The Genre of Revelation is in dozens of non-biblical books back then, and has certain rules in reading it!

[Ivan Hlavanda]

@eclipsenow I have tried to look at some of the promises God gave to Israel that I believe yet to be fulfilled and to be fulfilled literally, and tried to look at it through amil view of 'this has been fulfilled spiritually in the Church'. I try to spiritualize some text and to see how it all fits. It left me in confusion and made no sense.

Now of course, just because I see it that way, does not make it right. I know I can be easily wrong and you right, but at the moment, when I look at God's promises and the millennial kingdom, literal interpretation makes sense, but allegorizing the text made no sense at all. That does not mean it cannot be. I'll list some text, some God's promises, and try to explain why to me literal interpretation makes sense.

Let's start from the beginning. Genesis 12 and God's promise to Abram. The promises of God that relate to Israel’s future basically are bound up in three covenants. The first one is called the Abrahamic covenant. Chapter 12 verse 1, Genesis: “the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’” What strikes me first of all, is the little verbal phrase, “I will” five times, five times. “I will show you, I will make you, I will bless you, I will bless, I will curse - I will, I will, I will, I will, I will” - this isn’t some kind of agreement between God and Abram; this is unilateral and unconditional and sovereign. God is simply saying “This is what I will do: I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, make your name great, you will then become a blessing, I will bless those that bless you, curse those that curse you, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

Now let’s skip to Genesis 15 verse 17 “It came about when the sun had set, it was very dark, behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch” - that’s God - “which passed between the pieces.” God - there’s this dark foreboding sense of His presence - and then a flaming torch, smoking lamp, moves in space between these pieces. This is God moving between the pieces. “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite, the Kenizzite, Kadmonite, Hittite, Perizzite, Rephaim, Amorite, Canaanite, Girgashite, Jebusite.’” “I give you all of it.” But notice this: Abraham - Abram never passed between the pieces, because this is not a conditional covenant. This is not dependent on Abram. This is a unilateral, irrevocable, divine promise by God. God goes through alone, binding Himself to His own promise. He anesthetizes Abraham - Abraham is not a part of this, it doesn’t involve him - this is God’s will. “I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, this is what I will do.” It is set, it is fixed: “I will give you that land.” Footnote: they had never had it yet. They’ve never had it yet; never yet. But God has bound Himself.

How are we to understand that? There’s no way to understand that other - in that context - than to understand that God was giving them that land. He describes the rivers, He describes the people that live there - He knew exactly what He was talking about. He was not talking about spiritual blessings to the church. There’s no ambiguity in this whatsoever. I’m trying to look at this as an allegory, as this promise was spiritually fulfilled in Church, but it just does not make sense to me at all. Maybe to you it does, but to me it does not.

Now, it is true that the Israelites broke the Mosaic covenant. But the Mosaic covenant came 430 years after the Abrahamic covenant. The Law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. As Paul says in Galatians 3:15 “Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations: even though it is only a man’s covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it. ‘ Here, Paul is simply saying, disobedience to the Mosaic law does not cancel the Abrahamic covenant.

That’s the whole point. It doesn’t abrogate it, even when Israel - proudly and eagerly and, I think, honestly - said, “We will obey, we will obey,” and went through a blood ceremony in which they were sloshed with blood to signify their commitment to obedience - even when they made that public affirmation, and did not follow through, blatantly violating the Law of God, still they continue to be the people of promise, for that promise is not based on their ability to keep the law. You see it illustrated in the book of Hosea. Hosea marries a woman who is a prostitute. He marries her, she goes away. She goes and lives a dissolute life. She’s so wretched as a prostitute that she is basically put up on a block stark-naked and sold in the marketplace. Guess what? Hosea goes and buys her back to keep his covenant to her, and this is a symbol of God buying back the prostitute Israel because He made a covenant. That’s why even though God divorces His wife Israel in Hosea chapter 1, He takes her back in chapter 2. Verse 19 ‚ And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. 20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord. This is Israel. Israel is God’s wife, not Church, Church is the bride. Verse 23 And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’” If I try to spiritualize this into Church and say ‚well this was fulfilled in Church‘ it makes no sense to me.

 

[Ivan Hlavanda]

Part 2. In the theological world where people believe in the doctrine of election more strongly than anywhere else, there are people prone to deny Israel’s election than anywhere else. In fact, they have come up with the idea that the church, God’s new and present elect, receives all the promises once given to Israel – all those promises and covenants having been cancelled to Israel because of Israel’s apostasy, Israel’s unbelief, and Israel’s rejection of Christ – they then being permanently set aside, all the promises come to the church.

