Har-Megiddo and the Seventh Bowl Judgment. Revelation 16:12-14

Revelation 16:12 ^NASB “The sixth {angel} poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates; and its water was dried up, so that the way would be prepared for the kings from the east.” This bowl judgment is a little different from the others. The others bring a judgment, something horrific, upon mankind immediately, but this one has no immediate effect on humanity, it simply dries up the Euphrates in preparation for what is about to transpire in the gathering of the armies of mankind against the Lord. The mention of the Euphrates is significant here because it is on the eastern boundary of the land that God had promised to Abraham. Babylon which is the seat of the power which is opposed to God, opposed to Christ, opposed to Israel during the Tribulation, the seat of the power of the Antichrist, is on the Euphrates.

We might ask why in the world we would have to dry up the Euphrates today when we have all kinds of aircraft, amphibious vehicles, and all kinds of devices to ford the river. Apparently technology seems to be somewhat diminished in the end times because of all of the different judgments that take place which will pretty much wipe out a lot of the infrastructure—satellites, technology, etc.—so this will prepare the way for these invading armies to come in from the east. The Euphrates is significant because of that eastern boundary of the land that God had promised to Abraham, so everything from the Euphrates and on up into Syria and down through modern Iraq, all the way across to the Mediterranean was originally part of God’s land grant to Abraham. Israel has never occupied all of that territory and they won’t until the Lord returns and establishes His kingdom. It is significant for that reason.

A question is often raised at this point: is the Euphrates symbolic or literal? This applies also to the mention of Babylon. There was a time when the vast majority of prophecy scholars and teachers taught that Babylon was really a sort of code word for the revived Roman empire, and it wasn’t literal Babylon because literal Babylon was destroyed back before Christ. But the reality is from more study in recent years that Babylon has never been destroyed in the sense that is mentioned in Isaiah chapter thirteen which says that it would be uninhabited, never inhabited again, Arabs would not place their villages there, and that it would be a place where only the jackals and hyenas gather. That has never been true in history. Babylon continued to be a site of habitation through the period of the early church, there were still many Jews who lived there in the time of the early church. Peter wrote to them in 1 Peter. There are those who have taken that reference to be an allusion to Rome but nowhere in the Scripture is the term “Babylon” ever used with this kind of a symbolic value, and that was just a failure to apply a literal interpretation to Babylon. The same thing is true with the Euphrates; it always has a literal reference to the river Euphrates on which the city of Babylon was located. Down through the ages since the close of the New Testament there have been Arab villages that have existed on the site of ancient Babylon, and back in the 1980s Saddam Hussein spent a tremendous amount of money rebuilding Babylon. The Iraqi government today is still rebuilding Babylon and we believe there will be something that causes a resurrection of that city to a future glory and that is will be a prominent economic center in the Tribulation period. Something has to happen to generate that.

It is interesting that the focal point of the major battles and issues in modern world history center on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, all of these areas in the Middle East that figure in and have a predominant role in the period of the Tribulation. So when we look at a map and see these areas that the Scriptures emphasize and the drying up of the Euphrates we are also reminded that this has already played a role in the Tribulation period. If we look back to Revelation chapter nine we see that the sixth trumpet judgment which led to the death of a third of mankind involved a demonic army that has been held in reserve under the great river Euphrates. Revelation 9:13 ^NASB “Then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, [14] one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’” So it seems that there were four angels held in prison (demons as opposed to elect angels) for a purpose. [15] “And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind.” This is some sort of demonic activity engineered that will result in the death of one third of mankind, and the way it is carried out is through this 200-million horseman army. [16] “The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.”

There have been those who have tried to merge this army which comes out of the sixth trumpet judgment with the kings of the east that crossed the Euphrates (e.g. Hal Lindsey) but these are two separate events. The event of the sixth trumpet judgment involves some sort of demonic-engineered plague that will kill a third of mankind, and the event that occurs in the sixth bowl judgment will allow the armies of the east to invade into the area of Israel. The armies of the east were often thought to be a Chinese army but this doesn’t fit. The armies of the east could involve Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, China, Japan, and others. All of these different countries are east and they are armies of “the kings of the east,” so it is more than one, and they are coming across the Euphrates into the land that God promised to Abraham for the purpose of finally wiping out the Jews. They want to finish what Adolf Hitler began with the holocaust. This is the final shot that Satan is talking in order to try to show that God can’t fulfill His promises. Satan is bent on destroying the Jews and wiping them out before God can fulfill His promises to them. Chapter 16:13-16 describe the means by which this is accomplished.

Revelation 16:13 ^NASB “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.” “Unclean spirits” is just another term or synonym for demons. Demons are those who followed Lucifer in his original rebellion against God. This reminds us of the role of Satan in the Tribulation period. We often think of it as a time of Satan’s greatest wrath and work on the earth, and it is, but it is not really mentioned until the twelfth chapter where he is described as the dragon. Demons and evil spirits aren’t even mentioned until the fifth trumpet judgment in chapter nine.

