River of Prophecy
The Euphrates !
...
INTRODUCTION
It has been estimated that a third of the
Bible deals with future events. Some of these have been fulfilled; some await
fulfilment. God even throws out His
challenge to other gods to foretell things to come. ( Isaiah 41:4,21-22;
42:8-9; 43:9; 44:6-7; 46:20-21
etc ! )
Yet the subject of Bible prophecy is sadly neglected in many churches. It may well be the disservice committed
by pop-prophecy specialists and date-setters has contributed to this state of
affairs. Here is, what seems to me , to be a classic example
Revelation
14:20 speaks of a river of blood
two hundred miles long that will come up to
the horses bridles. ( Revelation by J.Hyles p.79 ) Such
is the common view of a school of prophetic interpretation known as
Dispensationalism.
Revelation 14: 20 They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses' bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia.( That is, about 180 miles )
The problem is
a river 200 miles long would not fit into the Land of Israel anyway. Let
alone six feet deep !!! The Book
of Revelation is couched in symbolism
and not every statement therein is to
be taken literally.
..
(1) CONCERNING THE LAND OF ISRAEL
God
promised a certain territory to Abrahams descendants
from the Euphrates to
the river of Egypt. This latter river is not a reference to the Nile but the
Wadi El-Arish. Any good Bible Atlas
will confirm this. It is situated on the border of Egypt and Canaan.
Genesis 15 NIV
18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram
and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from
the river of Egypt to the great river,
the Euphrates- 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites,
Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,
21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."
(a)
The Fulfilment
1 Kings 4:21,24 tells us that during the reign of Solomon this territory
belonged to Israel. 1 Kings
4 :21 And Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River [1]
to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These countries
brought tribute and were Solomon's subjects all his life.
. 24 For he ruled over all the
kingdoms west of the River, from Tiphsah to Gaza, and had peace on all sides.
(b)
The Denial
The Dispensationalists
It
is difficult , in the light of the above reference, and others ( e.g. 2
Chronicles 9:26) to read the claim of the Dispensationalist that Israel has never yet possessed the land promised to Abraham. (
Commentary by J.Gray p. 127) Yes, they did ! But they lost
it because Gods promise was conditional upon their obedience to Him
(c
) The Conditions
Deuteronomy 4:23
Be careful not to forget the covenant of the LORD your God that he made with
you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the LORD your
God has forbidden. 24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a
jealous God.
25 After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in
the land a long time-if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol,
doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God and provoking him to anger, 26
.you will quickly perish from the land
that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long
but will certainly be destroyed.
Again
if the nation of Israel disobeys God
Deuteronomy 28: 63
Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it
will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land
you are entering to possess.
64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one
end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods-gods of wood
and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 Among
those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your
foot.
(d) The Implications !! Our interpretation of this promise to Abraham has far-reaching
implications. (a) There are those who think Christians should support Israel in
the present Middle-East crisis. Simply because, they say , the land was given
by God to Abraham and his descendants.
Maybe they forget that Arabs are his descendants also ! In any case ,
the promise was conditional
and the Jews forfeited any claim to the land by
their disobedience.
(b)
Millions of Dollars are raised by Friends of Israel ( & similar groups) to
bring Jews back to their land. Millions !!! And not one word is
said about pointing these Jews to the Saviour .
We should be committed to what God is committed to and at the moment it is the regathering of Israel. (V.Schlatter in Challenge Weekly ; 9-9-2002)
No! we should be committed
to bringing Jews ... and Gentiles
to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
(c
) It is the Dispensationalist view that there must be a Thousand Years
of Peace ( known as the Millennium)
after the Second Coming so the Lords promise to Abraham can then be
finally fulfilled ! But if it has already been fulfilled in Solomons day
what need is there for 1000 years of peace between the Second Coming and
Eternity ?
(e) The N.T. Allusions
??? Nowhere in the New Testament is there any reference
to the Jews returning to re-possess the Land of Israel. Verses quoted by
Dispensationalists are from the Old Testament and have to do with the return of
the Jews from their Babylonian captivity.
(2) CONCERNING THE BATTLE
OF ARMAGEDDON
Revelation 16 NIV
12The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates,
and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. 13Then
I saw three evil[1]
spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out
of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14They
are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings
of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God
Almighty.
