Paradise Cafe Discussions - A Place For Bible Research And Christian Encouragement

Revelation 16:12
And the sixth one poured out his bowl upon the great river Eu·phra´tes, and its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the kings from the rising of the sun.


See news item New York Times (published today):

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/world/...rates.html


See New York Times Slide Show:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/07...index.html



and this video:

Hi Abe,
So also is the R.Jordan!
As water is used upstream in a water catchment for irrigation, and the powerful use the water, the weak and downstream, have less water to maintain their systems and the river's ecosystems.
The Dead Sea is drying.

In Palestine the problem is particularly acute for the Palestinians who have been forced to have less of this resource so their agriculture is failing, because they have no clout on their native soils.

Another problem is; as glaciers in lower latitudes shrink, only seasonal water-flow will occur in many rivers. Millions will starve or move.
Derek

Derek,

Found these interesting statistics:


The average person in the developing world uses 2.64 gallons of water a day. The average person in the United Kingdom uses 35.66 gallons of water per day. The average person in the United States uses between 100 and 175 gallons every day at home.


http://beforeitsnews.com/story/87/000/Sp...risis.html

abe

we are wash and flush crazy,,,,after all.:desert:

It's only dirty people who wash. Jesus advised against over washing! :) ;)

Revelation 16:12
And the sixth one poured out his bowl upon the great river Eu·phra´tes, and its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the kings from the rising of the sun.


So who really are the kings from the rising of the sun?


The scriptures seem to indicate the drying up of the Euphrates happens immediately before the end.

The next perceptible event seems to be the great earthquake!


Revelation 16
17 And the seventh one poured out his bowl upon the air. At this a loud voice issued out of the sanctuary from the throne, saying: “It has come to pass!” 18 And lightnings and voices and thunders occurred, and a great earthquake occurred such as had not occurred since men came to be on the earth, so extensive an earthquake, so great. 19 And the great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell; and Babylon the Great was remembered in the sight of God, to give her the cup of the wine of the anger of his wrath.

and the really big hailstones:


And a great hail with every stone about the weight of a talent descended out of heaven upon the men, and the men blasphemed God due to the plague of hail, because the plague of it was unusually great.


In Christ

abe

So the first five bowls have already been poured? What events have they portrayed?

Hi abe

The majority of translations read "the kings from the East", which is the sunrising.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm...JV#vrsn/12

Since "Babylon the Great" is essentially a Western institution, and Revelation 16 is about the demise of that city, it makes sense that kings from the East will play a major part in its devastation.

"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem..." (Mathew 2:1, RSV)

The river Euphrates has played an important role in history. It was one of the ancient borders of Israel, and also the border of the Roman empire for a long time.

I honestly don't know if we are meant to take the drying up literally or not ... after all, it originally represented Cyrus drying up the Euphrates to conquer ancient Babylon ... but as you may know, I believe ALL of Revelation UP UNTIL Revelation 16:11 has already been fulfilled...

... so I do pay particular attention to what's happening out at the Euphrates, which will eventually lead up to the war at Har-Megiddon (in Hebrew) in the land of Israel.

What I do find of particular note is that countries in the East are generally either Muslim, or have their own cultures and religions distinct from the West... and that the West has just fought a couple of wars (one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq) to bring our wonderful Western values to them ... along with drum beats in Pakistan and Iran, which I'd say are both "East".

The fall of that ancient city, pictured by the woman entitled "Babylon The Great", may be a lot closer than most Christians think.

(Except that most are still stuck at the four horsemen :D )

Hi Yannis

I guess it critically depends on what you interpret "Babylon The Great" to be. We're told the symbol stands for a city, that had rulership over the kings of the earth in John's day (just as ancient Babylon ruled over the kings of the earth in Daniel's day, and Ninevah the prostitute city in Nahum's day), and sat on 7 hills/mountains and had 7 kings, 5 of whom had fallen in John's day.

That sounds like the perfect description of Rome in John's day, just as Ninevah was a harlot city, and Babylon was a city responsible for shedding the blood of the earth ... Rome was responsible for shedding masses of Christian blood.

Anyway, Revelation 16 is all about the build up to the fall of "Babylon The Great".

If you put Rome into the Revelation 16 prophecy, you will see that every event that weakened her power could well be foretold...

- the first bowl, the revolutions that weakened her political grip over Europe, including her total loss of territory in 1870 when Rome once again became the capital of Italy...

- the second bowl, World War I, tumbling her throne into a war that killed millions of her followers,

- the third bowl, World War II, yet again weakening her grip over Europe

- the fourth bowl, the dictators who "scorched" men... plenty of them around during and after WWII. ("Sun, moon and stars" often represent the political heavens in Jewish idiom.)

- the fifth bowl, the Cold War, when the Iron Curtain was drawn over much of Europe and it fell into either enforced athiesm (on the eastern side) or scientific athiesm in the west.

Europe is now "ripe". It is a largely athiestic bloc of nations, who have long turned on her former Mistress, and have made her devasted and naked ... but despite that, she is still strutting about, proclaiming herself one who will never know mourning.

I don't know when the sixth bowl commences (or commenced)... but shortly after the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall fell (in 1989), the Iraq war commenced (the location of the Euphrates river) ... and it was Saddam Hussein that first started drying the waters of that river ... in preparation for what he called "The Mother Of All Battles".

Obviously, Saddam will not now be conducting that battle :D ... but as the West gradually push into all these Muslim territories, my mind wonders at to what will come next.

I appreciate the above is just an interpretation ... but I based it on the historical unfolding of Revelation, and the wild beasts ... which have so far done exactly what they were foretold to do.

In other words, the history of the last 2,000 years has unfolded exactly as foretold by Revelation ... giving us hope that no doubt the final 1,000 years will also be as foretold.

