A Brief Parable of the Time of the End – Revelation 16: 12-16
We shall now use one portion of Yahweh’s sure word of prophecy (Revelation 16 :12-16) to help us sketch the spirit’s broad outline and compare it to other well-known prophecies so as to bring into focus a clear, consistent and united picture. We see at present the providential manipulation and preparation of those powers (the Russian autocrat, France, Germany, the false prophet and the Tarshish power with its young lions), which the sure word of prophecy has warned us in advance will be prominent as we approach the crisis of “the time of the end”. We have the inestimable blessing, that having been granted the key to unlocking prophecy through a correct understanding of the gospel, we should not be taken unawares. “You are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober…having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1Thessalonians 5:4-9).
Wrath is the destiny for this world and all the nations of this world. With respect to Yahweh’s culminating judgements John was shown a “sign” in the political heavens, “great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished” (Revelation 15: 1). “The sixth angel poured out his vial (or bowl, ESV) on the great river Euphrates”. Here was the 6th of the 7 last plagues (Revelation 15:1). The 7 last plagues have their historical basis in those judgments Yahweh inflicted on the ancient Dragon Sin power of Egypt, when He made a separation between his people and her “Gog” persecutor of that time, when it was ready to devour her at the point of her national birth. The accumulated effect of these last 7 plagues witnessed the deliverance of Israel from the hand of the ancient Gog, and a way was prepared through the Red Sea, through which the children of Israel passed—a way which ultimately proved to be the Sin power’s utter destruction (Exodus 15).
This sixth angel poured his vial on the “Euphrates”. As we have shown many of our interested friends in PNG, the context of a portion of scripture we are studying is all important, and that needs to be established in the passages in which it is placed and in the broader theme of the book in which it appears. “The great river Euphrates” was last mentioned in Revelation 9:14 in relation to the blowing of the 6th Trumpet which has an apocalyptic symmetry with the 6th vial, for both have to do with the Turkish empire—one with its inundation and the other with its drying up. In the first reference we read of the providential releasing of four angels or messengers (four divisions of the Turkish armies in four waves of invasions) who were “bound at the great river Euphrates” (ESV). As we know, rivers are those places peoples have always congregated; peoples are defined geographically by rivers, and nations and empires are symbolized in scripture by rivers. The nation of Turkey was bound geographically by this river, and in its overflowing, bursting its banks from this location, it speaks to us of the spread of its empire inundating all the Middle East and much of Europe. This was in accordance with the providential execution of God’s judgements, as bro. Thomas reminds us “His (Ottoman Turk) mission was to punish the Greek catholics, and the Latins also to some extent, for their excessive superstition and idolatry, with the loss of their sovereignty over ‘a third part’ of the Latino-Greek Babylonian empire; and not to extinguish temporarily or finally the Little Horn Power”. These judgements upon the Byzantine Empire (the eastern leg of the Roman empire) climaxed in 1453 when the Ottoman Turks took Constantinople. This catastrophe caused the Greek Catholic Church to transfer its base, to form what was called the third Rome at Moscow.
The 6th vial reverses this inundation and dries up its river, a process that must culminate again with the fall of Constantinople and overthrow of the Turk, whose occupation of the ancient Roman military capital was only to be for a set time; in terms of Daniel 8 and its prophetic extension in chapter 11, an aberration. “The occupation of the Dragon's throne” says bro. Thomas, “by a non-catholic royalty is clearly exceptional. The Ottoman has never, as a matter of fact, ‘magnified himself above all’; nor has he honoured the Latin Bishop as a god in his dominion, or shown himself at all a gracious patron of his saints and their temples. The power causing falsehood, or False-Prophetism, to prosper, must hold Jerusalem at the crisis of the accomplishment of the indignation. By False-Prophetism, I mean, papalism. Hence, the Sultan must be ejected, that a dynasty patronizing a High Priest who forbids to marry, may come in. When, therefore, the Czar gets possession of Constantinople he will not be hostile to the pope. On the contrary, he will honour and acknowledge him, and be the enemy of the Holy Land” (Exposition of Daniel Section 18 - “The King”, or Constantinopolitan Autocracy)
Bro. Thomas’ exposition was originally bound with Eureka in 1868 before the Bolshevik revolution which overturned the Czarist regime and before Turkey became a republic in 1923 as a result of the drying up process of the Ottoman empire. Both of these events were caused by the contagious spirit of the French Revolution subsequent to the wars of Napoleon of the first 5 vials. Yet bro. Thomas’ reference to the Czar getting possession of Constantinople is more relevant today than it was when he penned the above words.
