Prophecy

The Eastern Confederacy - PR04-01

© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1971)

If you have been reading some of the current publications concerning the prophetic portions of the Word of God, you may have perhaps noticed that there seems to be a feeling among prophetic scholars that we have come to times where the Word of God is being so prepared for fulfillment on so many fronts, that the nature of the publications have a very up to date flavor. They are not in the way of exposition of a study of something that is eventually going to come about, but it's more in the tenor of learning today about tomorrow's headlines. I have appreciated where many of you have been finding articles in publications of one kind or another and little pieces of information that you have been clipping out and putting in my box in trying to treat the study that we have been doing here in prophecy, on the basis of getting major segments clearly in mind, so that they are relevant to our headlines and to the news reports today.

We are confronted with bringing together Scriptures from the various expanses of the Word, individual Scriptures that bear on one segment, bringing them all together to focus light upon one particular factor. It is helpful to get these things related to the present day with some of these articles that are being published, not that they are religious articles, but they are confirmatory articles of the things we've been studying. I wish I had a large staff of people who could just read through a vast front of publications and of information of various kinds, and be collating these materials because they make a very impressive picture when you put today's news together with the predictions of the Word of God.

Now we're going to turn our attention to a very fascinating area of the end times, and that is the four major power block which will be the eastern confederacy. We have thus far looked at what we have called the northern confederacy of nations under the leadership of Russia, a great power to the north of Palestine. In this confederacy, of course, is to be Russia and the Eastern European nations--East Germany and the Slavic countries. These basically will form one major power bloc to the north of Palestine. Secondly, there will be to the west of Palestine, the western confederacy of nations under the antichrist, the Roman ruler, and this will be a union of ten Mediterranean nations composing basically Western Europe. Then a third confederacy that we have looked at was the southern confederacy of nations under Egyptian leadership. This would include Egypt, the Arab world, and the African states.

In the past, Israel has had scant contact with the nations of Eastern Asia, that is, with China, Japan, and to some degree India. In Isaiah 49:12, where Isaiah is speaking in this context about the worldwide regathering of Israel, he makes mention of the Jews being regathered from a place called Sinim, which Bible scholars feel is a reference to China: "Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim." The eastern part of Asia was not a part of the Roman Empire. The boundary line of the Roman Empire on the east was the Euphrates River. These Asiatic nations lie beyond the Euphrates.

So we have this contact perhaps in Isaiah. We do also have a more definite contact with the oriental nations in the Magi who came from the Far East to visit the Christ child. You read about that in Matthew 2:1-2. They probably came from Persia which is largely Iran today. Somehow though, their coming indicates that they had a knowledge about the King of the Jews, and about His sign, the star. As a matter of fact, their desire to worship the Christ child indicates that they had considerable information from the Old Testament Scriptures which may suggest that there was more extensive missionary activity on the part of the Jewish people than has sometimes been thought. But in some way, these three men from the Far East had information concerning the fact that Christ was to be born; He was to be the messiah; He was to be King of the Jews; and, He was deity and to be worshipped. They knew even about the sign of His star, and so they came following that to find Him.

Today, the nations of Asia east of the Euphrates are becoming major factors in the international situation. Of course, this is preparation for the prophetic role in the tribulation. For a long time, you never heard very much about the orient at all. Now suddenly increasingly day-by-day, it's becoming a bigger and bigger feature on the world scene, as it would have to become for the eastern confederacy to form and to play its role in the tribulation period. The U.S. News and World Report has an article about why President Nixon went to Moscow, and it has a segment here that I think would be interesting to notice.

"The Moscow mission," the writer says, "is seen as part of a peace pattern." Notice that first of all. The idea that motivates our president and the leaders of the world basically is to bring about world peace, a will of the wisp fruitless hope. But this is the motivating factor and therefore they're going to make deals with one another on the basis that this will bring about peace between nations. "The Moscow mission is seen as a part of a peace pattern now emerging over most of the world. This search for peace is at the heart of the president's Russian trip just as it underlies his journey to Peking. As leaders all over the world see the situation, a new era is in the making. Sweeping changes are transforming concepts of global power. The old rule structure, which for a quarter of a century pitted the U.S. against Russia in a head-to-head confrontation, is giving way to a new order composed of five, not just two, superpowers."

