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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 12 SECTION 1

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

BY WHICH THE SECOND AND

THIRD VOLUMES ARE CONNECTED.


 
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I. "The Time of the End."

The end of the eleventh chapter of the Apocalypse conducts the reader into what Jeremiah Styles, "the time of Jacob's trouble," out of which be shall be saved -- ch. 30:7 -- a time in which there are "lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail." -- Apoc. 11:19. This is that "TIME 0F THE END" of which Daniel prophesied, saying "There sliall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time." This is that time which certain chronologists term "an unchronological period;" that is, a period which is left scripturally undefined, having no revealed commencement nor termination: so that it may be a moment exemplified by a flash of lightning, a year, or several years, for anything that is, or can be, known.

But to such a conclusion as this, it it impossible that any one intelligent in the word can come. It is, on the contrary, a period well and clearly indicated. Its commencement is synchronical with the ending of "the time of the vision" seen by Daniel "in the third year of the reign of King Belshatzar;" for, it is written, "to the time of the end the vision" -- l'eth kaitz he khazon - ch. 8:17. Now in an answer to the question, "How long the vision? it was replied, "for an evening-morning of two thousand four hundred." This, according to what time has proved to be the best reading, is the time of the vision -- a period of 2400 years; which, having expired A. D. 1860, brings us to the time of the end, in which "the holy shall be vindicated" from the violence and injury resulting from so long a period of subjection under the feet of the Gentiles.

The world must therefore now be in the eighth year of the Time of the End. The termination of the 2400 years, and the synchronical beginning of the time of the end, were both signalized by the outbreak of the American civil war, which in its development proved to mankind, that with all their boasted science, civilization, and religion, they are not one whit in advance of the beasts that perish. -- Psal. 49:12, 20. The time of the end thus portentously begun continued to unfold itself in the events of the Franco-Mexican war, and those of the Russo-Polish, and Prusso-Austrian Danish, and Prusso-Austrian Italian wars. By the American civil war several millions of Southerners have been subjected to an ignoble military despotism, and social degradation and ruin; while the fanatics used by Providence in its judicial visitation upon the South, have blasted the prosperity of the North, filled its families with lamentation and death, and laid the foundation of trouble that will only be finally assuaged in the absorption and obliteration of the so-called United States in the NEW UNIVERSAL EMPIRE of the Ancient of Days.

The invasion of Mexico by France, England, and Spain, resulted in the fall of a republic -- a corrupt and worthless popular sovereignty; and in the provisional establishment (for it will prove to be nothing more) of a Franco-Austrian imperiality, which has this redeeming quality, that it is hostile to the Papacy, and inimical to the priests. These events in Mexico are, it is most likely, only preparatory elements of the situation being now organized in the providence of the Deity. They are preparing for a future complication, by which the trouble of the latter days will pervade not Europe and Asia only, but America as well. This was written in 1866.

The Russo-Polish war was most ferocious. In the ratio of its extent it was as savage a conflict as the American civil war, though of shorter duration. It was a contest between Russo-Greek and Polish-Latin, in which the Greeks, "the worshippers of the Dragon," destroyed the Polish nationality of the Latins, "the worshippers of the Beast." Poland was blotted out from the political geography of the world. It became a monument of the dead, whose epitaph, forewarns the nations of the fate that awaits their kingdoms and republics when judgment shall be given to the saints, and the time comes that they shall possess the dominion under the whole heaven. -- Dan. 7:22,27. In devouring Poland, "Gog, the Prince of Rosh, Mesech, and Tobl," has prepared, and become a guard to so much of "Gomer and all his bands" as it contains. Nor has the Prince of Rosh, whom we style the Autocrat of All the Russias, been negligent of his mission in the direction of "Togarmah of the north quarters and all his bands." -- Ezek. 38:2,6,7. Since the end of the 2400 years, he has advanced his frontier so as to include Khokan and Bokhara, so that there is now but one state between him and British India, namely, Afghanistan, all of whose sympathies are in accord with the enemies and rivals of British rule in India. Thus "Gog of the land of Magog," the great king of the north, who is to figure so conspicuously "in the time of the end" -- b'aith kaitz, styled by Ezekiel "the latter years" and "the latter days," is standing almost face to face with "Sheba, and Dedan, and the Merchants of Tarshish;" whose young lions ere long will need all their strength and prowess for the repression of the further aggrandizement of the Russo-Assyrian power in the East.

