Revelation 16:12-16

Revelation chapter 16 verses 12 through 16 for our text and study this morning. And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates. In the water thereof dried up that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. and I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils. Working miracles which go forth under the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments lest he walked naked and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. May God bless through us his sacred and holy word this morning. Now if you read through the vile judgments, they sort of remind you of the plagues of Egypt. which makes perfect sense. When we think about the focus of this chapter, is on a judgment on Jerusalem, which in Revelation 11.8 is called, spiritually, it’s called Egypt. And so we see the connection. God calls these final judgments upon apostate Israel the seven last plagues. Using the word plagues here, reminding us again of the Genesis or Exodus of. account. Now we’ve already looked at the first five vials and their judgments. The first vial judgment was the grievous soar. We took this literally using Deuteronomy 28, 27, and in verse 35 where God promises if they became apostate, he would judge them in this way. The second vial in verse three is the sea being turned to blood. we talked about the souls in the sea dying, and so we applied this to the sea battles that the Romans had with the Jews and the slaughter of the Jews there. The third vial is verses 4 to 7. We have the rivers and springs of water turned to blood. And here we have the water supply corrupted by all the blood flow and the dead flow and the dead bodies and the Jordan River being just piled up with corpses and so forth. The fourth vial, verses 8 and 9, that we have the sun scorching men with great heat. So this kind of language is used to describe great suffering, miserable conditions. Jesus used it in the parable of the solar, you recall, in explaining it as a time of persecution, suffering, so forth. The fifth vial in verses 10 and 11, we said it has two parts to it. The first part, in first part of verse 10, 10a, the throne of the beast is struck with darkness. Here we applied this to Nero and the near collapse of the Roman Empire after his death. And then, in verses 10b, B, and through 11, we talked about the effect that this had upon apostate Israel, because the focus is still on apostate Israel for the most part. We said the word they refers to the Jews and not to the Romans. Verse 6, it refers to the Jews when the word they is used. Verse 9, it refers to the Jews when they is used. And verse 11 makes it clear that these. These are the same people who had their pains and their sores because of the plague that we talked about the first plague in verses 1 and 2. So it seems very clear that it refers to the Jews, not the Romans. We talked about the delay that occurred in assaulting Jerusalem, allowing the warring factions within the city to make conditions unbearable, so much so that the people within the city long for the Romans to attack. And so that’s where we left off. Now we have the sixth vial. Verse 12, we have the drying up of the Euphrates River. Now, why is this significant? Can anyone tell me how ancient Babylon fell? The strategy of Cyrus, the Persian, the Persian, in conquering. ancient Babylon was to dry up the Euphrates River. The river, you recall, was running through the city. The city was, Babylon was actually built around the river, so that they always had a water supply running through it. Well, Cyrus went up river, diverted the river, and therefore dried up the water flowing flowing into the city so that the soldiers could go under the wall through the, in the riverbed and come up inside the city, and that’s how he conquered the city, by the drying, if you would, of drying up the Euphrates River. What is Jerusalem called in the book of Revelation? What is its main, what’s the main word? Babylon. So we begin to see that the fall of Jerusalem, which he’s going to take up in the seventh vial, beginning with verse 17, he’s going to talk about Babylon falling. It is preceded by some type of drying up the Euphrates River here. Well, this is a symbol. It is meant to portray here Titus, the Roman general, returning to finally besieged Jerusalem and to conquer it, and God is saying he’s going to make the way easy for the enemies of Israel to come swiftly from the frontier camps along the Eupradis River, and the kings on the other side of it will come with the Romans as auxiliary troops and attack with the Romans. Russell in his pariscia puts it this way. Translated in historical terms, this symbol represents the mobilizing of the forces of the empire and of the kings of the, neighboring nations for the Jewish war. The drying up the Euphrates seems plainly to signify its being crossed with ease and speed, the drawing of troops from that quarter for the invasion of Judea. This we know from historical fact. Not only Roman legions from the frontier of Euphrates, but auxiliary kings whose dominions lay in that region, such as Antiochus of comma genii and so hemis of sophrine most properly designated kings from the east followed the eagles of Rome to the siege of Jerusalem. Joseph also comments on this when he talks about the location of the troops