Notice what he names here as powers of the world realigning themselves into superpowers. He says, "The United States, Russia, Japan, China," and, he says, "the ten-nation European Confederacy." It's rather startling to see the ten European nation community here put in so many specific numbers. Look at what you have here. If you take the United States and tie it here to the western confederacy: one, you have the western confederacy; two, you have the northern confederacy; and, three, you have the eastern confederacy that we're looking at now. The only one omitted is the Egyptian Afro Arab confederacy to the south. That certainly is one that cannot be ignored as rising to a major power position too. So it's very interesting that here this article by this analyst comes up as he looks upon the world scene. What does he see happening? The very thing the Bible says is going to come to pass.

Now he goes on and says, "No longer is the world sharply split into communist and non-communist nations separated by fluctuating third world countries trying to keep their feet in both camps. Instead, Russia and China are virulent enemies, both intent on improving relations with the United States. Russia is having trouble keeping in line its once subservient satellites in East Europe. In the West, old friendships and alliances are pulling apart. U.S. leadership of the Western nations, unchallenged since World War II, is yielding now to a more nearly equal partnership between the United States and its European and Japanese allies that could drastically reduce American influence and responsibilities."

Now that last sentence amounts to saying this: "The United States is becoming less and less and less of a prominent force upon the world scene." I think that's indicative. Instead the prominence is moving toward the western world where the Bible says the last great world dictator will come from--Western Europe--and toward the Orient. It is obvious that there lies between Russia and China a conflict today.

The Orient

When we stop and think a little bit about the isolation of the Orient, for centuries Asia has been viewed as a backward but sleeping giant. Here's a vast population lagging behind Western world technology by a self-imposed isolation. Now China suddenly leaps to the forefront. She has always had an impressive civilization for centuries. She had her own culture and her own history long before Christ was born in Bethlehem. In the city of Peking are the magnificent palaces of the Chinese emperors and the magnificent museums housing the record of their past.

During World War II, when I was in China, it was very exciting to walk through these places and to realize that you were viewing a culture so many centuries before Christianity ever came on the scene. It was a great thrill on Easter Sunday morning to stand in the Temple of Heaven, as it is called in China, and there to stand with a group of military personnel worshiping the true Savior out of a culture that was magnificent, but worshiping a false god.

China has always carried a certain prestige. It did particularly in my own service of the Marine Corps in the years before World War II. It was great prestige for any officer to have served a tour of duty in China. We looked forward to that. It was something we anticipated because it was exciting duty. Every Marine looked forward to the experiences of his tour of duty in China. It was a backward nation, yet with a certain prestige and a certain place in history, culturally and in civilization. There was some evidence from ancient records that ancient China even had commercial relationships with countries as far as the Mediterranean. The dispersion of the Jewish people no doubt led some of them to the Orient.

One of the things I learned when I was in China is that we were told to never accept a Chinese merchant's price that he gives you on anything because he expects you to bargain. He expects you to argue and to haggle over the matter. Then when you're walking out of the store and rejecting his final offer, he runs down the street and says, "Okay," and he settles for your final offer, and he's already cheated you 50 percent higher than you should have paid. Just that alone would have attracted the Jewish people to a nation like China. So some of them undoubtedly found their way, and it seems from what Isaiah says that it would be confirmed that some of the Jews that would be regathered will come from China itself.