God’s prophecy through Daniel and Revelation 16: 12-16
Russia, as foretold in Daniel 11:40 “at the time of the end” is destined as “the king of the north” to “rush upon him like a whirlwind”. The “him” is a reference to the king who is the subject of v’s 36−39 whose capital was Constantinople, modern day Istanbul. He is destined to do so because it is the divine decree for the Image empire (Daniel 2) whose interpretation was revealed to Daniel, to be caused to stand up-right in terrible posture against the mountains of Israel, that is to control, for the first time in history, all the territories under one head, of which all the images several parts consist. For the Image to stand upright, its feet must first be formed, and one of those feet must be founded in Constantinople as a later day extension of the eastern Roman empire and occupied by a Greco-Roman-Russian autocrat. Bro. Thomas states:
“This scene has never been exhibited before the eyes of the world, because the constituents of the Colossus have never yet been put together so as to form the Image of the scene. These constituents are represented by the different metallic parts, as the Chaldaeo-Assyrian golden head; the Medo-Persic-Assyrian silver arms and breast; the Macedo-Assyrian belly of brass; the Greco-Assyrian, and Greco-Egyptian, northern and southern thighs of brass; the Latino-Assyrian and the Greco-Assyrian eastern and western iron legs; and the Russo-Greek Assyrian and Latino-Assyrian iron and clay feet and toes. Now, while the head, breast and arms, belly, thighs, legs and toes, have all existed, the Feet have not yet been formed; so that it has been hitherto impossible for the Colossal Image to stand erect, as Nebuchadnezzar saw it in his dream. It is, therefore, the mission of the Autocrat to form the feet and set up the image before the world in all its excellent brightness, and terribleness of form; that all men subject to the Kingdom of Babylon may worship the work of its creator's power. When it stands upon the Plain of Dura the imperial fabric will rest upon the Russo-Greek and Latin Feet and Toes…” (Exposition of Daniel Section 26 - Nebuchadnezzar’s Image the Symbol of the Gogian Autocrat’s Dominion).
We would expect that the above compelling exposition, if true—which from our youth as students of bible prophecy are convinced it does in fact reflect what Yahweh has long foretold— should be likewise reflected in other prominent prophecy dealing with those events which describe the same crisis of “the time of the end”. That should especially be reflected in that prophecy, to which this generation of God’s servants stand uniquely related—Revelation 16: 12−16. It is the mission of the Russian Autocrat to form the Russo-Greek and Latin Feet and Toes = the Dragon, the Beast and the false prophet (Revelation 16: 13) from which mouths a united policy issues that is unclean, demonic and frog like, “to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty”. This must happen before the Colossal Image can stand erect on the mountains of Israel = “And they (the same unclean, demonic policy of the united Dragon, beast and false prophet or the Russo-Greek and Latin Feet and Toes) assembled them (the kings of the whole earth) at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon” = the standing up of Gog’s image empire.
The Vision of the little horn of the goat and the 6th Vial of Revelation 16
Daniel 8 opens with a vision concerning horns. Its main subject is “the little horn of the goat” or the Greco-Roman power which tramples underfoot the holy land, city (Jerusalem) and its people for a period of 2,300 evening/morning—or a day of 2300 years of desolation, because of Judah’s great act of rebellion in the rejection and crucifixion of their “Prince” and Messiah. The last event described of this long period of desolation before “the holy is restored to its rightful state” is the giving over of the holy (Jerusalem and its people) to be trampled underfoot in AD70, over 1900 years before! The way in which the spirit presents these two events is as if no time at all has passed between the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 and the return of Christ to break off the horn of the goat so that “the holy” can be “restored to its rightful state”. Why? The eternal spirit’s words clearly implied by verse 14 that it is the same Greco-Roman horn in occupation of exactly the same part of the earth i.e. “the Holy” (the holy land, it’s city and its people the Jews) at “the time of the end” so that the Holy can be “purified” of this defilement and avenged of her adversary.
The angelic interpretation (verses 20-26)
The second half of Daniel 8 describes the angelic interpretation of the vision which deals with kings and their kingdoms in explaining the horns. In contrast, however, to the vision, the explanation quickly passes over the kings of Medo-Persia and of Greece and of its prominent king Alexander the Great, to concentrate on the four kingdoms that were to arise after his providential premature death; for out of one of them (the Seleucid) “a king of fierce or shameless countenance” was to arise. This king representing a series of emperors who would control the Greco-Roman empire and is described not only in explanation of the vision to destroy Jerusalem in AD70, but is then further described as the means by which “deceit” or “the lie” of how people were robbed of the knowledge of the true God was to develop in the earth. “By his cunning he shall make (religious) deceit to prosper under his hand, and in his own mind he shall become great”. “These few words” says bro. Thomas are not only “descriptive of the character or nature of the power since Constantine the Great set up its throne in Constantinople to the present hour”; but “will be so pre-eminently, when its administration shall pass from the Sultan to the Autocrat of all the Russias. As the head of a confederacy of the adherents of the Greek and Latin churches, it will be his policy to cause their priesthoods to be respected as useful co-operators in the subjection of Europe to his will”. As paganism restrained the development of “the man of sin” in his first representative, Constantine the great, until it was taken out of the way, so communism had to be taken “out of the way” that Putinism as the champion of orthodoxy enable “the lawless one revealed”.
