1. The Great Dragon, the Old Serpent, the Devil, and Satan—names and titles of ominous import—is the unseen leader of the moral darkness and wickedness of the closing days prior to the Lord’s Return in power. The concentration of satanic wickedness on earth is consequent on the issue of the war in Heaven (Rev. 12:7-9, 13-17), Satan, expelled there from, directs his untiring energies, and employs his almost unlimited resources in ruining the earth, filling it with anguish and misery. In his diabolic mission he is ably supported by his distinguished ministers, the Beast and the False Prophet, probably the two guiltiest men then on the face of the earth, satanically inspired.
2. The Beast of the Apocalyptic Prophecies (chaps. 11:7; 12; 13:1-8; 14:9; 16:17; 19:19-20; 20:10). The little horn (Dan. 7:7-8, 11, 20-21, 23-26). This little horn or king is the personal head of the revived empire. The little horn of Daniel 8 is a different personage. “The prince that shall come” (Dan. 9:26).
3. The Antichrist of John’s Epistles. The false messiah (John 5:43). Man of sin, son of perdition, and the wicked or lawless one (2 Thess. 2). The false prophet (Rev. 16:13; 19:20; 20:10). Another beast (Rev. 13:11-17). The king (Dan. 11:36-39; Isa. 30:33). The man of the earth (Psa. 10:18). The bloody and deceitful man (Psa. 5:6).
4. King of the North (Dan. 11). The overflowing scourge (Isa. 28). The Assyrian (Isa. 10; 14:2:5; 31:8). King of fierce countenance (Dan. 8:23-25).
5. King of the South, that is, of Egypt (Dan. 11).
6. Gog, the last Czar of Russia, and head of the great northern confederacy against Israel and her land. In chapters 38 and 39 of the prophecy of Ezekiel we read: Gog, his allies and armies, ingloriously fall on the mountains of Israel. Of the hosts enticed by greed to plunder and spoil Israel, then the center and storehouse of the world’s wealth, but a sixth part are spared, and these are sent through the various lands of the east to proclaim the vengeance of the Lord on the enemies of His people, and to make known Jehovah’s presence in the midst of His own, saved Israel. Jehovah is the defense of happy Israel.
The foregoing characters, save Satan their chief, are of different nationalities. Gog and the king of the north act together in the political oppression of Israel, the former the more distinguished of the two. The Beast and the False Prophet are confederates, the former wielding the royal and civil power, the latter the spiritual authority of Satan. The king of the south plays a comparatively unimportant part compared to that of his brother monarch in the north. The five persons referred to are actual men, not systems, although they may head them up, nor do they represent a succession of eminent persons. These five distinguished men have their various parts assigned them in the coming conflict betwixt good and evil, light and darkness. Their respective spheres of action, whether in the west against Christ (Rev. 19), or in the north-east against the Jews (Psa. 83; Zech. 14), are subjects with which all prophetic students should be thoroughly acquainted. To locate these future apostates, to apportion their work and doings as mapped out in the prophetic program, is a necessity for all desirous of intelligently understanding the prophecies.