What Comes When Turkey Falls
The fury of his goings forth "utterly to make away many," the moving of his capital from one place to another, avail nothing in the end. "He shall come to his end, and none shall help him."
The suggestion of the prophecy is that this power has hitherto been helped to stand. Here again every suggestion of the prophetic language finds its response in history. Through these later years of the time of the end the Ottoman Empire has been helped to stand, by either one power or another, or by some combination of powers. The late Lord Salisbury, while premier of Britain, thus stated the reasons for this policy of helping Turkey:
"Turkey is in that remarkable condition in which it has now stood for half a century, mainly because the great powers of the world have resolved that for the peace of Christendom it is necessary that the Ottoman Empire should stand. They came to that conclusion nearly half a century ago. I do not think they have altered it now. The danger, if the Ottoman Empire should fall, would not merely be the danger that would threaten the territories of which that empire consists; it would be the danger that the fire there lit should spread to other nations, and should involve all that is most powerful and civilized in Europe in a dangerous and calamitous contest. That was the danger that was present to the minds of our fathers when they resolved to make the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire a matter of European treaty, and that is a danger which has not passed away."—Mansion House speech, Nov. 9, 1895.
The veteran premier stated the fear of modern statesmen that Turkey's fall would involve all civilization in a calamitous conflict. The prophecy pictures just such a catastrophe, in these words:
"He shall come to his end, and none shall help him. And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time."
What modern statesmen have seen impending and have sought to ward off, the ancient prophecy says will surely come to pass when the king of the north comes to his end,—a time of trouble for the nations such as never was.
In the New Testament
In the prophecy of Revelation 16, the last great clash of the nations is represented as following the fall of the power that rules the territory drained by the Euphrates. Describing the last events in human history, under the pouring out of the vials of judgment upon the world, the prophet says:
"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." Rev. 16:12.