Now Japan broke out of isolation among the oriental nations, as you know, and she set out to conquer Asia. She determined in the years preceding World War II to bring a new order into Asia, which we, on the American team, referred to as the "new odor" in Asia. The great cry of Asia for the Asiatics, and so on, ultimately climaxed in the attack upon Pearl Harbor and in time the defeat of Japan. Since those days, Japan has come to be one of the dominant industrial powers. I have been hearing in the news lately that Japan is now very unhappy with the United States. There are some rising forces to throw out the pro-American Japanese political leaders, and to put in a group who are more nationalistically-oriented and against the United States, and indeed what they consider the interests of Japan. Of course, all this has been brought about as a result of the United States imposing a 10% tariff on imports into this country. That hits one of our greatest importers, on the people who export to us, in large degree, Japan, in a very big way. So they're very unhappy about it.

So I was interested in the article in The Dallas Morning News entitled "Japanese Expect to Assume Dominant Role in Asia." Right now they are a great industrial power, but they are not a military power. They are dependent upon the United States for military protection. They are simply proceeding at a fantastic rate of economic growth. Well, the article says Japan will probably pass the United States in her per capita income by 1990, and will occupy a large portion of the United States' time in watching out for itself in the future.

A noted Think Tank executive said here last week, "Japan's role in Asia as a dominant force will be somewhat similar to the role Prussia (that is, Germany) played in Europe over the last century, said Herman Kahn, Director of the Hudson Institute of New York. "I am not predicting World War III," Khan said, "although that could happen." How right he is. Well, that's kind of hard to believe, isn't it? That Japan is going to be earning in a few decades more per person than the person in the United States? Per person income in Japan will be greater than per person in the United States. And yet, from the prophetic Scriptures, that's exactly the direction it should take. We would expect it to take.

"In wide-ranging talk," the article goes on, "Kahn noted that the United States is on the way to becoming a drug culture. I think we have passed the point of no return. Drug education is the most effective way to stop it," Kahn said, contending that it serves as an advertisement for drug use. I think he's exactly right. I think the nation has past the point of no return in the matter of a drug culture. This insanity will deepen and will spread and will widen. Again, you have a significant factor, for one of the things for which God judges the nations of the end times is that they would not repent of their drug culture addiction. They persisted in their "pharmakeia," from which we get our word "pharmacy," their drug way of life. The article also goes in one more sense. It says, "Asked what direction the United States power in the world is headed, Kahn responded. 'Down.'" Now these think tanks are for people who have vast contacts and sources of information that they put bits and pieces together and get trends and directions, and they generally know what they're talking about. Where does it put the direction of the United States in the eyes of an expert? Down.

The Orient has been coming awake. It has emerged. Since World War II, major nations of Asia have thrown off the domination of the West. After the defeat of World War II, Japan has become a major industrial power. Now she's angry with us over our tariffs, and she's ready now to emerge as a major power in her own right in Asia, and to move away from the Western domination of the United States. Since World War II, China, the giant, has awakened. Communism took over China, with American help I'm afraid, and our American policy helped open the doors with its coalition governments in China. Anytime there is a coalition communist government, it's only a step to the ultimate and inevitable takeover by the communists. So with our help, communism took over China, and has guided the nation, since she took over, to the idea of an all-out war with the free world.

China is actively engaged in fomenting throughout Asia wars of national liberation. So we've had Korea and Vietnam. China's vast military investment developed a crude atomic bomb. But the thing that was even more impressive was that in just two-and-half years in the time they came up with a crude atom bomb, they had the H-bomb. That was far far faster than any of the other atomic powers were able to do. How did she do this? Well, in part, she did this again with the help of American-trained Chinese scientists which we then expelled from this country after we thoroughly trained them in all of our know-how of atomic research and science, and then we expelled them back to China. That's quite a story in itself. They gained not only this status in the atomic club, but now they are a force bent upon pursuing an intercontinental ballistic missile--a delivery system for the H-bomb that they have.

China declared that by the year 1980, she would have a delivery system that could blanket the world. By leapfrogging and speeding up the process, it was a whole lot sooner than that. This, in part, I'm sure, impelled the United States to its program of an anti-ballistic missile system. Some of our men in Congress who are obsessed with the idea that if we don't stir the waters, if we don't look like we can hurt somebody if they get funny with us, that then they won't get funny with us. So we've had a lot of opposition to an anti-ballistic missile system. Poor as it may be, it's probably not too bad an idea with what China has in mind. China teaches every kindergarten kid on up that the day is coming when they will fight the United States imperialists and all they're running dogs.

