*Title:* The Gathering — Pastor Kyle Baldwin, February 28, 2026

There is perhaps no other book in the Bible that stirs such strong emotion as Revelation. Some churches, Pastor Kyle Baldwin recalls, simply refuse to touch it — it is too complicated, too symbolic, too intimidating. But Revelation opens with a blessing on everyone who reads it and keeps what is written in it, “for the time is at hand.” It is, as its title says, a revelation of Jesus Christ, given so that God’s people can understand the last days rather than fear them. And at the center of this sermon stands the word everyone argues about: Armageddon. From Revelation 16:16 — “he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon” — Pastor Baldwin asks the question that unlocks the whole passage: who is gathering whom?

The answer begins with a careful look at the word itself. The dragon, the beast, and the false prophet — an unholy trinity — are gathering the kings of the earth for the battle of the great day of God Almighty (Revelation 16:13–14), and the physical wars of our headlines, Pastor Baldwin warns, are a distraction from this spiritual battle that is gaining steam. Many assume Armageddon means the ancient city of Megiddo, but the Greek word carries a hard breathing mark — it is really “Harmageddon” — and in Hebrew, “har” means mountain. Megiddo cannot be it, because the Bible itself calls Megiddo a valley (2 Chronicles 35:22). Instead, the phrase is “har moed,” the mount of the congregation from Isaiah 14, where Lucifer longed to sit upon God’s throne: the place where the angels gather to worship God, and the place to which the powers of evil gather the world.

Daniel 11 completes the picture. The king of the north enters “the glorious land” — glorious because God’s people keep His commandments there — and the devil, furious that a commandment-keeping remnant still exists (Revelation 12:17), gathers the world to surround them. But God’s people are not gathered in one place on a map; they are gathered in a time, the Sabbath, when believers in every country on earth worship together. The sermon closes with the promise of the gathering time, when God will heal and bind up His people: come out of Babylon, worship God, keep His commandments — not by determination and grit, but by surrender, Christ living in us — and be gathered under the blanket of Christ’s righteousness. Are you ready to come to Har Moed?

*Key texts:* Revelation 16:13–16; Revelation 16:15; Revelation 1:3; Isaiah 14:12–14; Daniel 11:36, 11:40–45; Daniel 7:25; Ezekiel 20:6; Psalm 85:9; 2 Chronicles 35:22; Revelation 12:17

*Watch:* https://youtu.be/IjzZneZ1GH0 · *Listen:* https://cloud-1de12d.becdn.net/media/original/a64d1f75432d61c79c574b9dc5060695.mp3