Floods: War & Birth

In Scripture floods represent God’s judgement, and are used metaphorically to describe war. Flood imagery also relates to birth and baptism when a new journey begins. Naturally, during child birth a woman’s waters break with a kind of a flood as a new life begins. The meaning is both spiritual and apocalyptic.

The most well known flood was Noah’s flood (Gen 6-9). This was a severe judgement on the ancient world, but the flood narrative includes images of God’s spirit; the dove (Gen 8v8), the olive leaf (v11), and baptism (1 Peter 3v20-21).

The imagery of rain and outpouring can represent the baptism of God’s Spirit. This is important in prophecy because the birth of the final generation is expected to involve birth pains in the form of a flood of war, and also an outpouring of God’s Spirit.

Here are some more examples of flood:

Exodus 15v8: ESV (The exodus of Israel from Egypt)
By the blast of your nostrils
the waters piled up;
the floods stood up in a heap;
the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.

Isaiah 8v6-8: (The Assyrian invasion)
Because this people has rejected
the gently flowing waters of Shiloah
and rejoices over Rezin
and the son of Remaliah,
7 therefore the Lord is about to bring against them
the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates—
the king of Assyria with all his pomp.
It will overflow all its channels,
run over all its banks
8 and sweep on into Judah, swirling over it,
passing through it and reaching up to the neck.
Its outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land,
Immanuel!”

Daniel 9v26b:
The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.

Daniel 11v40: NIV
At the time of the end the king of the South will engage him in battle, and the king of the North will storm out against him with chariots and cavalry and a great fleet of ships. He will invade many countries and sweep through them like a flood.

Birth & baptism:

The four Old Testament examples of floods above all relate to times of birth and baptism. God uses rivers, seas, waters and floods to make a spiritual point: “You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” — Micah 7v19.

  • Noah’s flood was a global birth / baptism moment already mentioned,

  • The exodus, passing through the sea was the birth of the nation of Israel (Ex 4v22) and a baptism (1 Cor 10v2).

  • The King of Assyria came like a flood after the birth of Immanuel (Isaiah 8v8), meaning ‘God with us’.

  • The war like a flood at the time of the end (Daniel 11v40). It will happen again, this times as the birth pains of the final generation. War is mentioned in Matthew 24v6-8.

Birth / Baptism of Jesus

The birth of Jesus, and his escape from King Herod and the slaughter of the infants is described in the imagery of the terrifying destruction of a flood, or war:

  • Baby Moses was placed in an “ark” on the Nile to escape Pharaoh’s slaughter of the infants (Exodus 2v3, 5). The same Hebrew world is used for Noah’ ark.

  • An infant Jesus re-enacted the Exodus (Mat 2v15) which has strong birth / baptism themes as mentioned above.

  • The birth of Immanuel in Isaiah 7 is a prophecy of the birth of Jesus, and a sign of a war to come like a flood “reaching up to the neck” (Isaiah 7v14-17, 8v7-8).

  • Later, as an adult Jesus was baptised in the Jordan, where the imagery of the dove from Noah’s flood relates to God’s Spirit.

After the baptism of Jesus he was lead by the Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days to be tested (Mat 4v2). This connects with the 40 days of rain during Noah’s flood (Gen 7v12). Again, it was after a second period of 40 days while the flood waters were going down that Noah sent out the dove from the ark (Gen 8v6-8).

In Revelation 12 after the birth of Jesus there was a war in heaven and the woman fled into the wilderness. The dragon spewed out a flood to try to sweep the woman away but the earth opened it’s mouth and swallowed the flood. (Rev 12v15-16).

In addition to the flood, other imagery in Revelation 12 also connects with the examples that we have been discussing: The sign of birth (v1-2) is the sign of Immanuel (Isa 7v14). The woman fled from the dragon on eagles wings (v14) which relates to the Exodus (Ex 19v4), and of course these all relate to the birth of Jesus, and therefore also to spiritual new birth.

Afterwards:

The struggle of birth is the war of repentance. Afterwards God’s blessing comes. In Christ we are washed clean so that Gods spirit may dwell within us. The prophet Joel wrote about war and said, “It shall come to pass afterwards, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.” — Joel 2v28. Born again Christians make Jesus Lord of our lives.