Now to understand the reason for this, we have to look at the nature of the Sino-Soviet split (China and Russia). This is a genuine conflict between these two nations. They hate each other's innards now with a real vengeance. But don't let that give you any comfort. I hope you are smart enough by now to ask yourself why do you two fellows dislike each other so much? Well, it's because of this: They have two diametrically opposite views as to how to conquer the world for communism. Neither one has decided that they're not going to conquer the world for communism. They have come to a difference as to how they're going to conquer the world, and particularly that means the United States. The question is an argument between Russia and China on how to do us in.

China believes that the world can only be brought under total communist control by violence and the force of arms. Whereas, Russia believes that this goal can only be achieved by internal subversion, by external encirclement, and by atomic blackmail while she is promoting the idea of peaceful coexistence. Consequently this differs from strict Leninist doctrine. Lenin said that power has to come through military force, and the Communist Party must never lose control of that force. Mao Zedong has said that political power comes out of the end of a gun. There is no doubt to them how to come to power. Political power comes out of the barrel of a gun, and this gun must never slip from the grasp of the Communist Party. Lenin says that Marxist have never forgotten that violence will be an inevitable accompaniment of the collapse of capitalism.

Revisionism

In communist circles, when you change official Marxist-Leninist doctrine, they have a word for it called "revisionism." It's a dirty word in communist circles to be called a revisionist. This is about the worst thing you can call another communist. And this is what China is calling Russia--a revisionist--because China says, "If you will rise up in the United States, if you communists in the United States will rise up and lead a rebellion against the factory owners, all of the workers in the United States will run out into the streets and they will join you." That's the idea that a lot of the college radicals are promoting.

Russia, especially after Khrushchev visited this country, said, "No sir. The American working man is not out to tear down his government. He is not out to overthrow the system. The American working man is only interested in more of the same thing that he has. He wants still shorter hours and still longer pay, and if you go barreling out into the street with guns to raise a rebellion, the American working man is going to drive over you in his Cadillac on his way home to watch his TV, but he's not going to join you in your rebellion. That you can forget. This is the problem."

They both believe that capitalism is totally depraved and must totally be destroyed. Here's another bit of communist doctrine. You have to understand that communism teaches that man has some bad traits in his nature, but that these traits are the result of an economic environment in which he grows up from the time he's a baby. Therefore, communism says, if we can change the economic environment that surrounds a baby from his earliest days, he will grow up to be a loving, kind, unselfish creature who loves to work and who loves to share his wealth equally with everyone else. However, communism says that if there is one speck of capitalism anywhere in the world, it's an infectious germ that continues to infect the environment. Communism says there is no way to clean up and rejuvenate man's nature until every bit of capitalism has been rubbed off the face of the earth. So, both Russia and China say that we've got to wipe capitalism out so that we can bring in utopia that we have promised the working man.

Now it is interesting that this split should come between Russia and China because if there is to be an eastern confederacy, a power bloc in its own right in the end times, and there has to be a northern confederacy, a Russian power bloc in its in its own right, the two have to be separated. There were teachers of the prophetic Scriptures who a long time ago said China and Russia may be good friends now, but in order to bring about the alignment of powers in the end times, they're going to have to split company. Now the rupture is so complete that both Russia and China are trying to align themselves with the United States. They're afraid that one or the other is going to get on an inside track with the United States.

So suddenly both Russia and China want to be our friends. There have been some things that have taken place out on the world scene that are indicative that both sides are trying to calm the waters. For example, Britain threw out 105 personnel of the diplomatic core of Russia recently. 105 were declared persona non grata and told to get out (because they've been spying, and that sort of thing). Now when this has been done in the past, Russia, in a kind of a saving face procedure, turns around and gives tit for tat. But of all things, the Western world was quite astounded when Russia turned around and expelled only five British diplomats and didn't make any big issue over it. They just pushed back a little and then forgot it. Why? Because it's obvious that Russia doesn't want to do anything to get the Western world mad right now. They want to be friends with the United States.

