{"id":200,"date":"2011-08-09T19:01:05","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T23:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/isittheendoftheworld\/?p=200"},"modified":"2011-08-09T19:01:05","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T23:01:05","slug":"hard-to-believe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/08\/hard-to-believe.html","title":{"rendered":"Hard to Believe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAnd 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.\u201d (Revelation 16:12)<\/p>\n<p>As I often like to say\u2014I heard this from the peerless Bible teacher, Henry M. Morris\u2014the book of Revelation isn&#8217;t hard to understand (as is often alleged); it&#8217;s hard to believe!<\/p>\n<p>True, that. The weird imagery of dragons and beasts from the sea and vials poured out, &#8220;bowl judgments&#8221;&#8230;well, most people throw up their hands.<\/p>\n<p>Within Christian circles, there are several schools of thought about Revelation. Some believe the prophecies were fulfilled in the time of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. Some believe the book is symbolic or metaphorical, written to encourage persecuted believers during the period of Roman rule.<\/p>\n<p>I believe a good bit of it is yet future, and &#8220;soon&#8221; future, to boot.<\/p>\n<p>The other day I stumbled onto a mind-blowing bit of evidence that Revelation is meant for our time, and that Bible prophecy is true. It was a Facebook posting, and in this day of cyber-news, I knew it had to be checked out.<\/p>\n<p>The story revealed that the great River Euphrates is&#8230;drying up. Now, things happen in our world and things come and go. But if you&#8217;ve read Revelation, you know that a strange prophecy involves the drying-up of this great river, which runs through Mesopotamia.<\/p>\n<p>The reason given for the drying up of the Euphrates is so a vast army can come from the east and invade Israel. For a long time, the idea has seemed laughable to scholars. The liberal church has always considered Revelation to be problematic at best, an embarrassment at worst. <\/p>\n<p>I wonder what they think of it now.<\/p>\n<p>You see, no less an authority than the New York Times has reported that the Euphrates is drying up; the story ran with several stark, black-and-white photographs that record the scene.<\/p>\n<p>The question then becomes, is this occurrence a coincidence? Or is it an indication that Bible prophecy is valid, relevant, and sitting on our world like King Kong?<\/p>\n<p>For those who don&#8217;t have a bias against it, for whatever reason, the fulfillment of Bible prophecy in 2011 is dramatic and astonishing.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAnd 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.\u201d (Revelation 16:12) As I often like to say\u2014I heard this from the peerless Bible teacher, Henry M. Morris\u2014the book of Revelation isn&#8217;t hard&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hard to Believe - Is it the End of the World?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hard to Believe - Is it the End of the World?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cAnd 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.\u201d (Revelation 16:12) As I often like to say\u2014I heard this from the peerless Bible teacher, Henry M. Morris\u2014the book of Revelation isn&#8217;t hard&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/08\/hard-to-believe.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Is it the End of the World?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-09T23:01:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim Fletcher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hard to Believe - Is it the End of the World?","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hard to Believe - Is it the End of the World?","og_description":"\u201cAnd 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.\u201d (Revelation 16:12) As I often like to say\u2014I heard this from the peerless Bible teacher, Henry M. Morris\u2014the book of Revelation isn&#8217;t hard&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/08\/hard-to-believe.html","og_site_name":"Is it the End of the World?","article_published_time":"2011-08-09T23:01:05+00:00","author":"Jim Fletcher","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/08\/hard-to-believe.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/08\/hard-to-believe.html","name":"Hard to Believe - Is it the End of the World?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-08-09T23:01:05+00:00","dateModified":"2011-08-09T23:01:05+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/#\/schema\/person\/e4febb70ba13f920c6255f1d7aaf0c96"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/08\/hard-to-believe.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/08\/hard-to-believe.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/2011\/08\/hard-to-believe.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hard to Believe"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/","name":"Is it the End of the World?","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jim Fletcher","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/isittheendoftheworld\/#\/schema\/person\/e4febb70ba13f920c6255f1d7aaf0c96","name":"Jim Fletcher","description":"Blogger and researcher Jim Fletcher has worked in the book publishing industry for 15 years, and is now director of the apologetics group Prophecy Matters. 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