and we find that he talked some of them coming from Euphrates in his 612 of his wars. He also moved himself together with the rest, beside whom marched those auxiliaries that came from the kings, being now more in number than before, together with a considerable number that came to his assistance from Syria, those also that had been selected out of these four legions, and sent with messianus to Italy, had their places filled out of those soldiers that came out of Egypt with Titus, who were 2,000 men chosen out of the armies of Alexandria. There followed him also 3,000 drawn from that guarded, from those that guarded the Euphrates River. Indeed, kings did supply considerable. military help to the Romans, and many of the kings were from the east, so that the whole army, including their auxiliaries sent by the kings as well as the horsemen and foot soldiers, were all united together, and he drew from Syria, he drew from Egypt, and they attacked. So the Euphrates rivers dried up in the sense that God makes it easy for these other kings to come. Any questions about that? The second section here has to do with the demonic influence here in verse of 13 and 14. I saw three uncleaned spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, for they are the spirits of devils, working miracles which go forth under the kings of the earth, and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. During the late 60s AD, we find that the Roman Empire was experiencing both civil and foreign wars. And we know that we talked about this a little bit with the end of that period, what happened with the vile judgment, the fifth vile judgment, darkness coming over the kingdom. Well, the great Roman Empire was fracturing. Revults were taking place in various providences besides Palestine. The whole decade was one of turmoil, strife, division, ending, we said, with Nero’s suicide, and the year of the four emperors, where various… Roman generals tried to take over the empership, and then someone else from a different area would try to conquer him and maybe knock him out of the way and take over as the emperor, and so forth. So Rome did not have firm control of its empire. The rule, then, of the empire was in a chaotic state. Now, any allies of Rome would have serious misgivings in joining in with any endeavor here and committing any support to Rome, they took a wait-and-see attitude. You would think that would be the wise course of action, because they didn’t know who was going to actually be in power. So how could the Roman legions from these different areas who had perhaps diverse leanings about who should be in power joined together? and Roman allies join with them, who thought maybe it’s best to avoid any commitment or involvement at this point, how could they ever be united in a common cause to conquer Jerusalem? Well, the answer to this seems to be demonic persuasion, attended with various miracles, pseudo-miracles, as we talked about in the past, to sort of convince people to do this. In this manner, the loyalty and commitment to the cause of enabled Titus here to field this vast army to do the work. Steve Gregg, in his book of Revelation of the Four Views under the Preterst View, has an interesting paragraph. Here’s what he says. The armies are gathered to battle through the influence of three unclean spirit, like frogs, verse 13, originating from the devil and his two chief cohorts. The mention of frogs may allude to the second Egyptian plague, Exodus 8, 1 to 15, which would agree with the assumption that Jerusalem, which is spiritually called Egypt, 118, of Revelation, is the city under attack in the vision. Natural Egypt was just a judge of Revelation. judged by natural frogs. Spiritual Egypt is afflicted by spiritual frogs. An interesting thought on this. And the purpose is to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. Now, what these people don’t realize, that the armies are actually brought together to fulfill God’s purpose. They have their own purposes. But God is the one who is the one who is directed. things overall so that he is gathering them to accomplish this purpose. Now, we have a similar situation here, but what we had in the days of King Ahab. Do you remember what the prophet Micahia said? If you would look with me at 1 Kings chapter 22, there’s an interesting passage of scripture here. Versus 19 to 22. of chapter 22 of first kings, where King Ahab is trying to enlist Jehoshaphat and attacking Jabesh Gilead and getting it back off of the enemy. And he just asked by Jehoshaphat to, why don’t you see if there is not a prophet of the Lord? His own prophets, King Ahab’s own prophets. Oh yeah, go up, you’re going to be successful. And Jehoshaphat, being a godly king, says, well, isn’t there a prophet of the Lord here we can get? And so they reluctantly, King Ahab reluctantly calls Micaiah to come. He had been in prison, so he had to take him out of prison. And here’s what he says here. I’ll pick up with verse 19. Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord. Lord sitting on his throne. And all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, who will persuade Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramaph Gilead? And one said on this manner and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, wherewith? And he said, I will go for him. forth and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. He said, thou shalt persuade him and prevail also go forth and do so. Now therefore, behold the Lord had put a lying spirit in all thy prophets, and the Lord has has spoken evil concerning thee. And here we have the idea of God, it seems, using evil spirits to accomplish his purpose here. And these evil spirits are influencing the king to do this. And in the mouth of the prophets, they’re giving this message, which is actually going to leave to the downfall of King Ham. So here we have the armies that are being gathered. They’re coming to bring about Jerusalem’s destruction. Regardless of their own motivation, they’re actually called God’s armies. They’re carrying out his will, demonstrating his almighty power. In fact, if you read Matthew 22, we have the parable of the wedding feast, where the king sends out his messengers to gather people to the feast, and his son’s going to get married, and those who originally invited to the feast refused to come. These were the Jews. and in verse 7, he says, what is the king going to do when these people make all these flimsy excuses and not coming to his wedding feast? He’s going to send forth his armies and burn their city. Of course, he’s speaking about Jerusalem. It’s God’s armies he’s going to use to do this. In other words, God is behind ultimately at all to bring about his purposes. But he’s, the demonic forces here, seemed to be part of the means by which God will move these people to do this. So we have the great day of God Almighty spoken of. This is a day of judgment. It’s a variation of the day of the Lord. Spear speaks of severe judgment and calamity. We read in Joel 115, alas for the day, but the day of the Lord is at hand. as destruction from the Almighty shall it come. So this is the demonic influence. Any question about this passage, these verses? The third thing we see is the need to watch. Verse 15. Behold, I come as a thief, blessed is he that watcheth, keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. Now, this language of coming as a thief is used elsewhere in Scripture to refer to the Second Coming of Christ. We see it in Matthew 2443, verse Thessalonians 512, 2nd Peter 3.10. However, it is also used in the Book of Revelation in reference to a Jesus. judgment coming of Christ. Now, look at chapter 3 and verse 3 of the book of Revelation. Remember, this is to the church at Sardis. Remember, therefore, how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. And so we have the same kind of idea. Odey, this is a localized judgment, a judgment in time, what we would call a judgment coming, not the second coming, but a judgment coming. And it is not its final coming. We find the same kind of language in chapter 2, verse 5, when he talks about, I will come and unto thee quickly, and will remove it. move thy candlestick unless you repent to the book of the people at Ephesus. 216, something similar with regard to the church at Pergamos, he’s going to come. But here in 3-3, he says, I’m going to come as a thief. I’m going to catch you off guard. So there are times when we see this language can be also used for a judgment coming and not necessarily to second coming from Revelation itself. The warning to Sardis is if they fail to watch, they’re not going to know what hour he’s going to come. And it seems like he’s saying you ought to know when I’m going to come. Whereas with the second coming, even those who are watching, we find that no one will know the day nor the hour when the son of man cometh. It seems that Revelation, in 1615 is extending the warning that was given to Sardis to the whole church, particularly those in the danger zone. Here the warning is about being prepared for the fall of Jerusalem, Heating Christ warning to flee the city so that you’re not caught up in it. and so here I think is what is being spoken of. He had given them specific signs that they could watch for so that the escape, they could escape the consequences of this destruction. I don’t have time to look at this this morning, but if you read the first part of Matthew chapter 24 in the all of it discourse, you’ll see that he tells us, many things about this. First, he tells us in Matthew 2434, you can expect this judgment to occur within your lifetime. He says, Verily I say, and you, this generation shall not pass to all these things be fulfilled. He had talked previously in Matthew 24 about wars and rumors of war. He has talked about famines, pestilences, earthquakes and divers places. He talked about false Christ, false prophets on the scene. He talked about the persecution of the disciples. He talked about the gospel being preached in all the world, Matthew 2414, before this judgment comes, and Paul claimed he did that. And we saw from Revelation chapter 14 in verse 6 that it’s also mentioned as one of the indications prior to the fall of Babylon or Jerusalem. In particular, after these preliminary signs, they were to watch for this specific sign, according to Luke’s account of the Olivet discourse, 2120. When you see Jerusalem come past with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is not. That’s as plain as you can get. That’s the explanation of this abomination of desolation that Matthew man. that’s what he’s talking about because Luke explains