[9] Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: [10] Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. [11] Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. [12] Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. [13] Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. [14] Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. [15] The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. [16] The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.  Joel 3:9-16.

Verses nine through eleven describe the final gathering of the Gentile nations for the last great battle of the Tribulation Period, the Battle of Armageddon.  Verse twelve identifies a specific valley in Israel where God’s sickle will come down hardest in his judgment – the valley of Jehoshaphat.  Some biblical expositors of today locate this valley by identifying it as the Kidron Valley between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.  But I believe this location is in error. Why? This identification was made by Jerome in the fourth century, more than one thousand years after the death of Joel.  The valley of Berachah in II Chronicles 20:25-29 is most likely what was identified by Joel as the valley of Jehoshaphat.  I believe this to be the case because about one hundred years before the writings of Joel, Jehoshaphat had won a great national victory in this valley over the heathen nations surrounding Israel.  Those nations sought to “cut off Israel from being a nation.”  This great valley is located between Tekoa and the road from Bethlehem to Hebron.  It is a broad, rich vale, watered with copious springs, affording space for the encampment of a great army of men.  Oddly enough, it just happens to be located eight miles west of the geological fault that goes down into the underground lakes of magmatic hell

When the great sickle of verse thirteen plunges into the earth in Israel, the Jordan Valley press will be full and overflowing with vast hoards of mankind whose “wickedness is great.”  Verse fourteen outlines the great number as “multitudes, multitudes,” and identifies it as the time of God’s final decision on antichrist and his armies.  Verse fifteen describes the effect that the volcanic smoke will have on the heavenly bodies as it collects above Israel.  Just as the antichrist believes he has won, with his armies controlling the land from Dan to Beersheva, God will have His angel put in the sickle of Revelation 14:19,20, and the valley of Jehoshaphat, plus the Jordan Valley itself, from the Gulf of Aqabah some 185 miles northward, will become a raging inferno (See Birth Pangs 15, 16, and 16A).  Verse sixteen affirms that all of this will be wrought by God to demonstrate He “will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.”

The raging inferno of the Jordan Valley will be what geologists call a flood basalt plain (See Birth Pangs 15, 16, and 16A).  It will extend from the Gulf of Aqabah for some 185 miles (1600 furlongs) to the intersection shown with the off-shoot fissure shown on Figure 26 (Click on Figures at top of this Birth Pang).  The penetration of this Haifa off-shoot fissure, via Tel Megiddo,  into the long north-south Jordan graben, will not allow the ripping action, described in Birth Pang 14A, to tear any further northward than the 1600 furlongs prophesied by John in Revelation 14:20.  The temperature of the lava, which will spurt up as fountains of what looks like blood on both sides of the Jordan Valley, will be in excess of 2200 degrees Fahrenheit.  The horizontal heat cloud, released from this sudden ripping, will instantly consume human flesh, eyes, and tongues on contact.  When you are made aware that Zechariah’s Hebrew word, translated as “plague,” literally means “destruction” or slaughter,” and that his Hebrew word “consume” literally means “melt,” it is much easier to understand how God, and not man’s weaponry, will destroy the people that have fought against Jerusalem in Zechariah 14:1-3.  God’s destruction of these people is vividly described in Zechariah 14:12.

[12] And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. Zechariah 14:12.

A blast of air, received from being near a sudden basalt eruption, would instantly melt the flesh of a body while it was still standing in place.  Most of the antichrist’s army will be destroyed, not by man’s atomic radiation, but by the surfacing igneous fires of our mighty God.  He will sit in judgment in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and his judgment will be a judgment of fire on the evil vine of the earth, which He will cast into his great 1600 furlong winepress.