Well, the same article in U.S. News and World Report has a paragraph that says, "Foreign affairs specialists emphasize the new triangular relationship shaping up among Moscow, Peking, and Washington holds out the prospect of a new era of peace for the United States after decades of nerve-wracking Cold War." Peace is behind all of this. As the Scriptures say, "When they have said, 'Peace, peace,' then comes sudden destruction." "Russia and China distrust each other more than either distrust the Americans. Each of them attaches great importance to formulating new policies that would prevent the United States from lining up with its communist enemy. China wants to normalize relations with the U.S. as a form of insurance against the Russian menace. Russia is equally anxious to close ranks with the U.S. to forestall what it fears could become a Chinese-U.S. partnership against the Soviet Union."

Well, one writer put it in a rather interesting way that both Russia and China are eager to be a twosome with the United States, and each of them are fearful of being left out, with the other two lined up against them. So the overtures of peace are going to come out, and that's what you're hearing. You may be sure that when the president goes to Russia and when he goes to China, there's going to be a lot of fanfare in this country. What do you think millions of Americans are going to say? Well, millions of Americans are going to be deluded into thinking that we are moving toward peace. Millions of Americans are too stupid to take communist doctrine seriously, or worse yet, even to learn communist doctrine so they know what motivates a communist and his actions.

So, 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3 is going to be the course of the United States: "For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night." The day of the Lord begins with the tribulation and moves on through the millennium. "For when they shall say, "Peace and safety.' then sudden destruction comes upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape."

The Chinese leaders have boasted that they are invincible against the atomic power of the United States. Do you know why? Because they sat down with a piece of paper and they did some simple arithmetic. There are about a billion Chinese, and about 300 million Americans. China says, "We will unleash, at a certain time, our atomic force against you when we have come to where we have a delivery system, and we will start wiping out your cities and your population. You then will return with your Polaris and Poseidon submarine missiles, and you will hit us with your SAC forces in the air and whatever else you have, and you will hurt us. So we will hit you, and we will knock out 300 hundred million Americans. You'll hit us, and maybe even hit us harder, and you will knock out 500 million Chinese. That leaves us with 500 million and it leaves you with zero. Therefore," China says, "We can win. We can't lose. You can't win. You can lose."

Now, they're right. That's exactly the way it can happen. As a matter of fact, there are a couple of other alignments here now even without submarines. There is a panic in our Congress over the discovery that we have now come indeed to where we are the second military power in the world, and there is now no doubt about it. Russia has moved into the number one position. Khrushchev had to eat crow for Kennedy and back out of Cuba, when Kennedy started pouring the military into Florida. There was no doubt that we were going to go over and take Cuba, and unfortunately didn't. When Kennedy had to back down and take his missiles out, the boys up in the Kremlin got together and said, "Fellows, this isn't ever going to happen again." Immediately after that, Russia began a monstrous buildup of military hardware, so that we today are not even in the running. Under the McNamara program, Russia was encouraged to get equal with us. Their argument was that if she was equal, then she could feel at peace and she wouldn't be afraid of us anymore.

Well, she appreciated that and she went to be equal and a whole lot more. She went well beyond parity. Last August, there was a special session in our congress where 100 congressmen, one after another, stood to their feet and sounded off in the Capitol in the chambers of the House, and documented the position of the United States militarily. It was interesting that the news media blocked it all, and it only trickled out when the congressman got up, and they had to print an extra edition in the Congressional Record. There was so much said that day when Congressman got up and pointed out that here was this, of all things, a fantastic special session of Congress on national defense in the news, and the news media blacked it out. Not a word. I think it was the New York Times that said, "Oh well, it was old stuff. We didn't think it was newsworthy at all."

We know some forces have some strange ideas in this country, and you better get used to it. It's not going to get better. It's going to continue to get worse. By 1980, a nation says, "You can't hurt us as badly as we can hurt you. We will still win." They are going to have a delivery system for the H-Bomb that she now possesses.