it for us more clearly in his gospel. Now previously the Roman army had surrounded Jerusalem because Titus was going to conquer it. But then we had the collapse of Nero committing suicide. We had all this chaos taking place. So we halted and he waited. And eventually he took over and assumed the Eppership, Vespasian, and he immediately ordered his son Titus then to commence this attack. So there was a delay. Now, if you were still in Jerusalem, you had to quickly flee. You don’t miss this, you know, you saw the sign, get out. Eventually the Jewish factions would seal the city, and you couldn’t get out, as we talked about previously. Revelation 1615, I think, is being alert. Be prepared. Be aware, watch for these signs, and specifically, if Jerusalem is getting surrounded, you better realize that this may be the last shot that you have. Alfred Edersheim, and he is the temple and its ministry and service, has an interesting take on this particular verse of scripture. I hear. He says, perhaps one of the most striking instances of this kind is afforded by the words quoted at the head of this chapter. Blessed is he that watches, and keepeth his garments. They literally describe, as we learn from the rabbis, the punishment awarded to the temple guards that they fell asleep at their post. The rabbinical account of it is curiously confirmed by the somewhat naive confession of one of their number that on a certain occasion, his own maternal uncle had actually undergone the punishment of having his clothes set on fire by the captain of the temple as he went. his rounds at night because he had fallen asleep and so he ended up naked. So the idea here is that those who do not follow Christ’s warning were going to be shamed before others. One who goes to sleep usually takes off his garments. Now if you were aroused and you’re not prepared and some emergency comes up and you’re undressed, you’re naked. You’re not prepared. So believers are to keep their garments on and be in readiness, not fall asleep so that this doesn’t happen to you. Be alert, be watchful. So this seems to be the focus here. Any questions about this? Yes, Keith. Just a comment about… That’s right. And one must be prepared. For either situation, they should have been prepared for this. And obviously, when when Christ comes, our hearts should be focused on being in fellowship with him all the while so that we are prepared for that day. That’s right. Now the last thing it’s mentioned here, verse 16, we have to talk about Armageddon. And he gathered them together into a place in the Hebrew tongue called, in the Hebrew tongue, Armageddon. Now, one here is Armageddon. We automatically think of the climactic, we automatically think of the climactic battle. that comes at the end of the world. Most of the eschatology, perhaps that you have heard during your lifetime, or if you’ve read any materials by dispensation lists or others, most of the things that you would read will talk about Armageddon as the last battle and so forth. Armageddon literally means, in the Hebrew, the Mount of Megetto. It was talking about a mountain. real mountain in the land of Israel. Mugetto was also a city located in the northern section of Palestine near the border separating Galilee and Samaria. So this is the area where the mountain is at the foot of the mountain there is also a city of Mugeto. It was situated at the south eastern corner of Mugeto near the plain of Jesreal. So here we have the area. Now, Cessaria was the Roman headquarters. It was a coastal town there on the Mediterranean for its military operations in Judea. It was eight miles away from this area. Through this region, however, past the ancient international highway between Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and Babylon. So this is the area where, if you were coming from Babylon to Israel, you would come around the top, like in down, so you avoid the big desert area. Notice that John mentions no battle of Armageddon here. It is a place, he says, where the king, of the earth and of the world would gather. This is in preparation for the attack that will be made on Jerusalem. Babylon, in the seventh vial, which we will look at, Lord willing, next time. This is what Zachariah prophesied. Zachariah chapter 14, verses 1 and 2. Behold the day of the Lord cometh, for I will gather all nations against Jerusalem. Zachary was prophesying of the Roman Empire’s attack against Jerusalem and the various nations that would be involved with the Romans in this attack. From Mount Maggeto area, where the armies would gather, he will proceed to go to Jerusalem for the battle. So Armageddon was the gathering place, but the actual battle is going to be at at Jerusalem, which we’ll take a look at in the next section of this chapter. Any questions about this? Yes, get there’s a Gapharian verse again? Chapter 14, last chapter, first two verses. Talk about it. So we can see that this whole section, if we look at it carefully, is still focused on the issue of Jerusalem and the fall here of Jerusalem. and God’s final judgment come. Any other questions or thoughts? All right. Lord willing, next time we will look at the seventh vile judgment on the great Babylon or Jerusalem and the application of practical application from this chapter, from the whole chapter. Russell, which you will.