Nor is the alliance of Austria, Prussia, and Germany, the two horned beast of the earth, against Denmark, for the possession of Schleswig and Holstein, without significance in this eventful time of the end. It is a question pregnant with trouble ; and a necessary complication of a situation in which "the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable" will be engaged in an angry and sanguinary conflict, (This was written in 1866, before the Prusso-Austrian Italian campaign, so fatal to the influence and interests of the Papacy.) preparatory to "the war of the great day of AIL-Shaddai," when their thrones will be cast down, and the Ancient of Days shall sit. -- Apoc. 16:14; Dan. 7:9.

And besides all this, not to dwell upon the increase of taxation, financial embarrassment, pestilence, destruction of mankind and their fellow-beasts, and all the minor evils by which humanity is grieved, there is the all-important and inevitable Roman Question. This is pre-eminently the question of the time of the end. It can only be solved in the final and complete abolition of the Papal Kingdom. This result, however, can not be developed by the action or policy of France, Italy, or the Roman people. They are blindly preparing this consummation; and will doubtless develop for "the Great Harlot that sitteth upon
many waters" a hatred of the European Powers, that shall cause them yet more than ever to "make her desolate and naked, and to eat her flesh and burn her with fire." -- Apoc. 17:1,16. But the final and complete destruction of the Papacy is an honor decreed for a more noble and powerful class of agents than these. It is a glory reserved for "the Heirs of the Kingdom which the Deity has promised to them that love him." -- James 2:5. These are the destroyers of the Papacy in the time of the end. They are the Avengers of the Holy -- the avengers of the blood of the saints and witnesses of Jesus, and of all slain upon the earth in defence of righteousness and truth. -- Apoc. 18:6-8, 20, 21. It is from these proceed the lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and earthquake, and great hail." -- Ch. 11:19.

The Roman is a question that cannot be evaded or postponed. A policy must be pursued towards the Pope that will cause his government to use all its influence to enlist the powers in his defence against the Red Republicanism of the Italians and their allies. The cry of these is "an united Italy with Rome for its capital, or death!" To give effect to this would be the expulsion of Austria from Venetia;*(* This has since been effected by the Prusso-Italian cainpaign against Austria.) and the incorporation of the States of the Church with the kingdom or Commonwealth of Italy. If Red Republicanism can acquire the ascendancy in Italy, it will assuredly adventure the experiment of giving effect to it's cry. In this event an appeal to arms would be inevitable. First, because Austria will never consent to the surrender of Venetia without a struggle; and secondly, because the spiritual influence of the Pope, which is still great in all the ten kingdoms of the beast, would go forth with all its unclean and demoniac activity to stir up war in his behalf. In this array of belligerents the combinations will be for a trial of strength between the expiring feudality of the middle ages, and the revolutionary principles of 1789 -- a sanguinary and final conflict between the adherents of Church and State Absolutism, and the partizans of popular sovereignty as "the voice of God."

Thus, by the intervention of the Roman and Eastern questions, a situation is created in the time of the end in exact accordance with the description of it in the prophetic writings. These questions create a trouble for all the nations and governments symbolized by the four beasts seen by Daniel arising out of the great sea. -- Ch. 7. They are all questions affecting the vested interests of the Image seen by Nebuchadnezzar in his dream. This great image, whose brightness is excellent, and its form terrible, appears in all its majesty and power in the time of the end. In the terminal epoch of the sixth vial, which obtains after the advent of the Ancient of Days, the great Russo-Assyrian Gogian Image stands prepared for conflict with "the Prince of Princes," whom Daniel styles "Michael, the Great Prince." -- Ch. 7:25; 12:1. When the image stands thus in the time of the end the crisis will be of the most troublesome and exciting character. "The nations" will have been "made angry;" nor will their anger subside henceforth until the image shall be utterly broken, and all its fragments ground to powder. This result, however, will be beyond their power to accomplish. No combination short of the mighty angel clothed with cloud and rainbowed (Apoc. 10:1) can shiver it to pieces, reduce these to chaff, and sweep them away that no place shall be found for them. -- Apoc. 2:27; Ps. 2:8,9; Dan. 2:35.

