Final Grouping And Leadership Of The Nations

by J.L. Ferguson, Barrhead | Category: The Finger Of Prophecy | Jul 1970

We have been considering the regathering in due course of a considerable representation of the nation of Israel in their own land. It may be helpful at this stage to look at the prophetic outline of the various groupings of nations between the rapture of the Church the Body and the coming of the Son of Man to reign. This will necessitate a consideration also of the sinister figure who dominates the world scene in the terminal years. At best it will be a brief outline. Both space and the purpose of these articles preclude an examination of various reasonings on contentious points. These the student can pursue in his own time to considerable advantage.

By far the most significant of all international movements will be

The Confederation of the Ten Kingdoms

This grouping is a requirement of the prophetic Scriptures. We recall how that Daniel saw the four beasts arise in succession from the sea. They were a lion (7.4), a bear (v.5), a leopard (v.6), and a fourth beast which had ten horns (v.7). This fourth beast was a kingdom out of which in due course ten kings would arise. In our consideration of the Times of the Gentiles we saw that this fourth beast prefigured the Roman. Empire.

When John saw the counterpart of this vision, it was a single beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads. It resembled a leopard, had feet like a bear, and a mouth like a lion (Revelation 13.1). In effect, what he saw was the appearance in its final form of the fourth kingdom, the Roman Empire. He saw it in the future days of its ten kings, when it will have all the characteristics of its former empires embodied in it.

We have noted that the image seen by Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 2), represented world Gentile rule, and that the basis of this has broadened in the intervening centuries from a grouping of nations around the Mediterranean Sea to a collection of independent nations spread throughout five Continents. Some incline to the view that the Confederation of ten kings will be representative of the nations of the entire world, being in effect something comparable to a Working Committee of the present-day United Nations Organisation. For example, as we write, the Security Council of the United Nations is composed of the representatives of fifteen Member States. This is not an unrealistic view.

The more generally accepted understanding, however, is that the original Roman Empire did not cover the entire then known world. It occupied, for example, an area less in extent than the empires which preceded it. Yet it "devoured the whole earth" (Daniel 7.23). So when it reappears in the terminal years, although only covering a governmental area approximating to its original boundaries, such will be the mesmeric, satanic power of its despotic leader, that the rest of the nations will be subject to him, and his mark will be universally acknowledged in the field of commerce.

This ten kingdom grouping is spoken of as "the beast" in Revelation 13.1, 2 and 17.3-7. It will clearly be a functioning confederacy at the beginning of Daniel's 70th week. One of the heads of this beast is also spoken of as "the Beast" (Revelation 13.3-10 and 17.8-18). As is the kingdom, so is its ruler. A similar association is seen at the beginning of Gentile power. Daniel says of Nebuchadnezzar, "Thou art the head of gold". Then he says, "After thee shall arise another kingdom". Such was the domination of the Babylonian monarch that he symbolized the, kingdom over which he reigned.

The Beast, the man, the first of the two in Revelation 13 (the second being the false prophet, his able lieutenant) is, we suggest, elsewhere named:

The AssyrianIsaiah 30.31

The little hornDaniel 7.8

The prince that shall comeDaniel 9.26

The king of the northDaniel 11.40

The desolatorDaniel 9.27

The man of sin2 Thessalonians 2.3

The son of perdition2 Thessalonians 2.3

The lawless one2 Thessalonians 2.8

The antichrist1 John 2.18

He will not be one of the original ten kings who agree to federate (Daniel 7.24). He will be completely diverse from them, will put down three of them, then dominate the scene. Although he is thus an eleventh king, there is no question of his introducing an eleventh kingdom. He rises from obscurity within one of the ten kingdoms, a contemptible person who secures his ascendancy by flattery as typified (or prophesied) in Daniel 11.21. At the beginning of the final 7 year period he will make the covenant with Israel as spoken of in Daniel 9.27. This will doubtless ease the appalling Jew/Arab tension in the Middle East and bring relief to Israel from the malevolent offences of certain nations. As a consequence, Isaiah 28.14 will become increasingly descriptive of the nation, "scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem". Yet the covenant will doubtless also enable a God-fearing remnant in the midst of an otherwise apostate nation to settle down to a form of Temple worship. Then the Roman prince will break the covenant in the middle of the week, set up his own image in the Temple as the sole object of worship, and the faithful few in Israel will flee for safety from the breaking storm.

As from the middle of the 70th week, this sinister character will be in supreme control of world affairs. He will be the devil's superman, having resources as deep as the abyss from which he is said to arise. With these he will meet every international exigency. His confederacy, the kingdom of the Beast as it is called, will give undivided support for a time to all the aims of what is termed the great harlot in Revelation 17.1-6. This is evidently a world system of apostate religion and idolatrous uncleanness involving all the nations and their rulers. Some have seen in this harlot the Roman Catholic Church, but we suggest that this would be an unrealistic appraisal in our day. When all born-again persons have gone to the Lord at the Rapture, it is evident that what might be described as a world-wide Council of Religion will rapidly emerge embodying the religions and cults of all races, the fruit in final form of ecumenical seeds being seditiously sown today. It will operate from headquarters in a Babylon rebuilt in Shinar and will control immeasurable wealth and power. From another point of view, Zechariah had a brief view of the harlot when the talent of lead was lifted from the ephah and then replaced (Zechariah 5.5-11). The ephah was the symbol of commerce, and he saw a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah, of whom the angel said, "This is Wickedness". And with the wind in their wings two women bore the ephah to the land of Shinar where a house was prepared for it. The wicked harlot, sovereign also amidst the commerce of the nations, irresistibly borne from doubtless the sophisticated western civilization, in accordance with the sure word of prophecy, and settled in the ancient plain of Shinar in the Middle East - human civilization, in its apparent zenith, back where it began.

