Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #16 of Revelation, chapter 16, and we are going to be reading Revelation 16:12-14:

And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

We have been looking at verse 12 and the drying up of the great river Euphrates. We are just going to look at the last part of that verse in tonight’s study, where it says, in Revelation 16:12:

… that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

The drying up of the water of the Euphrates (Babylon) was the drying up of the Gospel waters in the world and it is necessary preparation for the “way” to be prepared for the “kings of the east.” It is the “way” to heaven and it must take place before God can end the world – He must complete punishment on the unsaved and try His people before bringing the elect into the new heaven and new earth.

Let us look at the word “east.” We know that God likens the true believers to “kings.” Spiritually, we are “prophets, priests and kings,” the Bible says. We are of royal blood, once we become saved. We are of the family of Christ who is King of kings and Lord of lords and He makes us “kings.” The direction of the “east” is a direction that identifies with the kingdom of God and with the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in Matthew 2:1-2:

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

Notice it says they were “wise men from the east.” They are individuals that picture God’s true believers. The direction of the star is from the east and Christ is typified by a star in the Bible. The “east” is the direction from which the sun rises; the light of the world comes up in the East and it is the direction of Christ. We read in Luke 1:78:

Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,

This is a chapter in which the birth of the Messiah is being proclaimed; He is the “dayspring from on high.” The Greek word translated as “dayspring” is Strong’s #395 and it is the same word translated as “east.” So it could read, “Whereby the east from on high hath visited us.” But, of course, that does not sound too good, so the translators translated it as “dayspring,” because the day “springs” or “rises” from the East. The “dayspring” or the “east” identify with Christ.

Let us look at one other verse, in Isaiah 41:2:

Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? he gave them as the dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow.

The “righteous man from the east” can only be Christ. He is the one who is the ruler of kings, the King of kings. God speaks of Him here as “the righteous man from the east.” That is why the “way of the kings of the east might be prepared.”

Let us go on to Revelation 16:13-14:

And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

At this point, we have just been reading in this chapter about the quick succession of the pouring out of the vials of the wrath of God, one after another, upon Babylon and upon the seat of the beast. Before going into discussing the seventh angel pouring out a vial, God sort of “backtracks” to the beginning of the Great Tribulation period; He is going to go back to that point in order to establish the Battle of Armageddon, the battle of Judgment Day between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of Satan. He is going to show how Satan gathered his forces and brought his army into battle in the Day of Judgment against the Lord and the kingdom of God. In order to show that, He is going back a little bit in time – not too far – to the beginning of the Great Tribulation and that is why the Apostle John is seeing these “unclean spirits.” Notice, in verse 14, they came out of the “mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet,” and they go forth unto the “kings of earth,” not the “kings of the east.” In the Bible, the phrase “kings of the earth” could be true believers or it could be the unsaved in the churches, depending on the context. Here, it is clear that since they are being brought together due to what is coming out of the mouth of the dragon, beast and false prophet, it is not the true believers. So that false gospel coming out of the mouth of Satan went “forth unto the kings of the earth and of the world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” This reminds us of the loosing of Satan and the formation of Gog and Magog, which we read about in Revelation 20:7-9:

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.

So just as Gog and Magog gathered their forces and came against the camp of the saints, the churches and congregations of the world that had been God’s outward representation of the kingdom of God to this earth. Satan assaulted and attacked it and he then had an enormous multitude, since the New Testament corporate church during this time numbered about two billion people. Gog and Magog was a great multitude. And “Magog,” the professed Christians within the congregations (the corporate body) were able to be gathered unto Satan because of what came out of the mouth, as it says, in Revelation 16:13: “And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.” The number “three” points to the purpose of God; this was God’s doing. It was not due to Satan’s might or power, in any way. He had been a defeated foe that had been bound at the cross and received a deadly wound, but “his deadly wound was healed,” due to the purpose of God’s “times and seasons.” It was finally the time when the figurative “thousand years” of his binding would come to a close and Satan must be loosed in order to accomplish God’s purpose to destroy the corporate church body. So God did loose Him, according to the will of God.

So it says, “three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.” We should not think that these are three different individuals or three different evil spirits. They are all a picture of Satan. We know he is called “the dragon.” We know “the beast” was the name God gave to Satan for his rule during the Great Tribulation period. We also know he is “the false prophet.” There are many false prophets in the world, but Satan is the father of lies, so he is “the false prophet.” Just as Jesus is “the Truth,” Satan is “the false prophet.”

So God says that what came out of their mouths was “unclean spirits like frogs.” Why does God say there were like “frogs”? When we search the Bible, we do not find many references to “frogs” in either the Old Testament or New Testament. The place where “frogs” are most often mentioned is in the Book of Exodus, in chapter 8, as one of the plagues that came upon Egypt. It says in Exodus 8:1-6:

And JEHOVAH spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith JEHOVAH, Let my people go, that they may serve me. And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs: And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs: And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants. And JEHOVAH spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thine hand with thy rod over the streams, over the rivers, and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.

