I came upon a website recently that contends that Rev 9 was fulfilled through the decline of the Ottoman Empire. I don’t know history well enough to argue.
I have wondered in times past if any of what I would think is prophecy still to be fulfilled, has in fact already happened. On a similar note I was listening to a guest on a well known late night radio show where he (a Christian I think) contended that WWII fulfilled some of the prophecies, such as a third of the ships being destroyed or a great mountain, burning with fire, being cast into the sea (atomic bomb).
I suspect that many of us read prophecy relative to our own current and recent history. Christians from a thousand years ago were probably trying to understand events of their time in relation to their understanding of Bible prophecy, especially the book of Revelation. What are your thoughts?
I believe that all of Revelation following chapter 3 is still in our future. Others believe it’s all in the past. But I don’t know of any accepted school of thought regarding prophecy that advocates picking and choosing parts of the book as being fulfilled without regard for its chronology.
For example, if the prophecies of Rev. 8 about the ships and the great mountain have been fulfilled, then everything before it must be fulfilled as well. Same with the view that the fall of the Ottoman Empire fulfilled Rev. 9. Some may think that the two world wars were similar to some passages in the Book of Revelation, but that’s no reason to believe that those events fulfilled some of the the prophecies of the book, leaving the rest for later.
Then there’s the issue of Israel. The end times, to which chapters 4-22 are devoted, can’t have been fulfilled before the re-birth of Israel, which as everyone knows happened several years after ww2 ended, and 30 years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.