As bro. Thomas again reminds us “The high exaltation of the Constantinopolitan Autocracy in ‘the time of the end’, previously to its standing up to ‘be broken without help’ by Judah's Commander in Chief, is predicted in the words, ‘He shall become great above all’. Impious and cruel as Antiochus Epiphanes, and superstitious and fanatical as Justinian, with the arrogance, ambition, and profanity of the Latin Prophet in his palmiest days, this Sin-power administered by a Russian regime, will be wanting in none of the arrogance that has been predicated of Paul's ‘MAN OF SIN and Son of Perdition’… (2 Thess. 2:3, 4, 8, 9). This is not exclusively applicable to the Latin False Prophet; but to the power comprehensive of the civil, military, and spiritual elements as described by Daniel, and designated by Isaiah as "The King for whom Tophet is ordained of old" (Isa. 30:27-33; 31:8, 9). When the sceptre falls from the feeble hands of the Sultan, the world will behold in his Muscovite successor a potentate not surpassed in presumption and impiety by any of his predecessors, not excepting Pharaoh of the olden time” (Exposition of Daniel Section 18 – “The King”, or Constantinopolitan Autocracy).
Following the pattern of Daniel 8: 13-14, the last thing the spirit describes in verse 25 before we are taken forward some 1700 years, is Constantine and his successors support of the apostacy, when again, as if no time has passed, this king “without warning shall destroy many”. The eternal spirit wants us to understand that the last characteristic which defines “the king,” the representative of “the little horn of the goat” at the time of the end is that he will be the great supporter of the apostasy centered in the west at Rome. The very character of “the king” or emperors who ruled the united Roman empire under its Pagan/Christianized religion in its past will be reincarnated in Gog whose destiny is to reunite east and west and all the territory of Daniel’s four beasts of chapter 7, and shall “rise up against the prince of princes.” So, Daniel 8:25, as expanded in chapter 11:36-45, describes this king in the very character of Rome’s military emperors occupying the ancient capital of the eastern empire, Constantinople, and having the same policy as the Papacy which it supports, ultimately draws him to Armageddon where he “shall be broken—but by no human hand” (verse 25; Daniel 2:34; 11:36-45). This shows us that the primary fulfilment of the 2300 evening-morning prophecy coincides with the smiting of Nebuchadnezzar’s image (Daniel 2:35 at Armageddon, Revelation 16: 16). Before this can take place, the images feet must be formed, and as a part of this process Russia must control Constantinople when it is providentially used to finish that essential part of the pouring out of the 6th vial “on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up” (Revelation 16: 12).
The way for the kings from the east
The drying up of the Turkish Ottoman Empire began as a direct result of the contagious spirit of the French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon, which is the subject of the first five vials, and need to be kept in view as we consider the judgments of God as they extend from the western Roman empire to the east, and which culminate on all that combined territory that will briefly be united under the control of the Russian autocrat. The pouring out of the first five vials resulted in the overthrow of the holy Roman Empire and the loss of the temporal power of the papacy. It is an interesting exercise to trace the historical markers so influenced by the spirit of the French Revolution, which as signposts, clearly designate the drying up of the Euphratean power. Though these historical signposts are traced back to events not long after the French Revolution and the Napoleon wars involving the whole of the Middle East, much of Europe and Asia. The spirit directs our earnest consideration to a very specific area which we might say was made accessible and divinely “prepared” as a result of the Turkish Ottoman inundation being “pushed” back (Daniel 11:40). The highly significant events connected to the Great War of 1914-18 when the British—a foreign power occupying Egypt as “the king of the south,” —with the help of her “young lions,” pushed the Turkish power out of the middle east and in particular Israel; so that when all the divine “preparations” are concluded, all the major players in their final phase of development are gathered to “the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon” (Revelation 16:16; Note Joel 3: 1-3, 11-16). Then it will not be the king of the south which thrusts at the king who controls Constantinople, liberating Jerusalem from his control as he did in 1917, but the king of the north as the little horn of the goat, who shall “overflow and pass through” and in “pitching his palatial tents between the sea and the glorious holy mountain” will in his brief possession of Jerusalem, provide the circumstances. The significance of these events is explained under the 6th vial as “to prepare a way” and connects the extraordinary drama of the pouring out of the 6th vial with the epoch of the most important time period of the Spirits revelation—“The Time of the End”.
The divine “preparation” achieved by the 6th angel pouring his vial out on the Euphrates centres on Judah and Jerusalem as “the way” through which the kings of the east—Christ and his immortal saints, will enter “Babylon the great” as a thief, to begin the overthrow of the kingdom of men. The pouring out of the 6th vial also of necessity “prepares” the kingdom of men in its final phase as depicted in Daniel 2 & 7, so it might stand ready to be smitten and broken in pieces “altogether” as a part of the judgements of the 7th vial. Likewise, the kings of the east must be “prepared” before the climax of the 6th vial—The assembly of the kings of the whole world “at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon” = the standing up of Nebuchadnezzar’s image.