Dutch Calvinist, Herman Ridderbos wrote in his book, Paul: An Outline of His Theology. I quote him: “The church then as the people of the new covenant has taken the place of Israel, and national Israel is nothing other than the empty shell from which the pearl has been removed and which has lost its function in the history of redemption.” It’s over for them as a nation.

Now you have to ignore the clear words of Zechariah 12 to 14, Ezekiel 36 to 39, Romans 9 to 11, particularly. And you also have to do damage to your own understanding of sovereign grace, because you are saying that Israel failed to believe, Israel failed to embrace Christ, and so Israel on its own failed to do what it was supposed to do. By saying that, you would have to also say that Israel would have guaranteed its own place in the future purposes of God if on its own it had done what was right. The problem is, nobody can believe except by the sovereign grace of God. Israel has failed, but that has not altered God’s plan, because the generation that is elect has not yet come.

To believe that the church somehow has earned the promises given to Israel because we pulled it off on our own and Israel didn’t, that kind of thinking is foreign to our doctrine of sovereign grace. Do we fail to grasp that we as a church exist only by divine sovereign grace, and that we are no more able to believe than the Jews were able on their own to believe? Do we think that somehow we’ve inherited the promise because we were able to do what they were not able to do? The truth of the matter is, we were enabled to do what they were not enabled to do, because that generation has not yet come. And if Romans 9 through 11 – and we’ll get to that – teaches anything, it teaches that salvation is by sovereign grace and election alone for the church now, and many Jews that are brought into the church, and for Israel in the future. To make a human contingency or a human achievement the factor in prophetic fulfillment is not true to the doctrine of sovereign grace.

The Abrahamic covenant expands into the Davidic covenant, which expands into the New covenant, which is the only way that the promises of the Abrahamic and Davidic covenant can come to pass. This is the only means of fulfillment, and it is the new covenant, Jeremiah 31, verse 31, also made with Israel. Verse 31: “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the hand of Egypt,” – not like the Mosaic or Sinaitic covenant, the covenant of law; not like that – “My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.

See, here’s the dilemma. You have the Abrahamic covenant with all its promises, you have the Davidic covenant with all its promises, and how to do you get to the fulfillment of those? You have then the Mosaic covenant which only proves that they can’t qualify for the blessings of the Abrahamic and the Davidic, because they can’t keep the Mosaic. So the Mosaic covenant only curses them. You’ve got to come to the new covenant.

And the new covenant isn’t like the Mosaic covenant. “This is a covenant” – verse 33 – “which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” sometime in the future, declares the Lord. And this is the kind of covenant this is: “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” That’s the new covenant. It is that covenant which God promises one day He will change their hearts and write the law inside of them. And then He will be their God, and they shall be His people.

And again would you please notice: “This is the covenant I will make. I will put My law on their heart; I will write it; I will be their God.” There are the “I wills” again. It is an unconditional, unilateral, sovereign, gracious, irrevocable covenant.

How irrevocable is it? Verse 35: “Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,” – this is reminiscent of the psalm we just read – “who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; the Lord of hosts is His name:” – the Creator, God; the upholder of His creation – “if this fixed order departs from before Me,” declares the Lord, “then the offspring of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever.” Wow. As far as I can tell, everything is still going the way it’s supposed to, right? The sun’s doing what it’s supposed to do, the stars are doing what they’re supposed to do, the moons are doing what they’re supposed to do, and therefore God hasn’t changed His mind.

“Thus says the Lord,” – verse 37 – “if the heavens above can be measured” – and they can’t – “and the foundation of the earth searched out below,” – and it can’t – “then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,” declares the Lord. There is in one passage the answer to replacement theology. God is not going to cast off Israel even for what they have done. And listen to this: the New Covenant was given through Jeremiah at a time when Israel’s disobedience was so severe, they were punished by God. They were under divine punishment, under divine judgment at the very time this covenant was given to them. Jeremiah is what kind of prophet? He is a weeping prophet, weeping over Israel’s judgment, the captivity.

The new covenant is not a reward for their faithfulness, it is given in spite of their unfaithfulness. God says, “There will be a day when I will change their hearts sovereignly, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall not teach again,” – verse 34 – “each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord, for they shall all know Me,’ – the whole nation – ‘from the least of them to the greatest of them,’ declares the Lord, ‘for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.’”

There’s a word for that: salvation. This is the promise of salvation to Israel. Promise them a seed, promise them land, promise them a kingdom, promise them a king, but they can’t have any of it unless God saves them. And He will; and He will not change His plan anymore than He will allow the fixed order of His creation to be altered. And when that covenant comes, He’ll write His law on the inside.