In this religious, political system the Beast will see a growing, menacing challenge to his own world-wide dictatorship. His ten kingdom grouping will support him in destroying the harlot and thus removing any obstruction to his own deification (a situation which Israel in particular will be made to feel when his image is concurrently set up in the Temple in Jerusalem). This leaves him the undisputed world ruler of life in every phase, with, we suggest, his seat of power in the city of Babylon, and as the king of Sheshach (or Babylon, see Jeremiah 51.41) he drinks last of all the nations the cup of divine fury (Jeremiah 25.26). So we see Gentile power, given at the beginning to a Babylonian despot, required of one again at the close.

In this connection we should observe that many have difficulty in accepting that Babylon will be rebuilt, in view of such scriptures as Isaiah 13.19, 20, "And Babylon ... shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited ..."; and Jeremiah 50.40, "As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, ... so shall no man dwell there ...", and other similar scriptures. But we would point out that when Jeremiah had written all the evil which was to befall Babylon, "... thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates: and thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again ..." (Jeremiah 51.63, 64). But ancient Babylon did not cease as a stone sinks in the river. Its fall was gradual. The city continued after the capture by Darius. It later revolted in the days of the Persian Empire. Alexander the Great took it in his military stride, and indeed reputedly died there. Besides, when Zechariah saw the vision of the ephah in the land of Shinar, it was many years after the fall of Babylon to Darius. We suggest therefore that there is strong evidence in support of the view that somewhere in Euphratean Shinar a world metropolis will appear, Babylon by name, and by nature, a city which the wealth and skill of the feverish end-time may well throw up in an astonishingly short period. Nor let all this weaken the faith of the reader in an expectation of the imminence of the Lord's return. God does not necessarily rush the dispensations as they follow one after another, as witness the preparatory time interval for the training of the witnesses prior to the commencement of this present age. We hold firmly to the view that there may well be a time interval between the Rapture and the beginning of Daniel's 70th week, be it of long or short duration.

We come now to

The Northern Hordes

Another significant grouping of nations is described in Ezekiel 38 and 39. Chapter 37 views the restoration of the nation of Israel to their land and nationhood. The next two chapters outline the onslaught on them from the north. Then follow the details of the millennial Temple. This setting of the attack by Gog in chapters 38 and 39 points to its occurrence during Daniel's 70th week, as distinct from the advance on the holy city by Gog and Magog at the close of the Millennium (Revelation 20.7-10). The actual time of the invasion is not given, but the invitation to the birds and the beasts to come to the carnage (Ezekiel 39.17-19) corresponds so closely to Revelation 19.18, and the conviction of Israel that from that day forward the LORD will be their God corresponds so closely to Zechariah 12 and 14, that we incline to the view that the invasion is part of the great campaign of Armageddon.

Gog is the prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal and is the divinely appointed commander to the advancing hordes as they come down from the uttermost parts of the north upon Israel's land. Gesenius, the eminent Hebrew scholar, was of the view that Gog is undoubtedly the Russians, that Rosh was a designation for tribes dwelling in the neighbourhood of the Volga, that Meshech was Moscow, and Tubal Tobolsk. Be the details as they may, among prophetic students today there seems reasonably wide, though not total, acceptance that Rosh represents modern Russia.

Thence the northern hordes descend on the mountains of Israel, gathering other nations to them on the way. They have a controversy with Israel. But what they do not understand is that God is drawing them there for He has a very deep controversy with them. This would appear to be a movement quite independent of the ten kingdoms and their ruler and in all probability will annoy him intensely. "But tidings ... out of the north shall trouble him: and he shall go forth with great fury to destroy and utterly to take away many" (Daniel 11.44).

But the northern hordes will never strike a blow against Israel, God's hidden ones (Psalm 83.3), till the time determined. Nor will they ever return home. On the mountains of Israel God will rain down the fires of judgement and over a period of seven months Israel's sons will bury the slain out of their sight.

And, finally,

The Nations from the East

In Daniel 11.44, tidings out of the east also trouble the Beast. There obviously comes a time when on the international front, all is not well for the hitherto undisputed world-ruler, the head of the ten kingdom grouping. He may well be the embodiment of all Satan's power and authority, but nothing can withstand the development of the purpose of the Almighty which from ancient times has been purposed upon the whole earth (Isaiah 14.26). The hand of God will then be stretched out to accomplish His final indignation on both Israel and the nations of the world and no combined forces in the universe can stay the momentum of the end time.

From the sunrise come kings to battle (Revelation 16.12). This may well prove to be the nations from the Far East as well as from the east immediate to Israel's land. Whether Jeremiah 51 will find its final fulfilment in those days it is impossible to say - Babylon, the capital city of the Beast, falling under the judgement of God at the hands of eastern nations as seen in the named kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, Ashkenaz. Be that as it may, from the east, as from the north, come the nations of the world, gathered "together unto the war of the great day of God, the Almighty". The nations on the way to Armageddon.

So whether it is the nations in the ten kingdom grouping, or the hordes from the north, or the armies from the east, Zechariah 12.3 and 14.2 presents the entire world against God and distraught Israel. With this we shall deal in greater detail in a subsequent article.

J.L. Ferguson, Barrhead | Jul 1970
The Finger Of Prophecy