The Kings of the East

So let's take a look at the kings of the East. The term is used, and that's the basis of the eastern confederacy of which we've been speaking, in Revelation 16:12:

Revelation 16:12-16

"And the sixth angel poured out his bowl upon the great river Euphrates and its water was dried up, that the way of the Kings of the East might be prepared." The Greek word used here literally means "from the rising of the sun." The Kings of the East, or the kings from the rising of the sun, which is an ancient way of identifying the oriental nations beyond the Euphrates River.

The Euphrates River

Now the Euphrates River is a great river. It certainly was a great river of the ancient world. It was the boundary between the East and the West. It's mentioned in Genesis 2:14 as one of the four rivers which were formed from the river that flowed from the Garden of Eden. The Euphrates was the location of such famous cities as Babylon and Ur from which Abraham came. It formed the northeast boundary of the Promised Land as we found in Genesis 15:18, and it marked the eastern boundary of the Roman Empire. The Euphrates, you must understand, is a formidable geographic barrier. That's the first thing to learn. The Euphrates is a geographic barrier. It is comparable in that part of the world to what the Mississippi River is in our country. The Euphrates River is about 1,800 miles long. It runs from 10 to 30 feet deep, and it goes from three to twelve hundred yards in width. It's the longest and the most important river in western Asia.

Revelation 9:13-16

Now the leaders of the oriental confederacy which is to be formed in the end times are going to gather their armies on the Euphrates River. They're going to be facing the Western Empire of the antichrist. Revelation 9:13-16: "And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, 'Loose the four angels who are bound in the great river Euphrates.'" Now these are demonic angelic beings. "And the four angels were loosed who were prepared for an hour, a day, a month, and a year to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were 200 million. And I heard the number of them."

What this Scripture tells us is that this army which the eastern confederacy will put into the field, and will bring up to the Euphrates River, and will stand poised at the Euphrates facing the Western Empire of the antichrist will be an army of 200 million soldiers. Again, this very fascinating. Time magazine reported a few years ago that China claims to have a militia now that numbers 200 million soldiers--exactly the very number that the Scriptures speak of. The four demonic beings here at the Euphrates apparently insight the oriental leaders to invade Palestine. That's what you have described here in Revelation 9:13-15. In the process of this invasion, they destroy a third of the world's population.

Daniel 11:35

Now the question is, when does this take place? When is the time of this invasion? Well, part of this we have to get again from Daniel 11:35 which indicates that what Daniel is speaking of here takes place in the tribulation period, toward the end of that seven-year period immediately before Jesus Christ returns. "Some of them of understanding shall fall, to test them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed." Now this expression. "the time of the end," is tied in to the context. Here in these verses preceding Daniel 11:35 is a description of the Greek leader Antiochus Epiphanes who was a type, a pre-figure, of what the antichrist will be, particularly in the persecution of the Jews. He was the one that offered a sow on the altar in Jerusalem at the temple. Now, Antiochus Epiphanes and his experiences and the Greek leaders before him are recorded in detail here in Daniel 11, and history confirms these things in detail.

Then it says, in Daniel 11:35, that this event described here goes to the end. What this means is that, in effect, it leapfrogs from Antiochus Epiphanes' time down to the tribulation. For Daniel 11:36-45, there is no fulfillment in history. This is what is going to take place in the tribulation period. So the time of the end refers to the final years of the gentile rule in the tribulation. Daniel 12:1: "At that time." At what time? Well, at the time that what takes place in Daniel 11:36-45 of the preceding chapter. "At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of your people (that is, the Jewish people), and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time, and at that time your people shall be delivered," and so on.