This was the horrible plague of frogs that God brought upon Egypt. Soon Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, beseeching them and promising them to let the people go, but he was lying. God did, however, remove this plague from them. What does this plague of frogs represent? We do know that in the judgment God is bringing now upon the world, He is reminding us of the plagues He brought upon the nation of Egypt. There was the plague of water being turned to blood, which we saw in Revelation 16 and that, too, was one of the plagues upon Egypt. There was the plague of darkness upon the seat of the beast which reminded us of the “thick darkness” that came upon Egypt. And now the plague of “frogs” is being brought to bear upon the inhabitants of the earth in the Day of Judgment. This would go back to the beginning of judgment on the house of God, but it is part of the overall 10,000 days of judgment and God views the beginning of judgment as when it “begins at the house of God,” according to 1Peter 4:17. We say that judgment began on May 21, 2011 and that is true concerning the final judgment upon all the world, but as far as the end time judgment of God, it truly began with God smiting the people called by His name, the corporate churches and congregations of the world.

The frogs were in view in Egypt, but, again, what is the point of the frogs in Revelation 16? What do they spiritually represent? There are so few references to “frogs” in the Bible, but we do find a spiritual definition of “frogs” in the Psalms, where God is recounting some of the plagues He brought upon Egypt. It says in Psalm 78:45:

He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them.

The Hebrew word translated as “destroyed” means just that: to “perish,” to “mar,” to “corrupt” or to “destroy,” so the frogs picture destruction and that is exactly what Satan accomplished when God loosed him. He immediately entered into the churches. We know that from passages such as that found in Revelation, chapter 13 or in 2Thessalonians, chapter 2. He took his seat as the man of sin, seated in the temple and showing himself that he was God, and he brought destruction with him; he brought “unclean spirits” that came out of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet. Since Satan is a spirit being, how could be do that? He could not take the pulpit personally. Even though people are deceived by Satan, there is no way they would allow the Devil to take the pulpit, knowingly. They would not be able to see him, of course, but through Satan’s emissaries – priests, pastors, elders and other religious leaders – he was able to “speak” to the congregations, as we read in 2Corinthians 11:13-15:

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

In our modern day, Satan’s men (and women) have gotten into the pulpit and they began to teach other kinds of gospels, especially those featuring “lying signs and wonders.” Simultaneous with his loosing, the charismatic gospel exploded in popularity across the world. Of the two billion professed members of the corporate churches, there may be 500 million or more that are in some form of charismatic gospel, or about 1 in 4 of the professed Christians in the world. It is an enormous amount of people that believe that their supernatural activity is of God. The problem is that God refutes that and He said upon the completion of the Bible that had been compiled over the course of about 1,500 years, in Revelation 22:18-19:

If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life…

So when people say they have received a “vision” from God or that God gave them a “dream” or a “tongue,” it is additional revelation, if it were true, but God says He will not do that. God has given His revelation and His complete communication to mankind. It is a Book of 66 Books that makes up the complete Book of the Bible. If we want to hear from God, we have to read His Book and there is no further communication outside of the confines of the written Word of God. So if anyone comes to you, saying, “I have a message from God,” and it is in any other form, it is not from God. If it is supernatural, it is from Satan.

This is what Satan did. He came with “lying signs and wonders,” trying to look like Christ and trying to perform miraculous deeds in order to prove his gospel and to deceive people into thinking it was from God. So these people “speak in tongues,” or “fall over backwards, slain in the spirit.” It was quite a demonstration and people were “star struck,” and they said, “Oh, the Spirit of God is with us!” But it had nothing to do with the Spirit of God. It is the spirit of Satan, the spirit of the evil one, as we read of the man of sin, in 2Thessalonians 2:8-12:

And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

The word for “signs” in verse 9, where it says, “the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,” is the identical word that is translated as “miracles,” in Revelation 16:14: “For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth.” So this is the “working of Satan,” and you do not have to go to a haunted house to see the “working of Satan” and the operation of Satan and his evil kingdom of darkness. You can go to any church in the world and it is happening there, in any denomination – Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Catholic, Pentecostal, or independent or you name it. They are all part of that which was given over to Satan because of the rebellion of the churches; God loosed Satan to destroy them and that is what the “frogs” coming out of the mouth of the dragon, beast and false prophet did accomplish. It was the complete and ultimate destruction of the corporate church and all of those that remained in the corporate churches and congregations of the world have been bundled as tares for the burning. Spiritually, God has already burned them; they are destroyed. Satan did his job very well.