The Sea and the Waves Roaring

by Bertrand Comparet

In Luke chapter 21, the disciples have asked Yahshua about the signs of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Yahshua’s reply is long and gives many signs. Some of the signs are related to the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D. The answer to their question included signs of the end of this age and of Yahshua’s second coming. Luke 21:25 is an obscure and difficult text, made more obscure by amazingly poor translation. It tells about one of the signs of the end of the age, the sea and the waves roaring.

This has puzzled many students of the Bible. Did Yahshua really say that a storm at sea was to be one of the signs for them to watch for? Many storms at sea, some of them of fearful intensity, have occurred every year since those words were spoken by Yahshua. How could a storm, even a very great storm, be a recognizable sign? This doesn’t seem to make sense, it is time to look into this a bit deeper.

Is this a matter of mistranslation? Most of this verse is badly garbled in the King James Bible. However this one part, the sea and the waves roaring, is confirmed as correct by good translations. If the wording is correct, and does not mean much when taken literally, we know it must be symbolic. We may be sure that Yahshua never bothered to speak trifles, so there is some symbolism which is worth our further study.

Unfortunately, many preachers try to spiritualize the Bible into utter nonsense. They try to make almost every word symbolic, getting the most fantastic meanings for their symbolic values. Sometimes they reach silly conclusions out of their own weird notions. Sometimes they make conclusions based on Hindu, Tibetan, Egyptian or other pagan sources, in this they are always wrong. Whenever the Bible uses symbolism, it makes it clear that the words are not meant literally, as we have seen in the case we are now discussing. The Bible always supplies the key to its own symbolism, and no other source will ever give you the right answer.

There are many places in the Bible where the sea or waters, and occasionally a river is used symbolically. If this use proves to have a consistent meaning in these many places, then we can be sure that the sea and the waves roaring will have the same meaning. In Psalms we find the simplest use of such terms. Psalm 18:16-17 says, “He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.” Psalm 69:14 continues, “Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.” King David, living and writing in a desert land, was not worried about drowning in deep waters. He makes it very plain that he likens being overwhelmed by his enemies, people, to sinking into deep waters.

This is also used on a greater scale, where the power of a great army overrunning a land, is symbolized by a river in flood. In Isaiah 8:7 we read, “Now, therefore, behold: Yahweh bringeth up upon them (Israel) the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all his glory; and he shall come up over all his channels and go over all his banks.” Again we find waters used symbolically, to represent people, but this time it means people in large numbers, as a nation or an army. We find another example of this in Isaiah 43:2. “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle thee.” Isaiah was speaking here, to the people of the ten tribed northern kingdom of Israel. They had just been taken into captivity by the great Assyrian empire. They were being deported across the entire width of the Assyrian empire, to be resettled in a large area around the southern end of the Caspian Sea.

In Isaiah 8:7, the prophet had spoken of the king of Assyria and his army as a river which would overflow its banks and flood the land, which it did when the kingdom of Israel was overrun and conquered. Now Isaiah assures Israel that Yahweh will be with them when they pass through the waters, and will not let the river completely overflow them in their deportation and resettlement in their new home in Scythia. Assyria will not be allowed to destroy Israel.

Isaiah had even more in view here, to occur centuries later. By then the people of Israel were known by new names, Scythians, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Angli and Saxons. As they started on their long march toward their predestined new European homes, a vast flood of people came out of Asia, the Huns lead by Attila. The Huns tried to move swiftly enough to cross Israel’s path to cut them off. Yahweh would not allow this invasion to come until the tribes of Israel had safely crossed into northern Europe. The Huns could only bark at the heels of Israel’s rear guard. This river, the vast army of the Huns, was not allowed to overflow Israel exactly as Yahweh had promised.

In Revelation chapter 12 John saw a woman, obviously symbolic of Israel, who gave birth to a man child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. He was caught up to Yahweh and to His throne. Of course this was Yahshua the Christ. Then the serpent Satan persecuted the woman, the Israel nation, and Yahweh gave her two wings of a great eagle with which to flee into the wilderness. Most of the areas of Europe, which the people of Israel migrated into, were a wilderness at that time.

“The serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after her, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. The earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.” So it was, the mighty hordes of the Huns rolled across most of Europe. They came south of the lands which Israel had migrated into. On the death of Attila, in the year 453 A.D., his vast army broke up in disorder and melted away back to Asia in retreat.

Much was to happen in the meantime. Two huge and mighty empires were in great power then, yet they must crumble into ruin as Yahweh willed. One was Assyria and the other was Egypt. Zechariah 10:11 tells about this and prophesies, “And He shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea; and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart away.”

There is no record of any disturbances of the real sea and rivers. The symbolic sea of Assyria’s vast armies was smitten and its proud empire was brought down, totally destroyed. Likewise Egypt, so often symbolized by its great Nile river, suffered the prophesied fate. “The scepter of Egypt shall depart away.” It was only a little later that Egypt lost its independence and became the vassal of one great power after another.