Now "the time of troubles such as never was" is a description of that great tribulation, that final period of the world's history, the last three-and-a-half years. These verses in Daniel 11:36-45, which you will have to pursue on your own, describe a king who is best viewed as the antichrist. He fits all the picture. This man who heads up the western confederacy. Now the antichrist has different names. In Daniel 7:8, he's called the little horn. In Daniel 9:26, he's called the Prince that shall come. In Daniel 12:11 and Matthew 24:15, he's called the abomination. In Revelation 13:1-10, he is called the beast out of the sea. In 2 Thessalonians 2:4-8, he's called the man of sin.

But this man in Daniel 11:36 is described as one who will do according to his will which indicates that he has absolute authority. This is the time of the great tribulation--the latter part. This could only be the antichrist because he's the only one who, at that time, will be the dictator of the whole world. He will control the world to the extent that Revelation 13:15 indicates that he will set himself up as God, and he will bring death to anyone who does not worship him. He couldn't do that unless he were the ruler who was really in charge of everything.

Now at this time, the major power blocs are going to rebel (this is the end of the tribulation) against the Western ruler. So as we have already looked previously, the southern confederacy attacks the antichrist near the end of the tribulation. And Russia, who has gone down with her confederacy in the middle of the tribulation as described in Ezekiel 38 and 39, apparently recruits enough strength to join the southern confederacy to strike at the antichrist from the north while Egypt and her allies strike from the south.

Well, we've already seen that the antichrist forms a counterattack. He sweeps back into Palestine. He defeats Egypt and the actual Arab world. He takes vast treasures from them, and then he gets some news of a new attack. Daniel 11:44: "Tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him. Therefore he will go forth with great fury to destroy and utterly to sweep many away." He hears of a countering force coming against him from the east. It is at this time that we believe the Euphrates River will dry up in order to remove the geographic barrier that it poses to the armies of the kings of the east. They will sweep into Palestine, and as revelation 16:12-16 tells us, they will move in upon the antichrist.

Now the Euphrates River was used like this once before. Do you remember Belshazzar's feast? Well, the Euphrates River ran right under the city of Babylon. Darius the Mede came along, and his plan was to get at the city, which had formidable walls. They couldn't get at it in any way. They said we'll go under the walls. So they built a diversionary stream, and at the right time, they kicked out the dam and let the stream be diverted in a different direction around the city so that the stream that went under the walls ended up as a dry bed. And while Belshazzar and his boys were having their wild drunken feast up in the banquet hall, where the hand came writing on the wall announcing their doom, Darius the Mede and his soldiers came under the wall via the dry Euphrates River, and they conquered the mighty empire of Babylon. That was the end. So it has happened before. When the Euphrates dried up, it was an instrument of conquest. It's going to happen again.

The destruction of life, we are told, is fantastic by this army from the east, and it is to be, Revelation 9:18 says, "By fire, smoke, and brimstone," which, of course, accurately describes thermonuclear warfare. Well this confrontation has the eastern power coming in, and the antichrist rushing back up from his southern conquest to meet this new threat from the east. This brings the nations of the world together on that field in Palestine called the field of Armageddon, from whence the nations of the world are gathered together to do combat with one another.

The antichrist, we're told, moves his camp. Daniel 11:45 says that he moves his tabernacle (that is, his field tent, his headquarters) to a place between the seas, which is between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, and into the glorious mountain which is the city of Jerusalem. He sets himself up there as his headquarters ready to meet the resistance of the nations who are rebelling against his rule. As they meet together, in the final great battle among themselves, which the Bible describes in such terrible terms that it can actually rub out humanity itself, Jesus Christ appears.

Daniel 11:45 says, "Yet, he shall come to his end, and none shall help him. So the antichrist goes down in defeat. Zachariah 12:1-4 describes how these nations will go into defeat. Revelation 17:19-21 describe how the Lord Jesus Christ returns, and He Himself destroys them.

So out of the east you must watch in your news and your papers. You must watch to see the shaping up where China is already moving away from the domination of Russia as it has moved away from the domination of the Western world. Now you must watch for Japan to move away from its close alliance with the United States, and in time a closer bind between Japan and China will form as the basis of the oriental confederacy which will play this major role as it leaps across the Euphrates River and comes thundering down into the land of Palestine.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1971

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