The sixth angel poured his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the East.
And I saw, issuing from the mouth of the Dragon and from the mouth of the Beast and from the mouth of the false prophet, three foul spirits like frogs--for they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great Day of God the Almighty. ("Lo, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is he who is awake, keeping his garments that he may not go naked and be seen exposed.!")
And they assembled them at the place which is called in Hebrew 'Armageddon.'
3 comments:
The image/figure of the angelic troops gathering on the Plains at Meggido has been on my thoughts this week. I'm projecting horrible things -- stuff that's important but because its not urgent is getting shoved aside. Maybe I'm reminding myself to make space for it.
Meanwhile I take solace in the hope that spiritual combat doesn't have to end in physical bloodshed. I'm reminded of a Quaker I met once who advised me, my salvation is incomplete until I have made my enemies into friends.
Well, I don't see anything here to suggest that the troops gathering are 'angelic' in any sense of the word.
The whole thing sounds disturbingly apt to the "These things will be happening soon so watch out!" school of dream-interpretation... So I went back to my Malina&Pilch, to see how it all would have looked from an ancient astronomical/strological viewpoint.
"The Euphrates was the water source of the great city Babel/Babylon. It was the traditional eastern point of passage for westward-moving, invading armies. Thus a dry path for eastern kings is made ready.
"With the preparation of a pathway from the east and right before the final affliction, the cosmic trio reacts. The seer sees this reaction in three sky winds, like frogs, issuing from the mouths of the cosmic Dragon, the cosmic Sky Beast, and the cosmic Land Beast, now identified as a false prophet. After all, the task of these constellational creatures was always to deceive earthlings (Rev. 13.14)...
"Now the sky winds act to perform cosmic signs, which act to get all earthly kings to assemble. The seer tells us the purpose, time, and place: 'to do battle, on the great day of God the Almighty,' and at the Hill of Megiddo."
I need to await further light on all this. Meanwhile, I wonder: Literal battle, or as you say, a battle of ideas/ideals/angels? In any event, the Euphrates is no longer a barrier.
As to our salvation, that is no doubt accomplished before our birth (though 'Some things could use a little improvement' still! If you see your enemies as people to be fought, that is an affliction! But it was not said that we would lack for enemies.)
'Further light' still 'in the mail,' I am hoping it may arrive sooner if I work on this!
Beasts of 'air,' land, and sea... Rulers of our intellectual, material, and emotional worlds. All working to tempt us to war against the spiritual Power.
"Every day is the Day of Shiva ['Destroyer of Illusions.']"
Maybe, some day soon, we get the DeMille disaster spectable of all time... some day, no doubt, when we have appointments at the doctor's and a stopover planned to buy ingredients for tommorrow's dinner, and expectations of a hot date this evening... We don't know. Not to make plans, or to not not make plans! We need to wake up, then keep awake--and what that may mean seems to change in the course of our dreams.
To face God right now, and make peace. To trust that what we can't understand right now will be shown to us tomorrow, because only after tomorrow will we be grown enough to understand.
If God gives us a Godzilla movie, by all means try to stay out from underfoot!
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