In Jeremiah 51:42 the prophet foretold the coming fall of Babylon. He said, “The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.” We know Babylon was hundreds of miles inland, and not in the slightest danger from a sea of water. This definitely prophesies the invasion and conquest by the great armies of Media and Persia, which occurred about 60 years after Jeremiah wrote this.

The prophet Isaiah was looking ahead 26 centuries, to our own times, when he wrote in Isaiah 17:12-13, “Woe to the multitude of many people, which make a noise like the noise of the seas; and to the rushing of nations that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters! The nations will rush like the rushing waters: but Yahweh shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the winds, and like a tumbleweed before the whirlwind.”

Today we see the evil gathering of all the dark people of the earth, joined together in the hope of crushing and plundering the white race, who are the only really productive people on the earth. In truth, they are gathering only for their own destruction, for Yahweh will thwart their evil plans! We find this evil mentioned in Revelation 13:1. “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the names of blasphemy.”

The last bestial empire rises out of the sea of the great hordes of Asia and Africa. In Revelation 17:1, 15 we read, “And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters. And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.”

Therefore when Yahshua used the symbol of the sea and the waves roaring, He was speaking of an uproar of nations and races. Psalms tell us about this same thing. Psalm 2:1-3 reads, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against Yahweh and His anointed saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”

This is exactly what we have seen since the end of World War II. The uncivilized races of Asia and Africa have demanded independence. By the wicked connivance of sinister politicians, they have been given it. We see the results of this in the senseless massacres of not only the white people, but even of their fellow savages in the Congo, Zanzibar, Tanganykia, Kenya, Rwanda and Urundi, where the negroes are behaving like negroes!

The only trace of civilization they ever had was what the white man brought them, and that is vanishing as the white man is being driven out. These untamed cannibals have been artificially grouped into nations, which they never were. Their newly made national boundaries include many separate tribes, bitterly hostile to each other. This really had only one purpose, to make these artificial nations out of these cannibals, so their vote in the United Nations would out vote the entire civilized world. This would pull all the world down into that destruction out of which only bold thieves and murderers can profit.

This is not news to Yahweh, Psalm 83:1-4 tells about it. “Keep not thy silence O Yahweh: hold not Thy peace, and be not still, O Yahweh. For lo, Thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate Thee have lifted up the head. They have taken crafty counsel against Thy people, and consulted against Thy hidden ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.”

Indeed, this is what they have done. Traitors within our own nation, hoping to profit by getting greater power in the tyranny which will be set up upon the ruins of our once free republic, are indeed trying to cut us off from being a nation. They are trying to put us completely under the rule of a United Nations world government, in which we would only have one vote. The entire civilized world would have only some 12 to 15 votes, against nearly 100 votes of our enemies, who wait in greedy impatience for the moment when they can enslave and plunder us.

Yahweh will upset their plots as Psalm 46:1-3 tells us. “Yahweh is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will I not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.” We know the word mountain is often used as the symbol of a kingdom, an organized nation. How many times in this generation have we seen a mountain or organized government shaken. Then finally, carried into the midst of the sea, or dissolved in revolution by a sea of turbulent people!

This is the sign of which Yahshua spoke, the sea and the waves roaring. It is certainly a sign of the end of the age we have known. If it is allowed to increase, all civilization will be blotted out in a new dark age. Yahweh has promised that we can trust Him to save us, we certainly can’t trust our politicians. The great alliance of all the dark world will march against us, not to our destruction, but to their own.

Psalm 46:6-8 completes the picture. “The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: He uttereth His voice, and the earth melted. Yahweh the Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Come, behold the works of Yahweh, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh war to cease unto the end of the earth; He breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder, He burneth the chariot in the fire.”

The evil tumult of the uncivilized nations against us, is a bad thing. Our leaders never would have allowed this to happen if they had been true to their trust. The tumult is here and its presence is a sign, not only of the trouble we have gotten ourselves into, but also of the rapid approach of the end of this age.

Psalm 65:5-7 reassures us, “By terrible things righteousness wilt thou answer us, O Yahweh of our salvation: Who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea: which by His strength setteth the noise of the seas, the noise of the waves, and the tumult of the people.”

Rejoice then, that you have seen this sign of the sea and the waves roaring. While it is evil and threatens death and destruction in itself, yet it is the sign that the return of our Redeemer, Yahshua the Christ, is near. We are at the end of this poor age, but the beginning of the kingdom of Yahweh in full power upon the earth. Yahshua the Christ will be upon His throne as King of Kings forever.

Critical note by Clifton A. Emahiser: Comparet really outdid himself with this lesson, especially where he said: “Today we see the evil gathering of all the dark people of the earth, joined together in the hope of crushing and plundering the white race, who are the only really productive people on the earth.” From this observation, continuing to the end of his message, he made many timely comments. Inasmuch as Comparet died 24 years ago in August of 1983, “the dark people of the earth” have gone far beyond even what Comparet had envisioned.