The smiting of that Image’s feet is the object of the immortal saints, against which they come as that little “stone cut out by no human hand”, so as to deliver Israel from her oppressor and “restore all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago” (Acts 3: 21). The “way” in terms of Revelation 16: 12 could not therefore be “prepared” until the Jewish people occupied the mountains of Israel and specifically Jerusalem, made possible by the drying up of the Turkish or “Euphrates” power from the land that God covenanted to Abraham and his Seed. This drying up process is not complete until Russia assumes the position of “the little horn of the goat” by its control of Constantinople—“its water” (Turkish political power) will then be completely “dried up” and then the Russian autocrat will unite the Greek and Latin catholic nations of Europe east and west in alliance with the papacy so as “to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty”. Finally, “the kings from the east” or “out of the suns rising” have themselves been “prepared” by resurrection, judgement seat and glorification that they may enter as a thief into “Babylon the great” as the anti-typical Cyrus’ consecrated ones, to execute the judgement written, commencing at Jerusalem where Russia causes the image to stand on its feet on the mountains of Israel.
Yahweh’s prophecies through Isaiah and the 6th Vial of Revelation 16
The spirits language associated with the reason for Yahweh’s drying up of the Euphratean power is based upon God’s prophecies through Isaiah. No prophecy deals with the events in the land of Israel at the crisis of Christ coming with his immortal saints to deliver the land covenanted to Abraham and his Seed and the people of the saints more than Isaiah. The Assyrian invasion forms the ominous background to the first half of the prophecy but with hints of the power that would succeed it interspersed. In the second half of Isaiah, Babylon as the destroyer of Jerusalem and its temple is used then as a type of the sin power—“Babylon the great” which is utterly destroyed at the coming of Israel’s messiah, commencing with the overthrow of the latter-day Assyrian on the mountains of Israel. Cyrus the Persian king is described as a “king of the East” (Isaiah 41:2) and is spoken of as a type of the Messiah (Isaiah 45:1–4) along with his “consecrated ones” (Isaiah 13:3) was to be divinely used to overthrow ancient Babylon. The means Cyrus employed forms the basis of the spirit’s language with respect to the drying up of the Euphrates of the sixth vial. Cyrus commanded a great channel to be dug so as to divert the waters of the river Euphrates at a critical time so that his armies, as a thief in the night, might enter the impregnable City along its “dried-up” bed. The spoil dug from this diverting channel was placed between it and the city, concealing from the Babylonians, Cyrus’s true intention, who thought the Persians were attempting to build great ramps against the city walls. It was however not concealed from the prophet Daniel, who had studied God’s prophecy through Isaiah, in which the drying up of the river and the coming of “Cyrus” with his “consecrated ones”, Yahweh’s prepared vessel, to capture Babylon had long before been foretold, that he might issue a decree for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the laying the foundation of a temple. (Isaiah 44:27–28; 45: 1-7).
The witness of Yahweh’s servants in the night of Babylon’s debauchery and Revelation 16: 12-16
Before the city was overthrown, Daniel was caused to bear witness of the Eternal and only true God’s purpose in the midst of Babylon’s intoxicated. Surrounded by those inebriated with unbridled lusts, Daniel was commanded to stand, but was not to be taken “unawares.” He was “fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape” (1Thessalonians 5: 2−3). He had “stayed awake” not knowing on what day to expect his Lord, “not knowing in what part of the night the thief was coming,” “in an hour you are not thinking”. He was that “faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household (in Babylon) to give them their food at the proper time, and was found so doing, when he, who was “like the Heir” (Hebrew contraction of the name Cyrus) suddenly came and an alarm was raised; “Wail, the day of Yahweh is near; as destruction from the destroyer, it will come!” (Isaiah 13:6). Daniel was not “cut in pieces” and “cast out with the hypocrites” where there was “weeping and gnashing of teeth” but was pronounced as “blessed” by his master and was “set over all” Cyrus’s “possessions” (Matthew 24:42-51).
Do we dare to be a Daniel my dear brethren and sisters? May we proclaim the gospel at “the time of the end,” remembering we were buried with Christ Jesus “by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life”. If we have been “raised with Christ let us seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Let us set our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For we have died, and our life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then we also will appear with him in glory. Let us put to death therefore what is earthly in us: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience” (Romans 6:4; Colossians 3: 1−6). We have this reassurance that as “a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time” develops that we “are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1Thessalonians 5: 4−9). “Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!” (Revelation 16:15)
Daniel was brought in haste before the pontiff-King of Babylon in the midst of his thousand Lords in drunken praise of its mysteries. From the very sacred golden vessels Daniel had so long been the appointed guardian, now full of abominations and impurities of Babylon’s immorality, lifted high in praise of “the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and of stone, which see not nor hear, nor know,” but the power of which, these idol worshippers deceived themselves was evidenced by past victories depicted on the plastered walls of the banqueting hall. There upon that wall was the anti-Semite’s favorite depiction—the destruction of Jerusalem and the burning of the house of the Jews’ god illuminated by the lamp. The maniacal laughter had not yet quite past from the blaspheming tyrants face when on the wall opposite the lamp, the fingers of a man’s hand wrote on the plaster of the wall—a writing concealed from the wise of Babylon until Yahweh’s faithful servant stood before the unhinged ruler and pronounced Babylon’s doom: “This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; Peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians... That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed” (Daniel 5).