But the world who do not accept Christ have a different Lord. After the war and the flood of Revelation 12 the Beast appears in Revelation 13, coming up out of the sea and demands to be worshipped. This is what happens if we fail to repent and make Jesus Lord of our lives we become slaves to sin again.

Spiritual truth appears in Bible prophecy. The typological pattern appears in the following examples:

  • Nimrod ruled the known world after Noah’s flood, (Gen 10v8-12), but the dove brought the olive leaf and God made a covenant with Noah.

  • Israel faced a long wilderness journey after the exodus, but God travelled with them in the pillar of cloud and column of fire.

  • Assyria ruled the known world after the war of Immanuel’s time. Immanuel means ‘God with us’.

  • Jesus lived during the time of the Roman Empire. Pentecost was the birth of the church.

We have the sign of birth, the Revelation 12 sign of 2017, so lets consider how prophecy will potentially relate to us apocalyptically again:

The flood of world war three can be expected to bring a baptism of God’s Spirit, an awakening and great last days revival. But the war will also give rise to an end times beast, a world government to come after the birth of the final generation.

Birth of the Church

In relation to Pentecost, the birth of the church, the imagery of flood relates to the outpouring of God’s Spirit. For God’s people this outpouring is not to overwhelm and defeat, but to bless and empower.

Israel is given “The former rains and the latter rains” Joel 2v23. The book of Joel is all about war and judgement, but the out pouring of God’s Spirit means salvation.

The former and latter rains are also mentioned in Deut 11v14, Jer 5v24, Hos 6v3, Zec 10v1 and James 5v7.

Noah’s flood swept away “all flesh” and brought in a covenant for “all flesh” (Gen 9v15). The Pentecost outpouring of God’s Spirit was also for “all flesh” (Acts 2v17).

The apocalyptic imagery of Pentecost in Acts 2 connects well with the Exodus and Mount Sinai. But while 3000 people died at Mount Sinai (Ex 32v28), 3000 people were saved on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2v41).

The Birth of Immanuel means “God with us,” and this was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, and at the time of spiritual new birth when God put his Spirit into our hearts.

The End Time Flood

To re-quote Daniel’s two references to an end times flood:

Daniel 9v26b:
The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.

Daniel 11v40: NIV
At the time of the end the king of the South will engage him in battle, and the king of the North will storm out against him with chariots and cavalry and a great fleet of ships. He will invade many countries and sweep through them like a flood.

We have the sign of birth, the Revelation 12 sign of 2017. It is believed to be a seven year warning pointing to the latter part of 2024, or around that time. We also have the sign of the dragon, and Putin war in Ukraine began seven years afterwards. There are many reasons to believe we are approaching a major war, world war three.

The Daniel 11 Prophecy describes a war at the time of the end that will move through the Middle East from the north (probably Iran) to the south, and is expected to be an American invasion. We are now (in October 2023) seeing this war spreading in the Middle East so we know that it’s time to prepare for a world wide event.

The climax of war described in Daniel 11v44 in terms that resemble the slaughter of the innocent when Jesus was little. “Reports from the east and the north will alarm him, and he will set out in a great rage to destroy and annihilate many.” (Dan 11v44).

When Jesus was little the wise men’s reports that came from the east alarmed King Herod, but Jesus escaped the slaughter of the infants, so today I am confident that Christians will be blessed to escape the flood of nuclear war.

“The Testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” — Revelation 19v10.

Birth is a blessing for God’s people. We can expect an outpouring of God’s Spirit, a revival, an awakening, a Pentecost moment for the final generation with a powerful ministry to follow.

Nuclear war will be a King Herod moment, an encounter with the dragon and a time of testing, but it not the end (Mat 24v6-8). A world government comes afterwards (Dan 11v45), but Jesus’ life and ministry was during the time of the Roman Empire. The journey of the final generation will be life long while we work to complete the great commission.

The moment of the cross, the great tribulation comes when the testimony is complete just before the second coming of Jesus (Dan 12v1-2), but that is a topic for another article.

Right now those who know Jesus and who are walking in the truth need to study the birth of Jesus to understand how to be in God’s ark of protection as we come through WW3, and the birth pains of the final generation.

Lets pray for God’s wisdom on what to do, how to care for each other so that many lives may be saved, and a door may be opened for the Gospel.