We as Gentiles, how do we fit in? Hey, we’re going to be in the kingdom. We are the beneficiaries of all the promises to Abraham. We have been blessed through Abraham, right? Messiah is the son of Abraham, we by faith are children of Abraham. We’ll possess all those promises, we’ll be there in the kingdom.

What about the promises to David about a kingdom and a King? He’s our King, too. It’s not exclusively Israel’s, it is the fulfillment of promises made to them. They are the witnessed people through whom God fulfills His promises, but they embrace the world. The world is blessed, as even before that. We are blessed in the tents of Shem, because it was Shem who produced Abraham.

We’ll be there in the kingdom. We’ll receive all the blessings of the glorious reign of Christ on earth whether we’ve been glorified before or whether saints enter into the kingdom who are alive at the time; we’ll be there, all who believe. We’ll all receive the benefits of the reign of Jesus Christ on His throne. And we all are saved on the terms of the new covenant, which is ratified in the blood of Christ on the cross; and by the ratification of that blood He makes the new covenant valid. And we all enter into salvation through the new covenant. And He’s written His law in our hearts as well.

We all get in on all of it, we’re not denying that. I’m not saying that we are not going to be the recipients of the promises to Abraham, promises to David, and promises of the new covenant given here to Jeremiah; we are all the recipients of those things as well, but not replacing Israel. The New Testament includes the new covenant, I should say, or the New Testament in His blood. The new covenant includes the elements of the Abrahamic covenant and the Davidic covenant.

Ezekiel verse 24: “I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.” Here we go again: “I will take you, I will sprinkle, I will cleanse. Moreover,” – verse 26, I will give you a new heart, put a new Spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you, cause you to walk in My statutes, you will be careful to observe My ordinances. You’ll live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, I will be your God. Moreover, I will save you from all your uncleanness.”

Verse 33: “On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places to be rebuilt.” Now, He says, “Once I cleanse you, the kingdom comes, and the desolate land will be cultivated instead of being a desolation in the sight of everyone who passed by. And they will say, ‘This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste, desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited.’ And the nations that are left round about you will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted that which was desolate; I, the Lord, have spoken and will do it.

“Thus says the Lord God. ‘This also I will let the house of Israel ask Me to do for them: I will increase their men like a flock. Like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock of Jerusalem during her appointed feasts, so will the waste cities be filled with flocks of men. And then they will know that I am the Lord.” “I will, I will, I will.” This is all sovereign work on God’s part; there are no human contingencies, God will do it. In the language of chapter 37, “He will gather the dry bones of Israel.”

When God gave unilateral, unconditional, sovereign, gracious promises to Israel, they will be fulfilled by an elect people in the future whom God will enable to repent and believe. These promises are guaranteed by divine faithfulness, and to be fulfilled like all His salvation work by divine power in divine time. And when God says those promises are irrevocable, they are irrevocable, and you cannot without impunity for any seemingly convenient idea or assumption say they are voided.

Some say, “What about Israel’s apostasy?” Doesn’t cancel the promises. As I said, when He gave them the new covenant, they were under judgment. Furthermore, Jesus reiterates the new covenant, ratifies the new covenant in His blood at the very hands of the apostate Jews. The new covenant is reiterated to Israel through their own Messiah at a time when they were under apostasy and on the brink of judgment, which came a few years later in 70 A.D. But Israel will exist through these judgments until the covenants are fulfilled.

 

[Ivan Hlavanda]

Part 3 Zechariah 12:10 “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem,” – this is more new covenant language – “the Spirit of grace and of supplication,” – here it is: “I will, I will” – “and they will look on Me whom they have pierced.”

In the future, God is going to pour out on the house of David, on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication. “They will look on Me whom they’ve pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son.” They’re going to mourn for the Messiah that they crucified, and they’re going to weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.

“In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo. And the land will mourn every family by itself,” and it goes to listing all the family. “In the day that they mourn, in the day that they look on the one they pierced, in that day,” – verse 1 of chapter 13 – “in that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity.” And what is the fountain going to do? Wash them and cleanse them. “And in that day, declares the Lord,” – here come the “I wills” – “I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, they will no longer be remembered. I will also remove the prophets of the unclean spirit from the land,” and so forth and so on.

Verse 8: “It’ll come about in all the land,” declares the Lord, “two parts in it will be cut off and perish.” Two-thirds of the Jews will perish, one third will be left; that will be that final Israel that is saved. “I’ll bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver is refined, test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, I will answer them. I will say they are My people; they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’” Finally this is how it ends.