Belshazzar, his devotion to the Babylonian superstition, arrogance, pride and anti-semitism and destruction by Cyrus and his consecrated ones, is a type of Gog—the Russian autocrat against whom Yahweh’s “wrath will be roused, His blazing wrath… when he summons a sword against Gog on all my mountains.” He is a type of the king of the latter-day Assyrians for whom “Topheth (a burning place) has long been prepared.” He is a type of “the little horn of the goat”, who will unite the Dragon and Beast under one Babylonian head making “religious deceit to prosper and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many. He shall also stand up against the Prince of princes and he shall be broken—but by no human hand”. He is a type of “the king of the north” whose ambition is to “pitch his palatial tents between the sea and the glorious holy mountain. Yet he shall come to his end, with none to help him”. He is “the Lucifer, son of the morning” of Isaiah 14, as the head of the latter-day Babylonian power will realize his ambition for a short time to rule his Image empire from Zion and Jerusalem! “The Autocrat,” writes bro. Thomas “as chief emperor, will become in the progress of events ‘Lord of the Ascendant’, even the Agag (or ‘Gog’ as translated In a number of ancient versions) of the East and West; shining forth from his lofty throne as Lucifer, son of the morning, over the nations weakened by the gratification of his insatiable ambition… the time is coming when he will "think an evil thought" (Ezek. 38:10), and say in his heart, as it is revealed of him, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the Mount of the Congregation (Zion) in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High!" (Isa. 14:13, 14). He who made man, and knows thoroughly the vanity and presumption of the human heart, has spoken thus of Belshazzar the type of the last occupant of the throne of the Kingdom of Babylon. A man of such a soul as this is not upright, and therefore unfit to rule the world for God; for "He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of Yahweh" (2 Sam. 23:3). His dominion's duration must therefore of necessity be brief. But while it lasts, he will prove himself to be "a proud man, who enlargeth his desire as the grave, and as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto himself all nations, and heapeth unto him all peoples... lading himself with thick clay" (Hab. 2:4-6) (Exposition of Daniel Section 25 – Future Magnitude of the Gogian Dominion).
Israel is caused to rejoice in the opening verses of Isaiah 14 because of the great salvation rort by the anti-typical Cyrus, who delivers them from the cruel bondage of the latter-day Babylonian power. Israel, delivered from their fear, sorrow and bondage, takes up the spirit’s taunt, “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!” (Isaiah 14:12)
Note well the characteristics that Isaiah 14 uses to describe this latter-day Babylonian power and the antitypical Belshazzar, and compare it to the cruelty and remorselessness of Putin’s Russia, “that struck the peoples in wrath with unceasing blows, that ruled the nations in anger with unrelenting persecution… Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities, who did not let his prisoners go home?’” (Isaiah 14:6, 16). We have seen what the Russian backed forces have done in Syria, where whole cities have been destroyed and the country turned in to a desolate wilderness. Do the above words hint of far worse unleashing of weapons of mass destruction including tactical nuclear weapons by this tyrannical psychopath? “A time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time” (Daniel 12: 1) indicates unprecedented measures, even compared with WW2, adopted by the Belshazzar of “the time of the end” to realize “the gratification of his insatiable ambition”. On the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin threatened that “anyone who tries to interfere with us … must know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never before experienced in your history” and that Russia possesses “certain advantages in a number of the latest types of weapons.” As soon as the Russian invasion commenced, Putin announced an “enhanced combat alert” of the country’s nuclear forces. The announcement was no doubt designed to discourage NATO from intervening and to intimidate Ukraine. Nonetheless U.S. national security officials expressed concern that Russia could use tactical nuclear weapons, as this is consistent with Russia’s military doctrine of “escalate to de-escalate,” in the event NATO forces were drawn into direct conflict with Russia. Could Putin use such weapons even if NATO did not directly intervene, if there was no other way to achieve his insatiable ambition or if his very hold on power in Russia was threatened by a long-drawn-out bloody insurgency? The fact that Putin and his highest-ranking commanders have at times run the war in Ukraine from top secret nuclear bunkers has led to suggestions by military analysts that Putin may be prepared to deploy nuclear weapons.
