Rev 16:12 The 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.
the Euphrates river has dried up. We have seen rivers drying up before. Exodus 14:21 with the Red Sea; Joshua 3:17 with the Jordan; Isaiah 11:16 for the Egyptian sea men could pas through and remain dry; Jeremiah 51:36 was the threat from God to dry up the sea and finally, Zechariah 10:11, the Nile to dry up. All of the above mentioned are signs of Gods power. Can this be done...YES!! and it will be done again, here.
Who are the "kings from the East"?
Possibilities:
The "lost 10 tribes of Israel"?
Persia, Afghanistan....
If you look at the wording of "the east" it can also mean "the sun-rising". Could this have something to do with Japan (the kingdom of the rising sun)? Might there be a future ally with India? East vs West?
Lets look at it in context with verses 13-16. These verses are parenthetical, they are in parenthesis, this will happen between the 6th and 7 bowls and explains who the kings will be.
13 Then I saw three evil 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. 14 They 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.
The kings are the kings of the Earth who are not under the influence of the Antichrist, but will be convinced to work with him. The kings will be gathered by the spirits out of the mouths of the Dragon, beast and false prophet. So, could we summarize that the speech coming from the mouth of these three could be the demons and would be the convincing of these kings to be an ally? Know this, the word for spirit is pneuma which happens to be the word for breath. Maybe....but it could mean a literal evil spirit.
Why frogs? Well frogs are associated with plagues, generally noisy, unclean animals. So if it is not literal, then the speech these persons are making are dirty,noisy, empty words and promises.
We already know who the players are, right?
The Dragon is Satan
The Beast is a man that will be a powerful agent for Satan. The Antichrist. (Some say it was the Roman Empire, prior blogs explain why I do not think it is.)
The False prophet....Wait, this is the first time we have heard of him.
Actually,The false prophet is the second beast. He is actually called this three times, here in chapter 16:13, then again in chapter 19 and a third time in chapter 20. Two times he is associated with the "First Beast" (the Antichrist) and once with the Dragon (Satan). Since we know that both of the Beast and the Dragon are "persons" so should this be.
Look in Matthew 24:24 "For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible" This is Christ talking. Notice there is two separate mentions of Christs and prophets, therefore, they cannot be the same. We also know that the "Second Beast", the False Prophet comes up out of the Earth...Resurrected person? Maybe, why not?
It does say that they will
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."
Does this passage sound familiar? It should.. Christ has warned us before.
16 Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon
Well, the kings have been "riled up" and are ready for a final fight, but where???
Here is another big question, where is Armageddon going to take place? The big battle between good and evil.
Other versions of Bibles have different spellings and names for Armageddon. Moffatt has Harmagedon, Revised Version displays Har-Magedon. Magedon might have something to do with Megiddo, the Plain of Esdraelon, a highway from Egypt to Damascus. It is actually already a great battleground.
Armageddon can translate to mean the city of Megiddo and Harmagedon can translate to mean the mountain of Megiddo. Many scholars are going with the second. There is more info that needs to be included here. look in Ezekiel 38 & 39 where the description of the battle with Gog and Magog, the final fight was going to be in the mountains of Israel. John may be talking of the Mount of Megiddo, it would fit with prophecy.
This, like other issues in Revelation, will just have to be seen.
The seventh bowl on the next blog.
Blessings on all,
Calabash
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