antichrist on his way to Armageddon.
8. Both Revelation 9:13-16 and 16:12 refer to China’s role in the Battle of Armageddon.
9. Revelation 16:12 describes “the kings of the east” (China) crossing over “the great river Euphrates.”
10. The great river Euphrates forms the eastern boundary of the ancient Roman Empire, and the book of Revelation tells us that the Chinese army will come from the Orient and cross the Euphrates River in order to participate in the Battle of Armageddon.
11. Interestingly, the number of the horsemen is declared to be two hundred thousand thousand or two hundred million (Rev. 9:16).
12. Never in the history of the human race until now has there been an army of that size. The total number of men under arms in World War II on both sides of the conflict together never was more than fifty million.
13. “It is at least of more than passing interest that Red China alone claims to have a man and woman militia engaging in serious training numbering two hundred million (Time, May 21, 1965, page 35), precisely the figure mentioned in Revelation 9:16” (John Walvoord).
14. The rise of Asia is another indication that the world is moving toward its final climax and the end of “the times of the Gentiles” prophesied by our Lord in Luke 21:24.
15. In Asia, as in other parts of the world, the stage is being set for the final drama in which the LORD will stretch out His hand upon all the nations (Isa. 14:26).
16. Today our country owes China a staggering 739 billion dollars (in US treasury bonds). Furthermore, we owe Japan 634 billion dollars.
17. Our government is digging itself deeper and deeper into debt.  The situation has gotten so out of control that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has expressed concern about the fate of Chinese investments in the United States.
18. He has warned President Obama to cut back on his reckless spending.  You know things are bad when the president of the greatest country in the world is scolded by a communist dictator!

III. NO MAN CAN DISANNUL GOD’S PURPOSE (ISA. 14:27).

1. There are over 300 prophecies concerning Christ in the Old Testament.  Over 100 of them were accurately fulfilled at His first coming, leaving over 200 –more than twice as many– to be fulfilled at the Second Coming of Christ.
2. Our Lord Himself made many prophecies regarding His second coming.  He said in His Olivet Discourse, “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.  For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together” (Matt. 24:27, 28).
3. The Lord has given us many warnings in the Bible. We see in the book of Genesis that Noah warned the people that God was going to destroy the world by a flood.
4. This warning is referred to several times in the New Testament (cf. Luke 17:26, 27; Hebrews 11:7; I Peter 3:20; II Peter 2:5).
5. There are many references in the Bible to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah – both in the OT as well as the NT.
6. It is recorded in Genesis 19, and then referred to twice in Deuteronomy, four times in Isaiah, three times in Jeremiah, once in Lamentations, six times in Ezekiel, then once by Amos and Zephaniah.
7. It is mentioned six times by our Lord in the Gospels, once by Paul in the book of Romans, then once by Peter, once by Jude, and once in the book of Revelation.   Why so many times?  Jude 7 says, “for an example.”
8. No man can disannul God’s purpose (Isa. 14:27).
9. We see in the Bible detailed prophecies regarding the coming tribulation, catastrophic judgments upon the earth, wars and rumors of wars (and “commotions” – Luke 21:9), leading up to the Battle of Armageddon. 
10. The Bible has much to say about the coming antichrist – “the beast” – who will force everyone to take his mark in either their right hand, or in their foreheads (Revelation 13).
11. Jesus said, “all these things must come to pass” (Matt. 24:6).  In other words, “For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it?” (Isa. 14:27).
12. Revelation 6:17 says, “For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”

CONCLUSION:

1. The other day I read an article entitled, “Is America Coming Apart?” by Pat Buchanan.
2. Mr. Buchanan refers to the breakdown here in the USA.  He says, “Consider but a few issues on which Americans have lately been bitterly divided: school prayer, the Ten Commandments, evolution, the death penalty, abortion, homosexuality, assisted suicide, affirmative action, busing, the Confederate battle flag, the Duke rape case, Terri Schiavo, Iraq, amnesty, torture. Now it is death panels, global warming, ‘birthers’ and socialism. If a married couple disagreed as broadly and deeply as Americans do on such basic issues, they would have divorced and gone their separate ways long ago.”
3. But it is not only the USA which is falling apart.  Europe is in far worse shape.
4. Europe has become a “post-Christian society.” It is rapidly losing its connection to its tradition and its historic values. The numbers of believing, observant Christians has collapsed in the past two generations to the point that less than 1% of the population could be called born again, Bible-believing Christian.
5. In Europe, there are far more Muslims worshiping in mosques than there are Christians attending church.
6. Europe’s low birth rate means indigenous Europeans are dying out. Sustaining a population requires each woman on average to bear 2.1 children. In the European Union, the overall rate is only 1.5 for each woman, and it is falling.
7. For the EU to sustain its socialistic system requires an astonishing 13.5 million immigrants annually.
8. Most of these 13.5 immigrants are Muslim. But whereas Europeans are not reproducing, Muslims are reproducing in large numbers.
9. One observer described the dismal situation this way: “The peaceable transformation of a region from one major civilization to another, now under way, has no precedent in human history…Current trends suggest Islamization will happen, for Europeans seem to find it too strenuous to have children, stop illegal immigration, or even diversify their sources of immigrants. Instead, they prefer to settle unhappily into civilizational senility” (Daniel Pipes).
10. America and Canada are not far behind.
11. Out of this chaos and confusion will emerge the antichrist, referred to as “the king” in Daniel 11:36 (cf. 11:36-39).