The tactics the Russians have used in Syria are being deployed in Ukraine against fellow Slavic cousins who speak similar language and of the same orthodox religion. This also is prophesied of him; “you have destroyed your land; you have slain your people” (Isaiah 14: 20). In tyranny he oppresses his own land and people compelling them to be “cannon fodder” in his thirst for conquest, compelled to sacrifice their lives in his service. Depending on the progress of his military ambitions, his envoys will speak of “peace” to allow time to regroup and resume with renewed vigor “the gratification of his insatiable ambition”. The Times has reported of President of Ukraine Zelensky call on the world to recognise Russia’s war crimes as genocide during a visit to Bucha, the site of a mass grave dug under Russian occupation. “’You stand here today and see what happened,’ he said, wearing a bullet-proof vest and flanked by troops. ‘We know that thousands of people have been killed and tortured with extremities cut off, women raped, children killed. It’s genocide’.” If the Russian autocrat has treated his own people and fellow Slavic cousins in such a way to obtain his vision of a restored historical glory for Russia and in “magnifying himself in his heart” as its providentially raised up Caesar, the guardian of orthodoxy, what shall he not do to obtain Jerusalem. “For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city” (Zechariah 14:2). This is not a morbid detail to colour the prophecy or even prompt sympathy for the victims, the word of God is always carefully measured; its addition provides yet another divine marker of what countries’ soldiers will lead the plunder of Jerusalem. The war crimes the Russian army is perpetrating on the Ukrainian civilian population is a horrifying pattern that prophecy tells us will be repeated. There has always been rape in war, going back to the abductions of women by Greeks recorded by Herodotus 2500 years ago. Time and again however, war rape has proved particularly prevalent when Russian troops are involved in a conflict. There has been so many rapes in Ukraine that a special hotline has been set up and is having to operate 24 hours a day, doubling the number of psychologists counselling those calling. But this is thought to be just the tip of the iceberg, as many women and young boys are too scared to come forward, while forensic police say that in uncovering bodies in the region many bear signs of rape. Young Russian soldiers committed these acts publicly often in front of other family members and were shouting “We want to do this to every Nazi…in Ukraine”. The Russian army raped an estimated 2 million women in 1945 in their occupation of Berlin. Domestic violence is tolerated in Russia, the Russian parliament has even adopted controversial legislative amendments that decriminalized battery offenses of family members! A UN report in 2017, estimated roughly one in ten women killed worldwide through domestic violence was Russian.
We can clearly see what is coming upon the earth because Yahweh has “revealed his secret to his servants the prophets” (Amos 3: 7). It is only a matter of time, “the set time” and providential guided circumstances all of which are in Yahweh’s power. What shall restrain the multitudes under Gog’s command when driven by the “demonic spirits” (Revelation 16:14) which enter “the kings of the whole world”, causing them to rush head long to be “heaped up like sheaves into a valley for judgement” (Revelation 16: 16)? They shall be made to drink the wine of Yahweh’s wrath and “shall drink and stagger and be crazed” (Jeremiah 25: 16) as the herd of pigs into which Legion’s madness had entered, all rushed violently down the precipice, lunging on top of each other and drowning in the maelstrom (Luke 8:33).
The Vision of the Image (Daniel 2) and the 6th Vial of Revelation 16
The Image empire’s head is Babylonian. Therefore, its religion must be rooted in the apostacy which emanated from its mysteries, and its restored military capital will be Roman, not Islamic. Both its legs are Roman; therefore the Russian autocrat who will take up his position like Constantine, overseeing his image empire stand on its feet from his seat in its eastern leg could never be an atheist communist, but a superstitious icon worshipper who galvanizes the Russian empire together as Constantine did of old by the same Roman religion. The feet of that image therefore can never be formed until the Russian autocrat takes Constantinople and forms an alliance with the Papacy, for the feet consist of miry clay mixed with the Iron of Rome. It is when he has control of Constantinople that he will contemplate that last prize which long ago was placed in the hearts of the Russian Caesars—to have Jerusalem in his grasp! Then as the “guard” (Ezekiel 38:7) of orthodoxy and in union with the beast through the support of the papacy, he will cry aloud, “I defy the ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man, that we may fight together” (1Samuel 17:10).
“And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty” (Revelation 16:13-14).
The last occasion the Dragon is mentioned in association with the beast is apocalyptically found in its 13th chapter, which is an amplification of Daniel chapter 7 and the 4th beast which the prophet saw, “exceedingly terrifying, with its teeth of iron and claws of bronze, which devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet, which had 10 horns on its head, and another horn that came up before which 3 of them fell that had eyes and a mouth and spoke great things”. What brother Thomas describes as “the Constantinopolitan Little Horn Power in its final 4th beast manifestation” is depicted in the above quotation from Revelation 16 as being formed. “The Goat’s Little Horn (Daniel 8) and the god he honours (Daniel 11: 36-39) are equivalent to the Beast, the Little Horn with its Eyes and Mouth, and the Ten Horns, at the time of the breaking of the Goat-Horn (Daniel 8: 25)” that is at “the great day of God the Almighty” to which the united policy of the Dragon, the beast and the false prophet draws the nations to so assemble. As Revelation 13 is the last occasion the Dragon is mentioned in similar association with the beast, the Lord Jesus therefore expects his disciples to follow the apocalyptic theme previously presented to help us understand what is soon to come to pass.
In Revelation 13:1–5 we see depicted the rise of the papacy in the west is directly traceable to the support of the emperors of Constantinople or the dragon power. The time period of verse 5 of 42 months or 1260 years during which this power was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them (verse 7) concluded with the events of the French Revolution, the subject of the first 5 vials of Revelation 16. If we would calculate back 1260 years from the events of the French Revolution, we arrive at a most important Epoch of how the papacy began its ascendancy. Instrumental to this process, bro Thomas states, “The ‘policy’ of the Little Horn king (Dragon) in his Constantinian successorship to AD 1453 was, and will hereafter be, characterized by zeal for the baptized paganism known in history as the catholic religion. Justinian of all its crowned heads affords the most striking illustration of Daniel’s description of it… He was persuaded that it was the duty of an emperor, and for the good of the state, to have a particular care of the Church, to defend its faith, to regulate external discipline, and to employ the civil laws and the temporal power to preserve it in order and peace… to promote the temporal and spiritual interest of the Church was the serious business of his life; and the duty of father of his country was often sacrificed to that of defender of the faith.” (Exposition of Daniel Section 18 – “The King”, or Constantinopolitan Autocracy).