15"Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake
and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully
exposed."
16Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew
is called Armageddon.
17The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the
temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, "It is done!" 18Then
there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe
earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on
earth, so tremendous was the quake. 19The great city split into
three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon
the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. 20Every
island fled away and the mountains could not be found. 21From the
sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they
cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so
terrible.
So what is
all that about ?
(a) The Context
One does not jump into the middle of the
Book of Revelation without knowing the context. In this case one should
study Rev. 1:1 16:11 before one starts on 16:12 !
(b) The Sevens
Chronological or Parallel
?
Are the 7 Seals ( Ch. 4 7) followed by
the 7 Trumpets ( Ch. 8 11) followed by the 7 Vials (Ch. 11 17)
or do they
run parallel?
Ch 6 --------------------- 7 SEALS --------------------- Ch 7.
Ch. 8 ------------------- 7
TRUMPETS--------------------- Ch. 11.
Ch. 12 ---------------------7 VIALS ----------------------------- Ch. 17 .
The 6th. Seal ( Rev. 6:16-17 ) and
the 6th. Trumpet ( 11:15-18) and the 6th Vial (16:6-17)
all seem to point to the End of the World.
(c
) The Interpretation
Literal or Symbolic
? Like the rest of Revelation , the
passage before us (16: 12-21) is a symbolic picture of the Last Day.
(d)
The Identification
To understand it more fully we need to identify the Beast and the
False Prophet. They have already been
mentioned in an earlier chapter.
( 13:1, 7, 11)
Without
a study of those verses it is useless to try to unravel the meaning of 16: 13.
!!!
(e)
The O.T. allusions . And there are Old
Testament passages that have a bearing on this portion of Scripture. Lets look at one of them.
..
(3) CONCERNING THE
RESTORATION OF JERUSALEM
Isaiah 44 NIV
Jerusalem to Be Inhabited
24 "This is what the LORD says-
.
I am the LORD ,
who has made all things,
who alone stretched out the heavens,
who spread out the earth by myself,
..
.who says of Jerusalem, 'It shall be inhabited,'
of the towns of Judah, 'They shall be built,'
and of their ruins, 'I will restore them,'
27 who says to the watery deep, 'Be dry,
and I will dry up your streams,'
28 who says of Cyrus, 'He is my shepherd
and will accomplish all that I please;
he will say of Jerusalem, "Let it be rebuilt,"
and of the temple, "Let its foundations be laid." '
(a) The
Addressee
In this prophecy God is speaking to Cyrus the Great , Ruler of
the Persian Empire. ( Isaiah 45:1)
(b)
The Prediction
It is he , Cyrus, who
will lead the Medes and the Persians against mighty Babylon, conquer it , and
deliver the Jews from their 70 year bondage.
(c
) The Fulfilment
. Herodotus , the Father of History ( b. 490 BC.) tells how Cyrus diverted the Euphrates that
flowed through the midst of Babylon. Note vs. 27 !!!
His army entered along the dry river bed and took the city. ( Penguin Classic Edition p. 191)
(d
) The N.T. Allusion
Now
we are ready for another look at that passage in Revelation 16:12-21 !
12The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East.
Just
as ancient Babylon fell when the armies from the east( Medes & Persians
) dried up the Euphrates and conquered it , so Spiritual Babylon ( vs 19)
will one day fall , and Gods people will be delivered. Nothing will literally
happen to the literal Euphrates !
Revelation 17 helps us identify what is meant
by Babylon
3. There I saw
a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and
had seven heads and ten horns. 4The woman was dressed in purple and
scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a
golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her
adulteries. 5This title was written on her forehead: MYSTERY BABYLON
THE GREAT THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. 6I
saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those
who bore testimony to Jesus.
7When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. Then the angel said to
me: "Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of
the woman and of the beast she rides, which has the seven heads and ten horns. 9 The seven heads are seven hills
on which the woman sits.
Notice the angel explains
the symbolism of the 7 heads
a city built on 7 hills. Rome !
And in contrast to the true blood-washed
church of the Lord Jesus which is depicted as a pure virgin ( Rev. 19:7-8),
here John sees a drunken scarlet clothed woman representing an apostate
church. Anyone familiar with the
history of Christendom will have no difficulty in identifying this woman as
Roman Catholicism. Its location,
wealth, colours, cruelty, heresies
they are all alluded to in this
passage.