The time of the end, which is notably chronological, commences with the termination of the 2400 years, and ends with the exhaustion of the Seventh Vial. Hence the time of the end embraces part of the sixth and the whole of the seventh vials. It embraces so much of the sixth as pertains to the development of the Roman Question after 1860; the events attendant on the coming of the Ancient of Days; and those consequent on His appearing to the beginning of the seventh vial. Here are three epochs -- the present, characterized by the three wonder-working, unclean, frog-like demon-spirits, proceeding out of the mouth of the papal false prophet; the adventual epoch, characterized by the visible presence of Christ in Southern Asia; and the third, or terminal epoch, characterized by the gathering of the military forces of the powers into the Holy Land for that signal discomfiture, which constitutes the place of s1aughter the apocalyptic Armageddon. The events of the sixth vial in the aggregate prepare "the way of the kings" which arise in the light of the Sun of Righteousness. The way of these kings is the career of judgment marked out for them in the full development of the seventh vial, which is at once the consummation of the Seventh Trumpet, and the Seventh Seal; and the filling up of the wrath of the Deity upon the nations. The angriness of these, the coming of divine wrath, and "the time of the dead that they should be judged and rewarded," are series of events which synchronize with the adventual epoch of the sixth vial. In this epoch, the dead in Christ, both just and unjust, are caused to stand upon their feet again among the living. This anastasis, or standing again, precedes the destroying of them ""who destroy the earth." -- Apoc. 11:18. The honor of executing the judgment written belongs to all those saints whose names may, in the judgment which begins at the house of Deity, be found registered in the Lamb's book of life. -- Apoe. 20:15; Ps. 149:9; Dan. 7:22. Hence, resurrection must precede the setting in of judgment; and this must begin at the house of the Deity and if it first begin there, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of the Deity?" --1 Pet. 4:17. It will be "destruction from the presence of Lord, and from the glory of his power." -- 2 Thess.1:9.

The destruction issuing from this glorious presence, is styled in Apoc. 14:10, "tormenting with fire and brimstone in the presence of the Holy Angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." The end of the eleventh chapter expresses this torment in the words, "lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail." Hence the conclusion of the eleventh chapter, with which the second volume of this exposition is concluded, is synchronous with all of the fourteenth chapter from the beginning to the end. I say from the beginning of it, because all the things therein represented are subsequent to the saints standing with the Lamb on Mount Zion. Now, when Christ comes, as I have shown in my second volume, he does not come direct to Zion. Moses, in his prophetic blessing of the sons of Israel, says, "Yahweh came from Sinai, and rose up from Seer unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran; and he came with ten thousands of saints." -- Deut. 33:2. He comes to Sinai before he can come from Sinai; and to Seer and Paran before he can rise up and shine from them. He comes Sinai in the adventual epoch of the sixth vial; and to Mount Zion consequent upon the Armageddon overthrow, by which the. Sixth Vial is closed, and the Seventh Vial period is inaugurated.

The time of the Seventh Vial is that portion of the time of the end chronologized in the words of Micah, "according to the days of Israel's coming out of the land of Egypt" -- ch. 7:15. It requires no proof that these days were a period of forty year. Hence, in the vindication of the Holy from injury and violence after the termination of the 2400 years, a judicial period of forty years will be manifested. The object to be attained in the vindication of the holy, is the deliverance of the holy and the host from the treading under foot -- "the transgression of desolation" -- to which they have been subjected for 2408 years to the date of this work: in other words, the putting an end, or accomplishing, to scatter the power of the people of the holy -- yad-am-kodesh -- Dan. 8:13,14; 12:7. The full import of these words is the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, in building again the tabernacle of David, that it may be as in the days of old; with the additional glory of Christ and his Brethren, the glorified Israel of the Deity. in possession of the throne -- Amos 11:11; Acts 15:16; 1:6; Mat. 19:28; Luke 1:32,33.