Then we could also interpret it this way.

Anything below the water of the Euphrates River would be hidden under the water.

If the waters were to dry up whatever was below the water of any value would now be exposed or revealed.

The scripture in Revelation Chapter 16 finishes with attention being given to Babylon the Great.

Compare to what Jeremiah wrote:

Jeremiah 51:62-64
And you must say, ‘O Jehovah, you yourself have spoken against this place, in order to cut it off so that there may come to be in it no inhabitant, either man or even domestic animal, but that she may become mere desolate wastes to time indefinite.’ 63 And it must occur that when you will have completed reading this book, you will tie to it a stone, and you must pitch it into the midst of the Eu·phra´tes. 64 And you must say, ‘This is how Babylon will sink down and never rise up because of the calamity that I am bringing in upon her; and they will certainly tire themselves out.’”


Revelation 16:19
And the great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell; and Babylon the Great was remembered in the sight of God, to give her the cup of the wine of the anger of his wrath.


that she may become mere desolate wastes to time indefinite?


So could these be the kings from the rising of the sun?



Jeremiah 51
19 “The Share of Jacob is not like these things, for he is the Former of everything, even the staff of his inheritance. Jehovah of armies is his name.
“You are a club for me, as weapons of war, and by you I shall certainly dash nations to pieces, and by you I will bring kingdoms to ruin. 21 And by you I will dash the horse and his rider to pieces, and by you I will dash the war chariot and its rider to pieces. 22 And by you I will dash man and woman to pieces, and by you I will dash old man and boy to pieces, and by you I will dash young man and virgin to pieces. 23 And by you I will dash shepherd and his drove to pieces, and by you I will dash farmer and his span [of animals] to pieces, and by you I will dash governors and deputy rulers to pieces. 24 And I will pay back to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chal·de´a all their badness that they have committed in Zion before the eyes of YOU people,” is the utterance of Jehovah.



Notice also that; "Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chal·de´a" are IN ZION.


So if Babylon becomes a desolate waste to time indefinite then they will no longer be... IN ZION.


In Christ

abe

Revelation 16:8
And the fourth one poured out his bowl upon the sun; and to [the sun] it was granted to scorch the men with fire. 9 And the men were scorched with great heat, but they blasphemed the name of God, who has the authority over these plagues, and they did not repent so as to give glory to him.


Certainly has been many devastating heat waves this year:


http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/07/17...-wave.html

http://www.greenfudge.org/2010/07/16/hea...ng-deaths/

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/worl...00776.html

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/art...A6I24AqjBw

http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2010/07/...continues/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul...ve-germany

http://www.hindustantimes.com/40-degrees...69499.aspx

http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_asi...09298.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10541710


Don't see any evidence of people repenting due to the heat.


Perhaps they have all been convinced that it is Global Warming and not a plague from God.


In Christ

abe

Or perhaps the above heatwaves were NOT a plague from God.

I would suspect that the fulfillment of Rev 16:8 was or will be a little more dramatic than those.

Besides, why do you take this passage literally (the most symbolic book of the Bible), when you interpret most of the rest of the Bible in a cryptic manner?

Interpretum,

I do not see a symbolical link to that passage.

If I can match real events I see happening in the world to real events described in the bible then I can scratch them off the list.


If the bible says the Euphrates River will dry up and the Euphrates River dries up then I am lead more to believing that the drying up is probably not symbolic however, get suspicious that it could be a chronological milestone to measure where we are in time.

Sometimes however, I see real events happening in the world which match symbols in the bible.

Then I can scratch them off the list too.

Sometime I read a real event described in the bible and then see that it is described with the same kind of adjectives used in a symbolic event.

Most often however, I say a prayer asking for wisdom regarding a specific topic.


I do that because the bible is purposefully cryptic.


In Christ

abe

Hi abe

Revelation 16:8 (on the sun) is an extension of an earlier plague, Rev 8:12, when a third of the sun was struck.

(This is also roughly true with bowls 2 and 3, which correspond with trumpets 2 and 3 where only a "third" of something is affected).

So you understand the symbology by referring back to Revelation 8. The corresponding trumpet was...

"And the fourth angel blew his trumpet. And a third of the sun was smitten and a third of the moon and a third of the stars, in order that a third of them might be darkened and the day might not have illumination for a third of it, and the night likewise." (Rev 8:12)

By the way, I believe this was fulfilled when Jerusalem split into three factions, and Rome fell into civil war (i.e. around 68AD), during its great tribulation, as recorded by historian Josephus ... just before the Idumeans (trumpet 5) and Romans (trumpet 6) were unleashed on Jerusalem, to slaughter the men.

So sun, moon and stars being struck symbolizes a blow to the ruling class.

So scorching sun (Rev 16) represents a kind of intense rulership that would "scorch" men ... which is why I equate this passage with the period of brutal dictators after World War II (and note II ... the same number of "bowls" in which blood is poured out, in Rev 16 ... I believe those bowls symbolize WW1 and WW2) .. plagues on the wild beast that formerly supported "Babylon".

I don't rule out literal manifestations, it's just that first and foremost, this passage was probably meant to remind us of Cyrus drying up the river. Still, if I were God I'd do it all ... literal AND symbolic ... make sure I'd covered all bases :D

... but then, if we really ARE at Rev 16:14, then many Christians are still groping around in chapter 6 of Revelation ... and the wild beast is here, and its mark has been around for a while.

Tell that to the "NWO is just around the corner" gang!

That is commendable. I wonder in what ways God may be pointing things out to you. Would He use solely your own deductions, or perhaps point things out to you via other people?

Yeah, I can agree that there is a certain level of "cryptic"-ness that keeps everyone guessing.

Keeps it interesting, don't ya think? :D