“Justinian, whom I have indicated as the fittest representative of the civil element of the Power that has yet appeared in Constantinople in its dealings with the god, delighted to honour him. In a celebrated letter written by him to the Bishop of Rome, dated March, 533, and which thenceforth became part and parcel of the civil law, he is recognized, or ‘acknowledged’, as the legal head of all the churches of the eastern and western provinces of the empire. ‘We suffer not,’ says the imperial writer, ‘anything that belongs to the state of the churches to be done without submitting it to your holiness, who art head of all the churches’. In this way ‘the king who does according to his will’, acknowledged this ‘strange god’ as of supreme spiritual authority over all ‘the Bazaars of the Guardians’, which became his” (Exposition of Daniel Section 19 – A God of Guardians, or the Latin Prophet of the West).
Revelation 13:1–5 describes how the imperial 6th head of the beast or Roman power in the west, which had received a deadly wound through the invasion of the Goths, was later healed by the military power of Justinian. This caused the whole Roman earth to marvel and to follow this papal beast, and to worship the Dragon “who had given his authority to the beast” (verse 4). Reference to the Dragon disappears from the Apocalypse except in the fact that the beast of the earth or holy Roman Empire manifested similar Dragon like characteristics (Revelation 13:11), until the Dragon’s dramatic reappearance at the time of the end as recorded in Revelation 16:13. This is deliberately reminiscent of the prophecy of the little horn of the goat (Daniel 8) or Roman power in its destruction of Jerusalem and standing up against “the Prince of the host” with its religious character alluded to in verse 25, which Constantine the great initiated in the establishment of the Catholic Church. In this prophecy, as previously mentioned, the same Roman power lead by a Constantine-like czar, Gog, is depicted confronting the Prince of princes at the time of the end when this Roman power is at last broken.
When again we read in Revelation 16:13−14 of this same combination of powers as found in Revelation 13, where the Dragon was depicted acting in unison with the beast and the Bishop of Rome to establish its power over the Roman earth. They are united in their determination as expressed by their unclean froglike policy, which in gathering the nations of the earth, forms the feet of Nebuchadnezzar’s image. This can only occur as the result of the final drying up of the Euphrates in the fall of Constantinople to the King of the North. Daniel chapter 8:25 states that “through his policy he shall cause (religious) falsehood to prosper by his power.” We again emphasize brother Thomas’ understanding that these words have both an historic and time of the end application, “These few words are descriptive of the character or nature of the power since Constantine the Great set up its throne in Constantinople to the present hour; and will be so pre-eminently, when its administration shall pass from the Sultan to the Autocrat of all the Russias. As the head of a confederacy of the adherents of the Greek and Latin churches, it will be his policy to cause their priesthoods to be respected as useful co-operators in the subjection of Europe to his will.
This ecclesiastical policy of the Constantinopolitan Autocracy is enlarged upon in the description of it set forth in the eleventh chapter, where it is more particularly regarded in its catholic constitution without taking into the account the division of the Babylonian superstition into Greek and Latin catholic churches. Whatever may be the individual prejudices existing between individuals of the two schisms matters not…on the principle of self-preservation will have to place themselves under the shadow of the Autocrat, as Greeks and Latins have already done in the present dominions of the Czar.” (Exposition of Daniel Section 18 - “The King”, or Constantinopolitan Autocracy).
By comparing Revelation 13: 1−8 with 16:12–14; & 17:1–14, we can see that John was shown that the historical development of the papacy was recorded in such a way that God’s servants would see the apocalyptic pattern as having a latter day, time of the end fulfilment, i.e. a revival of the papal influence supported by the military power of Constantinople. As we have seen, it was the tradition of the Roman emperors in Constantinople to honour the papacy (Daniel 11:36–39). This will be repeated when Constantinople falls to the Russian autocrat and becomes the latter-day manifestation of the little horn of the goat – “the Romano-Greek Babylonian”. Gog will use the papacy to consolidate its power in Europe before rushing head long into the Middle East. Let us remember Justinian ruled from Constantinople over the Byzantium empire which included Syria, Israel, Egypt, Northern Africa, Italy and southern Spain, giving authority to the Pope to become the head of all churches. Gog’s ambitions will not be replete until he has become the Dragon’s later day emperor placing orthodoxy’s capital back in its sacred throne in Justinian’s Hagia Sophia. From there his ambition of One Empire (Christendom east and west united); One Religion (unification of the papacy and orthodoxy) and the worship of the One god (the holy trinity) will not be possible until he controls, like Justinian, the holy places at Jerusalem. Gog’s confederacy driven by this unsatiable desire and the lust of Israel’s wealth will assemble at last by the unity of the unclean, demonic and frog like spirits, “at the place that in the Hebrew is called Armageddon” (Revelation 16:16).