The work then of the seventh vial will be the setting up of the kingdom by the ELOAHH of the Heavens (Dan. 2:44). This work cannot be fully accomplished until the now widely scattered tribes of Israel are concentrated in the Holy Land, and restored to the independence they enjoyed under David and Solomon. No prosperity in the "breadth of the Great City spiritually called Sodom and Egypt," can compensate the loss of this. They must be brought out of this Egypt in the seventh vial section of the time of the end, as was the generation out of the literal Egypt in the days of Moses, "with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out" (Ezek. 20:33). In other words, the seventh vial is the exodal period of Israel's return from their enemies' lands; and of the punishment of all peoples who have burdened themselves in any way with the Holy City (Zech. 12:2-3; Rev. 11:2). In the accomplishing to scatter the power of the people of the holy in this second exodus of the nation, the Spirit, who will co-work with the saints in their seventh vial execution of the judgments written, says in the testimony already cited from Ezekiel, "I will bring you out from the peoples, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there will I plead with you face to face; like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God. And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that trangress against me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel. " But concerning Israel cleansed from the rebellious; and, by continuing no longer in unbelief, prepared for the blessedness promised in Abraham and his seed, He saith, "in mine holy mountain, in the mountain of the heighth of Israel, there shall all the house of Israel all of them in the land, serve Me: there will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings, and the first-fruits of your oblations with all your holy things. I will accept you with your sweet savour when I bring you out from the peoples, and gather you out of the countries wherein ye have been scattered; and I will be sanctified in you before the nations. And ye shall know that I (the Anointed Jesus) am YAHWEH when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I lifted up My hand to give it to your fathers."
This regeneration of the twelve tribes of Israel, and resettlement of them in the Holy Land, is a grand and important result of the seventh vial outpouring of judgment. When it is consummated, "Yahweh's servant David will be a Prince among them, and be their Shepherd." They will have stood upon their feet an exceeding great army in their enemies' lands; and from thence have opened for themselves a way by divine cooperation into the land of Israel, upon the mountains of which they will be, for the first time since the fourth year of Rehoboam, B.C. 982, one nation, and one kingdom, under one king. "They shall no more be two nations neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. " The sanctuary will be in the midst of them, and the tabernacle also; and Yahweh will be their Elohim, and they shall be His people (Ezek. 34:23; 37:10,11,12; 22-27). This restitution of all things pertains to the seventh vial, which embraces "the times of" that "restitution of all things which the Deity hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the days of Moses" (Acts 3:21). Jacob is saved out of his trouble; the yoke of Esau is at length broken from off his neck; and the first dominion, the kingdom, has come to the daughter of Jerusalem (Gen. 27:40; Mic. 4:8). The vindication of the holy is complete.

Now, as the reader may well suppose, this wonderful and mighty operation of Deity becomes an affair of world-wide interest and importance. It will not be a work of peace. The Frog-Dominion has been proclaimed to be peace: l'empire c'est la paix but not so the kingdom proclaimed in the gospel. This kingdom, in the period of its establishment, is not peace; but war, until it has been broken in pieces and subdued the four beasts of Daniel; and planted itself without a rival in all the earth. Such an enterprise as this may be planned and prepared, but cannot be executed in secret. It is therefore testified that "the nations shall see and be confounded at all Israel's might: they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid Of YAHWEH our Elohim, and shall fear because of thee" (Mic. 7:16). The testimony of Micah is developed in the forty years of the time of the end immediately preceding the Millennium, as the result of the Seven Thunders, by which, not the earth, but those who corrupt the earth, are destroyed (Rev. 11: 18).

 

 

 

 


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