Revelation Chapter 16
VERSES 12 -16 continued “And the sixth (angel) poured out his bowl upon the great river, the [river] Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way might be made ready for the kings that [come] from the east (or sunrising). 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, as if it were frogs: for they are spirits of demons, working signs; which go forth unto the kings of the whole world, to gather them together unto the war of the great day of God, the Almighty…”
BEHOLD, I AM COMING LIKE A THIEF:
THIS IS A VERY, VERY IMPORTANT STATEMENT; the NAS has this verse in parentheses and in quotation marks. Both are appropriate.
Right in the midst of these demonic deceptions COMES A WARNING in the form of a memory -- A VOICE BEHIND US: the words of Jesus reminding us. He is saying, in essence:
“No matter what you see, remember the MANNER in which I make my presence (Greek: Parousia) known at the second advent.”
“DO NOT BE DECEIVED”
The very fact that the Lord interjects this particular statement here in the middle of his warnings concerning the three unclean spirits should tell us something of the possible nature of some of the deceptions to come.
Keep in mind the Scriptures we had mentioned in our previous post, don’t forget them, if you do, it will be to your own detriment.
Several items are worthy of note here. First is the word “Behold”. As always, it precedes a thought worthy of much meditation and study.
Here we are admonished to study the MANNER of His second coming, (In essence he is saying, “The manner in which I am coming will be LIKE such and such…”, in this instance “LIKE a thief).
Think about this for a moment.
In what manner does a thief come?
A thief comes generally at night when everyone’s asleep, quietly and unobserved, he does NOT come with a lot of noise and fanfare (show). Thus, the premise put forth by the professing church that our Lord will descend from heaven with thousands of angels and with loud trumpets blaring, and that everyone will witness this event contradicts the words of our Lord here, that he comes as a thief.
The implication here is that the “signs” performed by these demons will be explicitly designed either to challenge this idea (the idea of the thief-like presence) or to counterfeit it altogether. It is not unlikely that an attempt will be made to pretend that a reformed old order is, indeed, the beginning of the new order, the kingdom. After all, has it not been Satan’s policy all along to provide substitutes? Instead of Christ, we have had Antichrist. Instead of THE MAN CHRIST JESUS, we have had the MAN OF SIN. Instead of the kingdom, we have had Christendom.
NOW, instead of THAT PROPHET (Acts 3:22, 23), perhaps we are to have the FALSE PROPHET. Since we are now in the time of the sixth plague, it behooves us to be watching more closely than ever.
For those who are acquainted with the manner of our Lord’s return, bear in mind the warnings of our Lord found in Matt 24:26
“Therefore if they say to you ‘Look, he is in the desert!’ do not go out; or ‘Look he is in the inner rooms! DO NOT BELIEVE IT.”
See our study on Our Lords Great Prophecy, Part 43 for more on this verse.
The following taken from R510 is also significant in regards to the sixth plague and should be duly noted,
“The statement in the 15th Verse is abruptly thrown in as a parenthesis. It reads literally thus:
“Lo, I come AS A THIEF! Blessed the one WATCHING and keeping the garments of himself; so that not naked HE may walk, and they see the shame of HIM.”
This is very significant.
It declares that at the time when this evil doctrine (Verses 13-14) will be apparently uniting all upon the side of law and order—upon the side of kings and clergy--our Lord will then be PRESENT, but secretly and unknown except to the watching ones. Only those who are truly his and watching in the light of his Word will not be deceived by this impure teaching, but will realize his (invisible, thief-like) presence and the necessity of the foretold fall of all these things, because the rightful king is present to remove these out of the way of his kingdom.
The position of this declaration-- thrown in disconnectedly--is significant. It teaches that our Lord will be present BEFORE the impure teachings (lying wonders) begin to GATHER them to their destruction.”
We continue in our next post.