Daniel 8:25 anticipates not only through the little horn of the goat’s policy “he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand”; but also in magnifying himself in his heart, he “by peace shall destroy many” (KJV). This implies that before this peace which is embraced so enthusiastically by the Roman earth, there must have been a European war—a war we are witnessing unfold at this very hour which threatens the European Union itself! By the “peace and safety cry” (1Thessalonians 5:3) the Russian autocrat will cause Europe to Confederate with him and turn at last against that last non-European anti-Catholic illegitimate member of the European family, the Turkish occupant of the Dragon seat—Constantinople.
It was after the death of Justinian and the power of Constantinople over the west declined, that the Bishop of Rome, no longer able to enforce its decrees, sought for a protector against the Lombards from the central European frog Power which caused the rise of the beast of the earth or the holy Roman Empire. Following the same apocalyptic pattern after Gog is destroyed on the mountains of Israel, the false prophet will seek the protection of the beast against what it will decree is the coming of the Antichrist then established on Mount Zion! (Psalm 2). This beast is described as a resurrection of the beast of the sea, the final phase of Daniel’s 4th beast which the apostle John saw as “a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names and it had 7 heads and 10 horns…. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations’” (Revelation 17:3 – 6).
“When the Autocrat gains Constantinople, and Russianizes Italy and the West; and having superseded the Ottoman régime in Asia, comes as Gog to invade the Holy Land and to besiege Jerusalem, the Little Horn of the Goat will again represent the power of the whole dominion briefly united under one chief, and he the proudest that ever exalted and magnified himself above all the rulers upon earth. In that near future the Little Horn of the Goat will be ‘exceeding great’, over-shadowing all the sovereignties represented by the Two-Horned, and Ten-Horned, Beasts, and the Pseudoprophet of the Beast. But when it is ‘broken in pieces without help’ it appears no more as a symbol upon the prophetic page. Its mission in the Holy Land and against Judah ends with its own Pharaoh-like destruction; and the East delivered, future events re-open in the West, where only a Beast, the False Prophet, and the Ten Horns, their Russian Constantinopolitan confederacy being dissolved, remain to be ground to powder, and destroyed by fire and sword” (Exposition of Daniel Section 18 - “The King”, or Constantinopolitan Autocracy).
The 6th vial in summary
Revelation 16:12 – “The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up” = “At the time of the end, the king of the south shall attack him (1917, British occupying Egypt drives the Turk out of Israel) but the king of the north shall rush upon him like a whirlwind” (Russia takes Constantinople to become the little horn of the goat or Dragon Roman power).
Revelation 16:13 – “I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs.” The fall of Constantinople to Russia provides Rome with a strong Justinian-like military ally sympathetic to its catholic values which the corrupt “West” no longer upholds. A common “frog” policy issues first from the mouth of the Dragon (Constantinople, at last the re-established throne of the guardian of orthodoxy, Christians and catholic values) proposes true “Liberty, equality and brotherhood” of man, as the means of universal “peace and safety.” This can only be obtained by Justinian’s example of one empire, one religion and the worship of one god through the vicar of Christ.
Revelation 16:14 – “to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.” The adoption of this frog policy causes an alliance to form between Russia as the “little horn of the goat”— Eastern Roman empire with “the beast” or Roman catholic ten-horn power of western Europe with the spiritual blessing of its false prophet who proclaims “peace on earth and good will among men!” This alliance forms the feet of Nebuchadnezzar’s image prior to it being able to stand on its feet on the mountains of Israel. This alliance and its policy objective unifies the east and west of the latter day Roman empire, but cannot be obtained until the millennia-old question of the Jews be eternally settled. This can only be achieved by Gog’s guardianship of Jerusalem’s holy places.
Revelation 16:16 – “And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.” = The standing up of Nebuchadnezzar’s image on the mountains of Israel smitten at Armageddon by the “thief-like” (v’s15) intrusion into Babylon the great of the kings out of the Sun’s rising - Revelation 16: 12.
Revelation 16:15 – “Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!” The parenthesis is placed in association with the going forth of the demonic spirits which form the feet of Nebuchadnezzar’s image. Integral to this is the preparation provided by the fall of the Dragon’s throne to the king of the North and is the reason why the drying up of the Euphrates power commences the 6th vial, “to prepare the way for the kings from the east”— the blessed of Yahweh, who watched and kept their garments. “The blessing is not simply to him that watcheth; but to him that “watcheth and keepeth his garments.” Simply to believe that the Lord is near, and to be able to discern the signs of the times, will not entitle a man to the blessing. He must “buy gold tried in the fire; and white raiment, that he may be clothed, and that the shame of his nakedness do not appear; and anoint his eyes with eye-salve, that he may see”. In other words, he must believe “the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ;” follow the example of the Samaritans and the baptized into the name of Jesus Christ; and thenceforth perfect his faith by his works, as Abraham did. He will then be a lamp, well-oiled and trimmed, and fit to shine forth as a glorious light at the marriage of the Lamb” (Elpis Israel Part Third Chapter III “Behold I Come As A Thief”).
