THE MARK OF THE BEAST
What It Really Is!
Mark of the Beast: It is hard to know just where to start a study on this subject for there are so many places and things one can talk about here. But let us remember that the reference in Revelation to the fact that there will come a time when everyone must receive the mark of the beast in his right hand or in his forehead; otherwise, he is boycotted, he can’t buy or sell, and so on. Like most things in the Bible, there has been a lot of utter rot and false teachings preached about it, by the Judeo-Christian clergy who don’t know anything about the subject, but insist on talking about it just the same.
“I HAVE SEEN ALSO IN THE PROPHETS OF JERUSALEM (the United States) an horrible thing: THEY COMMIT ADULTERY (teach race mixing, and doing so themselves), and WALK IN LIES: THEY STRENGTHEN ALSO THE HANDS OF EVILDOERS, THAT NONE DOTH RETURN FROM HIS WICKEDNESS: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah...Thus saith the LORD of hosts, HEARKEN NOT UNTO THE WORDS OF THE PROPHETS THAT PROPHESY UNTO YOU: THEY MAKE YOU VAIN: THEY SPEAK A VISION OF THEIR OWN HEART, AND NOT OUT OF THE MOUTH OF THE LORD.” (Jeremiah 23:14-16)
Jeremiah goes on to tell us more about these Judeo-Christian clergymen: “I HAVE HEARD WHAT THE PROPHETS SAID, THAT PROPHESY LIES IN MY NAME...THE PROPHETS THAT PROPHESY LIES? yea, THEY ARE PROPHETS OF THE DECEIT OF THEIR OWN HEART; WHICH THINK TO CAUSE MY PEOPLE TO FORGET MY NAME...they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal.” (Jeremiah 23:25-27)
Ezekiel tells us of the Judeo-Christian women who preach in the pulpits of America: “Likewise, thou son of man, set thy face against the daughters of thy people, which prophesy out of their own heart; and prophesy thou against them.” (Ezekiel 13:17)
From watching and listening to some of the Judeo‑Christian preachers, ministers, priests and etc., talk about the "Mark of The Beast," we have come to the conclusion that they are lying deliberately to deceive the people who listen to or watch them.
So we are going to try to the very best of our ability to show you that there are two beasts in Revelation 13. We are going to try and cover that in depth and understand exactly what this mark consists of.
First let's ask our Father for a word of Wisdom.
"Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time that we can come together and study your Word, that precious living letter that you have given unto us; the very history of our race which many are trying to change so as to hide it from your Israel people; so that we will not know that you have given unto us this wonderful book whereby we can both know you and understand your plan from the beginning. Father we turn this time over to you. We ask that you anoint our minds. Give us wisdom to understand the deep things, those mysteries that have been kept hidden, even from the beginning of this earth age. Father, we give you the praise and the honor and glory and thanksgiving in the name of Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Lamb of God. Amen."
Now understand this one thing, we were created in God's image as it declares even from the beginning in Genesis. We are natural, our Father is Supernatural. Supernatural means he is more natural than we are, Okay.
Understand that God does not deal in fairy tales, comic book stories, or multi‑headed monsters right out of the twilight zone, but rather He deals in things that, with a little study, those that would discipline themselves (which is where we get the word disciple), will understand what God has brought forth. Keep in mind that most of your Judeo-Christian pastors, ministers/teachers and so forth would tell you: "Ah, don't worry about understanding the book of Revelation. I mean, you're going to fly out of here from chapter 4 on, and you don't re‑appear until Revelations 19."
God did not give us this book to glaze over, to simply shine on. The very word itself, revelation, means to reveal or unveil, to uncover.
Our Father means for us to know what the end time events are, what transpires, and what to watch for. We should learn those signs and be sealed with those seals spoken of in Matthew 24 and Mark 13.
The Book of Revelation is mostly symbolic and therefore, unless you are sure that you get the right key to the symbols, you can’t possibly get the correct understanding of what it is talking about. So before we get down to that part of it, it is time that we understood what the symbols are, and then we will know what we are talking about.
It is our goal to bring forth with understanding from God's word, line upon line, what he means for us to know about these end times and this study relative to the Mark of the Beast!
The Bible offers the key and it offers the only key to the symbols it uses. Many people undertake to try to decipher the symbolism of the Bible, and they go elsewhere than to the Bible itself for their information, and they are invariably wrong. Sometimes they take Hindu or Egyptian or other pagan religions as the basis of their starting point, and they are always wrong. There is one place only where on can get the correct key to the symbolism of the Bible, and that is out of the Bible itself.
We are going to talk about a beast, and it is a very odd beast, obviously symbolic of something. The Book of Revelation is at the very end of the Bible, so we are going to have to look earlier into the Bible to find the key. The first place we find, where it is obviously talking about a very closely related beast, is in the Book of Daniel. And that is very appropriate, because the Book of Daniel is so deeply symbolic itself. This beast makes it first appearance in the Book of Daniel.