And when that happens, verse 9 of 14, “The Lord will be king over all the earth, the Lord will be king over all the earth. In that day the Lord will be the only one,” – there will only be one religion in the kingdom – “and His name the only one. All the land will be changed into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem; Jerusalem will rise and remain on its site from Benjamin’s Gate as far as the place of the First Gate to the Corner Gate, and the Tower of Hananel for the king’s wine presses. People will live in it, there will be no more curse, Jerusalem will dwell in security.” Boy, that’s good news, huh? A secure Jerusalem.

Verse 16: “Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths. It will be that whichever of the families of the earth doesn’t go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them. And if the family of Egypt doesn’t go up or enter, there’ll be no rain falling on them; it’ll be the plague with which the Lord smites the nations who do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. This will be the punishment of Egypt, the punishment of all the nations who don’t go up to celebrate.” This is when the Lord reigns, and He’s going to call for the restoration of ancient feasts, because now they will have new meaning. And the whole world better come and worship.

Verse 20: “In that day there will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, ‘HOLY TO THE LORD.’ And the cooking pots in the Lord’s house will be like the bowls before the altar.” Everything will become sacred, even the bells hanging on the animals. That’s the kingdom. Clearly the Old Testament sees a kingdom after a future salvation of Israel.

 

[eclipsenow]

Again I have to thank you for the way you are exegeting the Old Testament context to us. The struggle in understanding this is real. It's mysterious even!
The Old Covenant was undeserved - and as you rightly point out - it was all from God.

UNFOLDING PROMISES
God's grace chose Abram and made him Abraham - the father of Israel. It happened. But notice this is not the first promise? In a way - it's not even Abram's covenant. It's the promise God made to Eve - that her seed would strike Satan's heel! It was not spelled out how. But gradually as the OT unfolds we meet Noah, and then Abram, who becomes Abraham. Then we meet Moses and the Judges and Sampson and King David. Details upon details, all undeserved, all God's grace, all acting as types and shadows and building on our understanding of the reality to come - Jesus. He is our ultimate prophet, priest and king who offered the perfect sacrifice. He is the way, truth and life. He is the one who creates a new people of God out of the Jew and Gentile.
We cannot forget the forward momentum of the whole story as we focus on its parts. Otherwise we might miss the shape of the forest for the trees. Therefore we see that the promise to Eve is fufilled by preserving a remnant through Noah, then through Abraham, then Moses, etc etc. The Abrahamic covenant was to be fulfilled THROUGH the Mosaic covenant. The Mosaic Covenant reinterprets the Abrahamic covenant. The breaches in the covenant are also all part of the story, anticipated in the very giving of the covenant.

COVENANT BROKEN HAS REAL CONSEQUENCES - MORE UNFOLDING
The promises of God to Abraham were partially fulfilled in the land as they became God's people living God's way in God's land - to bless the whole world.
But they broke the covenant before they reached the Euphrates. They went into exile. Ezekiel had that strange vision of the throne of God departing from Jerusalem - and going over Babylon! God was overseeing his people - wherever they were. But the unfolding plan of God was still not done - as the prophets pre, during and post exile show. Even post exile prophets were unpacking Jeremiah's prophecies further - again in apocalyptic symbolism - and again emphasising living water and the mountains splitting.
That is - in Haggai, Zephaniah and Zechariah and Malachi we have Israel returning to Jerusalem to rebuild it and they ask their prophets "Are we done with the mourning yet? Is this it? Is the Messiah coming this time?" There are more Messiah images (rejected Shepherd, Prophet-King, etc) and the answer is a question. The prophets ask "Are you going to be faithful?"

Zephaniah 3:9 on explains that God's refining fire of judgement is not just punishment - but purifying. There are images of God's enemies "the peoples" or other nations from all over - even Egypt - coming to worship the Lord! What does that sound like?

NOW GET THIS!
THEN - even though they're back in Jerusalem - there's this promise of a NEW Jerusalem that will have all the nations coming to serve it. What? They only just got back to Jerusalem - why a NEW Jerusalem? I think God is setting up Revelation 21.

THE CHURCH ARE ISRAEL
It's interesting that you quote Galatians 3 - as the emphasis of the whole chapter feels very Covenant Theology to me. The whole covenant is fulfilled in Christ - there is only one seed - only one true Israel - and that is Jesus - who includes us through faith so that we also can become the descendants of Abraham.
"26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."
Faith in Christ makes us Abraham's seed. Or is it that we belong to the one true seed - Jesus - who crushed Satan's heel - fulfilling the promises to Eve? The church really does inherit all the promises! Thank you for highlighting Galatians 3.
Paul calls this the mystery of the gospel - that us gentiles would also be grafted into the one true kingdom of God - which is anyone that has faith in Christ.