We recognize that the description of the Tribulation actually begins in Revelation 6:1 with the opening of the first seal. There is no mention of the demonic, of Satan, in the seal judgments. The role of demons and Satan is not overt, not even mentioned, until the fifth trumpet judgment in 9:1ff. However, want we do see from the very beginning has to do with the role of angels in the Tribulation period. This is seen from the very beginning in Revelation chapters four and five. This describes what is happening before the throne of God that will lead to the beginning of the Tribulation period, and this has to do with God finally bringing about judgment on Satan and the demons, and on those who follow them (rebellious mankind) during the Tribulation period. What this reinforces for us is the intersection of human history with angelic history. This is so rarely taught today.

Satan was created along with all of the angels at some indeterminate time before Genesis 1:1. In Job 38:4-7 it is clear that the angels, all of the sons of God (indicating that they were united), sang for joy when God laid the foundation of the earth. If we trace out that word “foundation” what it talks about is the initial building of something. It is not talking about the end product. Before God created the heavens and the earth all of the angels existed and were still unified as one body. There was no discord, all of the angels sang for joy when God laid the foundation of the earth. But by the time we get to Genesis chapter three there is clearly Satan, this serpent—identified as such in Revelation, “the serpent of old”—and so obviously then there has been an angelic rebellion. So the angelic rebellion has to have occurred sometime between Genesis 1:1 and the beginning of Genesis chapter three. There is nothing in the text of Genesis 1 and 2 that indicates definitely when that transpired. There are those who believe that it happened sometime after the end of the creation week. As far as we can see the only argument they have to substantiate that is when God came to the end of the six days of creation he said everything was very good. In the Hebrew that word is tob. The word “good” can have a moral connotation or it can just indicate something that is according to plan. A number of creation researchers take this position because, in our opinion, they are reacting to the inappropriate assimilation of old age science, evolution; trying to assimilate that to the Bible by cramming it into some place—day-age theory, the old age gap theory, or something like that, and they are reacting to that. They try to argue that Satan fell sometime after Genesis 2:3. Their argument is that tob is moral and means that there can’t have been sin anywhere in the universe at that time, that Satan must not have fallen by Genesis 2:3. The problem with that is that if tob has as its core meaning the idea of moral purity or righteousness then there is a problem when the word is used the very next time in Genesis 2 describing the fact that the man is alone. Remember Genesis chapter two is describing in more detail the events of the sixth day, so the events of Genesis 2 occur before Genesis 2:3; they occur in the period of Genesis 1:26-28. So when God looks at Adam He says, “It is not good [tob] for man to be alone.” If the word tob has any kind of inherent moral connotation then we have a real problem with male singleness because it would therefore be unrighteous, immoral. But it doesn’t. The word tob simply means something is according to plan. So the one argument that is used to say that Satan must have fallen after Genesis 2:3 doesn’t hold water at all.

In Genesis 1:2 and we read that the earth became tohu waw bohu—without form and void—and darkness was on the face of the deep there are three terms that are used there. If it was just one of those we wouldn’t have a case, but there are three terms used and they reinforce each other. Tohu waw bohu is used in passages in Isaiah to indicate the results of judgment. Darkness in the Bible is never positive; it is always the result of evil. At the end of Revelation when there will be the new heavens and the new earth there will be no sun and no darkness because the glory of God will illuminate everything. There is no darkness at all because everything is cleansed of sin. When God first created we do not believe there was darkness; darkness is always the result of sin and the term “the deep” always indicates something that is out of control, something that is chaotic, something that is dangerous an uncertain. These three terms are piled on one another in Genesis 1:2 which suggests that something has happened, something very negative. It seems that the best place to put the fall of Satan is somewhere between 1:1 and 1:2.

What happened historically is that this view that there is a time gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 can be traced back to the earliest evidence in the second century AD in a Jewish word called The Targum of Jonathan. It indicated that there was a gap between these two verses and that this is when Satan fell. But none of the people from the first century up until the early nineteenth century had any length of time in that period between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. They didn’t know how long it was but it wasn’t billions and billions of years. In fact it was generally considered to be a fairly short amount of time. What about how long Adam and Eve were in the garden? That could not have been more than 100 years. How do we know that? Because Adam was about 120 years old when Seth was born. Seth was born after Cain killed Abel. Adam’s birth date would be determined from the day he was created, not from when he fell.

The only reason we have long periods of time is because in the development of historical geology they began to reject catastrophic geology—the view that the Genesis flood was a literal world-wide cataclysm—and began to look at fossils and stratification layers as indicative of age. They developed the theory known as uniformitarianism, that everything occurs by the same basic process, has the same rate of decay, and because things deteriorate at the same rate of decay we can extrapolate back, and as a result of that they started getting longer and longer periods for the age of the earth.