Remember, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, and it impressed him so greatly that it woke him up. Then, when he woke up and he found that he had forgotten the dream, he remembered only that it was a ting of obviously great importance, and it worried him. This is in the second chapter of the Book of Daniel.
So King Nebuchadnezzar called in the wise men to interpret his dream for him, and they said, “Tell us the dream and we will tell you the significance.” When he said, “I have forgotten it, you tell me what the dream was;” he punctured their bubble right there.
They were pretending of course to be wise men and magicians and to have divine power, and all that kind of thing, and thy couldn’t make good. So he gave orders to have them killed. But Daniel said, “don’t be too hasty on this thing now. Give me a little time and I believe god will give me the understanding of it,” which He did.
Daniel was therefore able to interpret the dream. He told King Nebuchadnezzar what the dream was, and the interpretation of it. And that dream was first of this great statue or image, which had a head of gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of brass, the legs were of iron, and the feet were mixed iron and clay.
Daniel gave his interpretation of the dream: “This shows four successive kingdoms, each of which is going to rule the then known civilized world in its turn.” The head of gold was Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar. The breast and arms of silver were another kingdom which would come next and would be somewhat inferior in its degree of civilization to Babylon, and we know of course that it was the Medo-Persian empire. Then Daniel said the belly and thighs of brass would be yet another kingdom, and we know that was Alexander the Great’s short-lived empire. Finally, the iron legs represented on more kingdom. And there is something in particular that you need to know about that last kingdom, the iron one of Rome, because it keeps coming up again and again.
In Daniel 2:40, he said, “And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and subdues all things: as iron that breaks all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.” And that language is significant because we keep coming back to that.
When Daniel interpreted this vision, the time was pretty close to 580 B.C., within a few years one way or another of this. Babylon was at that time under its greatest king, Nebuchadnezzar, at the very apex of its power and its civilization, the very apex of its power and its civilization.
The next one which would come after it, he said, was the breast and arms which were of silver, the Medo-Persian empire: two arms united in one breast; two kingdoms, Media and Persia, united in one empire. Media was the more norther-westerly of the two, it came to great power first; later it was in its turn conquered and absorbed by Persia; and the united empire, but under the Persian king, was the one which conquered Babylon.
The Medo-Persian power became very great: it extended from northwest India and Afghanistan across the whole Fertile Crescent, the nations that extend in a great arch, north of the Arabian desert; in other words, from the head of the Persian Gulf, on up through Iraq and Iran, as we call them today. But it also included the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, over into Syria, and down the coast through Palestine. It took in a good deal of Asia Minor, which today we call Turkey, and they even conquered and ruled Egypt for a time.
Starting this tremendous rise with the conquest of Babylon about 538 B.C., this empire ruled Ll the important parts of the known civilized world at that time, until it was conquered by Alexander the Great, between 334 and 331 B.C.
The Medo-Persian empire was followed by the empire of Alexander the Great. Alexander had been king of Macedonia, which is on the mainland, just north of the peninsula of Greece, and in 336 B.C., he was merely king of Macedonia.
The Greeks had a very high civilization, and one fatal weakness: they could never get along among themselves. They were always fighting among themselves, the various Greek cities, because each one represented an individual nation, as they were then organized, an din their bitter warfare, whoever was losing was always ready to call in somebody else as an ally, to keep from losing the war. When you called in a powerful nation in those days, to help, it simply meant that not only did they conquer your opponent, but they swallowed you up also; and of course that is exactly what happened.
In some of their bitter internal warfare, some of the Greeks called in the Macedonians to their aid, and Alexander had a very well trained and brilliantly commanded army. There are two men in all past history who stand out as generals of ability beyond any other: one I Alexander the Great and the other is Hannibal of Carthage, and it is perhaps a toss-up, which was the more brilliant from a military point of view.
Under Alexander’s leadership, the Macedonian army was irresistible. Alexander simply conquered and took over the various Greek cities and incorporated them into his beginning empire, and then went on looking for more worlds to conquer. He conquered Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine by 332 B.C. He conquered the Tigris-Euphrates valleys, which made up the old Assyrian and Babylonian empires, by 331 B.C. He then went on to conquer the Media-Persia, which was then called Bactria, and today is called Afghanistan. It lies just outside of India, just north of the famous Khyber Pass; it is the gateway to India.
Alexander also went on down into northern India, conquering quite a considerable area in northern India, so that all the then known civilized world, from Greece to India, was incorporated in his one empire. Remember, before his death, Alexander was mooning around, worrying because there were no more worlds left for him to conquer. He was a brilliant general, and that is all one can say for him. He was a debauched drunkard also, and he finally died of his dissipation in Babylon in 323 B.C.
Alexander had built nothing; he conquered and as an individual he ruled the conquered nations, but when he died there was nothing to hold it together. His empire broke up exactly as had been prophesied in Daniel, that his kingdom would be divided to the four winds of heaven and not to his posterity, because his four leading generals under him, each took over approximately a quarter of the empire where they were; and in those f years, between 334 and 323 B.C., this enormous empire was built and fell apart.