STONE HEARTS AND DRY BONES

In Ezekiel their hearts of stone will be replaced with flesh - the valley of dry bones will come alive with the wind of the Spirit. Jesus says he can make sons of Abraham from 'stones' (our dead hearts), says we must be born again - and that his happens whereever the Spirit blows 'like the wind'! I mean - can it be more obvious? We are the valley of dry bones! We are Israel remade! Paul and Jesus tell us so.
There's no escaping it. It's now Jesus and the Apostles saw his ministry fulfilling all those promises in Jesus death and resurrection. Jesus is the temple, the sacrifice, the high priest, the Messiah king, the true Israel of God. The bride of Christ is the same image as Hosea's wife - but the miracle is Jesus has cleaned this bride in his blood. Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world.

SO WHAT ABOUT THE LAND?
Acts 1:8 - take the gospel to the ends of the earth! The land promises are upgraded to heaven in Hebrews 11 and 12, but also in Hebrews 4.

Hebrews 4: Joshua did not give Israel 'rest' in the land - therefore we must make every effort to enter that rest by having faith in Christ! Hebrews 4:8-14. The word "Therefore" in verse 14 links back to the whole discussion of rest and God's word being alive and active and dividing attitudes of the heart - and ultimately goes back to Hebrews 3 where we are being asked not to give up our faith in Christ but to keep it till the end to make our heavenly calling.

Finally - the bible finishes with the image of the New Jerusalem and as well as the numbers of its dimensions being symbolic and having theological significance - it's so enormous that it could fit across the known ancient world! The message? We are to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, because the whole earth is now "Israel's" - the mission field of the church. But it's in tension - because we do not rule over it yet. But the nations WILL come to the New Jerusalem - whatever that looks like when heaven and earth finally meet.

 

[soldier of light]

I kinda see revelation as symbolic myself. But I'm very far from being an expert.

 

[eclipsenow]

I kinda see revelation as symbolic myself. But I'm very far from being an expert.

I'm not an expert - I just read them. But as in my OP - here's a really good summary for you. Have you heard of the Bible Project? It’s famous - not just some random youtuber. It's a resource all Christians should have bookmarked - even if they disagree with the main guy's eschatology - as they cover every book of the bible. It's just a fantastic resource! Just a few weeks ago our Sydney Anglican Bible Study Group watched the first episode on the Gospel of John as a catch up, because our church is covering the second half of John leading up to Easter.

If you haven’t seen the Bible Project before, it's presented in a fun illustration style - but remember the author has a Phd in exactly this topic - Hebrew apocalyptic symbolism and its meaning!
Watch these two 11 minute videos. (They’re up to 4.65 million hits!)

Also - my favourite theologian on Revelation is Dr Paul Barnett. He wrote “Apocalypse Now and Then.” He is also is on the board of a secular university’s history department, was also a Sydney Anglican Bishop, and has received an Order of Australia medal. (I know his family and have met him a few times - and he is a warm, genuine guy with a great sense of humour.) Buy this - and do it as a personal quiet time. There are a few minor differences with the Bible Project above - and to be honest I tend to side with the Bible Project on this small handful of differences. But generally speaking this commentary can be used as a devotional guide through Revelation. Try it! It should help you strive for a more godly focus as you live in this dangerous world.
RTBT Revelation: Apocalypse Now and Then

 

[DragonFox91]

In regards to OP, there's something called double-prophecy, where yeah, there's a lot of prophecy that's applicable to X person at X time, but also Y person at Y time, & XY to both the X person at X time & Y person at Y time, & all can be true. It's not one or the other. There's examples of this in OT prophecies.

 

[eclipsenow]

In regards to OP, there's something called double-prophecy, where yeah, there's a lot of prophecy that's applicable to X person at X time, but also Y person at Y time, & XY to both the X person at X time & Y person at Y time, & all can be true. It's not one or the other. There's examples of this in OT prophecies.

What the theologians I read say is that John is dressing up the geopolitical concerns of his day as theological types. They give us theological truths. These can be applied throughout history - but are not predictive - like a prophecy of timetables. They're descriptive. So they describe things like North Korea's Christian persecuting regime - and give those poor Christians something to hang onto. Was Hitler a beast government? Yes. Was North Korea and Stalinist Russia and the USSR? Yes yes yes.

Can I point Revelation at a situation today in the Middle East and divine what is going to happen?
Absolutely not!