The best place to put the fall of Satan is between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Then God recreates the earth, reshapes it completely in 1:2 through 2:3 for the habitation of man because it is going to be through man and through human history that God is going to display His love and His grace in ways that he never could with the angels. Human history, therefore, is inextricably linked to what happens to the angels, and he is displaying His grace. This is why at the end of human history there is this re-intersection of angelic events, demonic history, Satanic involvement, with human history and all of the judgments—evil in the human race, evil in the angelic realm—happen at the same time. In this way we can explain all of the data that is given in Scripture. It fits with the scenario in Ephesians chapter six that we are involved in a spiritual warfare and our ultimate enemy is not flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and authorities in high places. We are part of that angelic conflict. So angels are definitely involved in the end time events when all things are brought together. So in Revelation 4 & 5 we see this heavenly scene where the Lamb is going to receive the title deed for the earth, and as He does so the angels break out in praise, and as He begins to open the seals to initiate the judgments. In the first six seal judgments angels are not evident for it is the Lamb who opens each one of the seals.

The first mention of the elect angels in the Tribulation period itself is found in Revelation 7:1 where we are told that there are four angels that stand at the four corners of the earth holding back the four winds of the earth, a picture of not only control of meteorology but also all of the chaotic events that can take place in history. The imagery comes right out of Daniel chapter seven. A fifth angel appears ordering them to wait on releasing these winds until the 144,000 are sealed. Again, at the end of chapter seven we see angels surrounding the throne of God worshipping Him. In chapter ten there is a mighty angel that comes down from heaven and gives John a little book of judgment which he is told to eat. Then when the seventh seal is opened we see seven angels come forward. Each is given a trumpet and each one blasts on that trumpet to announce each of the next series of judgments. Again, when the seventh trumpet is blown there are seven angels who appear in the temple of God and each is given a bowl to be poured out upon the earth. In chapter fourteen we see that three angels fly through the heavens making announcements regarding the gospel as well as the impending judgment on Babylon. So angels are deeply involved and when we get to the last half of the Tribulation period it seems that they are visible and that they can be heard. It seems as though this curtain between the natural and the supernatural is drawn back and angels and demons become more visible and their involvement in human history seems to be more interactive.

The first description of demonic involvement is in the fifth trumpet judgment which begins in Revelation 9:1 ^NASB “Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him.” The star is an angel. The bottomless pit is the abyss; Satan is later chained there. Out of the pit come these scorpion-stinging locusts that are going to bring a plague upon mankind. [11] “They have as king over them, the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek he has the name Apollyon.” If there is an angel over these scorpion-locust beings then that indicates they are demons and are released upon mankind in a visible, physical way because they are going to cause all of this pain and suffering. The king over them—Abaddon/Apollyon means “destroyer”—is thought by some to be Satan. We don’t believe so because in Revelation chapter twelve Satan is clearly identified as the dragon. When John wants to identify Satan he makes it very clear. So Abaddon/Apollyon is one of the chief demons who is the king or ruler over all of these scorpion-locust demons that have been kept in the abyss until this particular time.

What is interesting is that when we go through the scope of these seven trumpet judgments the fifth, sixth and seventh trumpet judgments are called the three woes. The fifth involves overt demonic activity; the sixth involves demonic activity, as well as the river Euphrates. In chapter eleven when the witnesses finish their testimony the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit to make war against them overcome them and kill them, v. 7. Usually this is identified as Satan, the power behind the beast, the Antichrist; but that is not what the text says. The text identifies this as the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit. Who is the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit? Apollyon! It would seem as we work out a chronology of Revelation that the fifth seal judgment has to have taken place before the mid-point of the Tribulation. What we have in the first half of the Tribulation is what appears to be more natural disasters and judgments. But then when we get to the mid-point of the Tribulation with the abomination of desolation that is when Satan is cast out of heaven.

Revelation chapter twelve describes the ongoing battle between Satan and Israel, and it goes back in history to the beginning, using imagery out of Genesis chapter thirty-seven—Joseph’s dream. Revelation 12:1 ^NASB “A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; [2] and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. [3] Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads {were} seven diadems. [4] And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.” This is where we get the number of the demons being one third of all the angels. Then the scene shifts to a heavenly warfare. [7] “And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, [8] and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven.” This is when Satan is cast to the earth. [13] “And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male {child.} [14] But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.” This persecution of the woman takes place during the second half of the Tribulation period when Satan has been thrown out of heaven. A well-fo0unded speculation here is that when Satan is cast out of heaven at the mid-point of the Tribulation this is when the demonic side of the Tribulation is made more evident and more visible. This brings us back to 16:13 where we see the use of demons by the Antichrist, by the dragon, to gather all of the kings of the earth together to a place that is called Har-Megiddo where there will be this great end-time battle.

Revelation 16:14 ^NASB “for they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty.” Signs is one of the key functions in the Tribulation period when the Antichrist performs deception to deceive the world. They are clearly out to destroy the last surviving remnants of Israel. The “great day of God, the Almighty” is referred to in Old Testament passages such as Joel 2 as the day of the Lord. This term refers to the end of the Tribulation, actually the campaign of Armageddon.

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