The King of the East from the Bible

Source: THE PROPHETIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RISE OF CHINA AS A WORLD POWER
by Dr. Tim La Haye

(The Battle of Armageddon has been thought and interpreted by some that will be more or less of a World War 3 led by China. Hence with the Rise of China, this Dragon, it had some fears struck in certain group of christ believers and people in the western nations.)

"Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the East might be prepared." (Rev 16:12)

These "kings from the east" have befuddled Bible prophecy scholars for many years, for few mentioned anything about them. That is, until the communist take-over of China during World War II. Since then it has become apparent that this la
rgest of all countries in the world has a prophetic role, however minor it may be, in end time events.

We can readily understand that,for China has been content to stay within its vast borders for thousands of years and live pretty much to itself. Their communist dictators have changed all that for they seem to have the same obsession that characterized communists before them - world conquest.

One hundred eighty years ago Napoleon Bonapart said, "When China awakens, the world will tremble." You don't have to be a prophet to recognize that time of trembling has already come to Asia and within one decade will probably come to the whole world

Very little is said about China in the Bible. In fact, what is said includes more than just China, for the term "kings of the east" really means "kings of the rising sun" which would include Japan and possibly other Asian countries. As Dr. John Walvoord, considered the dean of prophecy scholars living today, writes of this expression;

There has been some tendency to take the expression "the kings of the east" literally, "the kings of the sunrise'-as referring specifically to Japan where the rising sun is a symbol of its political power. However, it is more natural to consider the term, "rising sun" as a synonym for east…2

Some Bible teachers suggest that "the Smite" referred to in Genesis 10:17 and again in the prophecy of Isaiah 49:12 is where the "land of Sinim" is located. These "Sinites" along with other peoples evidently settled in the east in what we know today as China, after God scattered them from the Tower of Babel, and became isolated from the rest of the world.

There is little doubt that those earliest settlers carried with them after the great flood the stories of creation and the one true God. One of the things early missionaries to China pointedout is the truth of God in the Chinese pictographic language. My brother-in-law was a missionary to Taiwan for over twenty years and shared with me that the Chinese name for God is "Shang Ti," which is made up of two pictographic symbols, "above" (or heavenly) and "emperor."

The Chinese name for God is Heavenly Emperor. In a country that worships many gods it is interesting that the earliest of Chinese characters (going back as some suggest, 4,500 years ago) means they recognized one that is above all emperors, or gods, as the "Heavenly Emperor."


In the May 21st 1965 issue of TIME Magazine the author of an article on China threw a hand grenade into the laps of prophecy preachers by stating that The Chinese had the potential of yielding an army of "200 million troops."

That specific number, coincidentally identical to the one found in Revelation 9:16, predicting that during the Tribulation period at the blowing of the sixth Trumpet judgment, 200 million horsemen would be unleashed and would go out to slay "one third of men."

This similarity in number of troops triggered an outbreak of speculation that found many suggesting that the two hundred million would come with the kings of the east to do battle with Christ at the consummation of the end of this age known as The Battle of Armageddon.

While there is no question that the armies of the Orient, which come to that bathe, at the very end of the Tribulation, will be enormous, due to the incredible population of those countries. It definitely is not the 9:16 army.

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