To return to
Revelation 16
13Then I saw three evil[1] spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
Revelation
12: 9 identifies the dragon as Satan
possibly at work through Pagan Rome. (Revelation
12:4-5 explains that the Dragon sought to slay the Lord Jesus at the
time of His birth
and that was Pagan Rome !)
The
Beast .. I suggest
is the Papacy , the Popes of Rome. And the False Prophet may well be an
apostate ecumenical Protestantism.
14They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.
At the end of the age evil spirits will be
wreaking havoc in the world.
15"Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake
and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully
exposed."
But John is aware of the Lords return to save His people
and
the need for constant readiness on their part. We need to put on
and keep on
the whole armour of God ! ( Ephesians 6:11)
16Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew
is called Armageddon.
Armageddon is the term used because the
plain of Megiddo was the scene of numerous battles in Old Testament days. It
was here Barak routed the Canaanites , Gideon put the Midianite host to flight,
Saul & Jonathan did battle with the Philistines and good King Josiah fought with the Egyptians.
Since Bible days this same plain has seen the Crusaders do battle with the
Moslems , Napoleon fought the Turks and the British forces under General
Allenby against that same enemy. (
Great Nights of
the Bible by C. McCartney ..p.147) And Armageddon is used here in a symbolic sense for the
last great battle betwixt God and the forces of evil.
17The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the
temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, "It is done!"
18Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. 19The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. 20Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. 21From the sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible.
CONCLUSION
The prophecy of Abrahams descendants possessing a certain area of land came to
pass. The prophecy of Cyrus conquering Babylon came equally true. And the final destruction of the ungodly at
Armageddon is just as certain.
Rev. 16: 15"Behold, I come like a
thief!( Unexpected !!) Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes
with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed."
AMEN !
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River of Prophecy
The Euphrates !
..
INTRODUCTION The
Importance, neglect and abuse of Bible prophecy !
e.g. The river of Blood ! Revelation 14: 20 They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses' bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia.( That is, about 180 miles )
..
(1) CONCERNING ISRAEL
Genesis 15 NIV
18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram
and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from
the river [1] of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates-
19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,
20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites,
Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."
(a)
The Fulfilment
1 Kings 4:21
(b)
The Denial
The Dispensationalists
(c
) The Implications !! Whose Land today ?
(2) CONCERNING ARMAGEDDON
Revelation 16 NIV
12The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates,
and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. 13Then
I saw three evil[1]
spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out
of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14They
are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings
of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God
Almighty.
15"Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake
and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully
exposed."
16Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew
is called Armageddon.
17The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the
temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, "It is done!" 18Then
there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe
earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on
earth, so tremendous was the quake. 19The great city split into
three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon
the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. 20Every
island fled away and the mountains could not be found. 21From the
sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they
cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so
terrible.
(a)
The Context
( Rev. 1:1 16:11 ??)
(b) The Sevens
Chronological or
Consecutive ?
(c
) The Interpretation
Literal or Symbolic ?
(d)
The Identification
the Beast ? The False Prophet ?
(e)
The O.T. allusions .
.
(3) CONCERNING JERUSALEM
Isaiah 44 NIV
24 "This is what
the LORD says-
.
I am the LORD ,
who has made all things,
who alone stretched out the heavens,
who spread out the earth by myself,
..
.who says of Jerusalem, 'It shall be inhabited,'
of the towns of Judah, 'They shall be built,'
and of their ruins, 'I will restore them,'
27 who says to the watery deep, 'Be dry,
and I will dry up your streams,'
28 who says of Cyrus, 'He is my shepherd
and will accomplish all that I please;
he will say of Jerusalem, "Let it be rebuilt,"
and of the temple, "Let its foundations be laid." '
(a) The
Addressee
Cyrus
(b)
The Prediction
Jerusalem restored !
(c
) The Fulfilment
. Herodotus !!
(d
) The N.T. Allusion
Revelation 16:12-21
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CONCLUSION
Prophecies
of the past have been fulfilled
and, just as surely, so will those of the
future !
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