So we have Babylon, Medo-Persia, Alexander’s empire; and now the next in line, and the last in this series of gentile empires that was prophesied by Daniel: Rome.
The city itself was founded, according to the Roman tradition, in 753 B.C. The republic of Rome was organized about 500 B.C., and with organization of the republic began its expansion into a tremendous empire. Macedonia, Greece and Egypt were incorporated into the empire in 168 B.C., and from there the Romans moved on into western Asia, north Africa and on , of course, into a great portion of western Europe. Eventually, the Roman Empire ruled Italy, Spain, what they then called Gaul, which was France and extending very slightly into Germany, Macedonia, Greece, Egypt, north Africa, western Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine.
The frontiers of the Roman Empire were the Atlantic Ocean, the Irish Sea, the south border of Scotland, the North Sea, the river Rhine, the Danube river, the Black Sea, the Caucasus mountains, through Armenia to the middle of ancient Babylonia, the Arabian desert, the Red Sea, Nubia, the Sahara desert, and the Morocco mountains; those were its boundaries.
The image of course had two legs, and so the Roman Empire broke up into two parts. It was divided into a western and eastern Roman Empire at about 283 A.D. The capital of the eastern portion of the empire was set up in what had been called Byzantium, and, being rebuilt, modernized, made into a tremendous city by Constantine, had its name changed to Constantinople; and that remained the capital of the eastern half of the Roman Empire.
While it claimed at all times to be the capital of the Roman Empire, it is generally spoken of as the Byzantine Empire, from the old and well known name of Byzantium for its capital city.
The western portion of the empire, which gradually was losing its hold on Europe, had its capital part of the time, but not all of it, in Rome. For example, the city of Ravenna, in Italy, was the capital for a time. This was broken by THE VISIGOTHS WHO WERE ISRAEL PEOPLE ON THE MARCH, IN 410 A.D.
Under the pressure of the invading Visigoths, the Romans pulled the last of their legions of soldiers out of Britain, bringing them home for the defense of Rome in 408 A.D. That year they succeeded in buying off the Visigoth invaders, who had come into northern Italy but had not yet taken the city of Rome. Then the Romans bought them off with a big money bribe. But, by 410 A.D., the Visigoths had spent the money, so they took the city of Rome, looted it, and smashed everything; and , thereafter, there was merely a theoretical pretense of any further Roman Empire existing in the west.
However, the Romans, who were a wily people, suggested to the Visigoths that there was some wonderful lands which had been a part of the old Roman Empire. They said, “Why don’t you go and move into them? There is some beautiful fertile country over in Spain. We will give it to you. Only don’t stay here.” That seemed like a good idea to the Visigoths. Centuries of frightful misrule under the Roman emperors had reduced Italy to such a stage of poverty and general falling apart, there wasn’t much worth staying for, there, anyway.
So the Visigoths moved out across southern France, through the Pyrenees and into Spain. And from some time before 420 A.D., until the Moorish conquest in 711 A.D., the Visigoths were the dominant people in Spain. Now they didn’t exterminate all the previous inhabitants of Spain, and, in fact, some of the previous inhabitants of Spain were Israel people, for that matter; because the Vandals, a tribe that had moved down there from southern Scandinavia, were already in there, and they were not driven out immediately. They were not very numerous and they later moved into north Africa, where of course they were swept up in the Arab and Moorish empire, later there, and became extinct, that is, they were absorbed into the darker peoples there.
In Spain, THERE WAS A DEFINITELY ISRAEL PEOPLE, THE VISIGOTHS, AS THE RULING RACE, AND IN PORTUGAL ALSO, UNTIL THEY WERE CONQUERED BY THE MOORS. Thereafter, there was much pollution of the Israel blood in Spain, which invariably happens when Israel people are overrun by non-Israel invaders. That never happened in northern Europe, and for that reason the Scandinavian peoples are today a pure Israel stock. You cannot say, of Italy or of Spain, that as a nation they are Israel, because they are not; there are too many other people there. But you can say that among them are many who are definitely of Israel ancestry.
The western Roman empire came to its end, and all pretense of being an empire was abandoned, by 476 A.D. The eastern or Byzantine half of the Roman empire was reduced to Asia Minor and the Balkan states by Moslem power, by 650 A.D. The Turks captured most of Asia Minor by 1074 A.D.
Between 1204 A.D., and 1260 A.D., the so-called Latin empire of Constantinople, made up of the troops of the Fourth Crusade and the republic of Venice, ruled briefly over the remaining territory. But the old Byzantine Empire was restored, at least in theory, actually governing nothing but Constantinople and its suburbs, in the middle 1260s A.D., and the last trace of it disappeared with the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 A.D.
The first of these visions of Daniel, of this series of four great world empires, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Alexander of Macedon, and Rome, was given in the vision of the great stature, the image of the four different metals. This is exceedingly important, because the great bulk of recorded history is covered by this series of empires. But the thing was given to Daniel again, in a different vision. For this we go the seventh chapter of Daniel and here now is where we start getting into these remarkable beasts.
Daniel saw this vision himself; he said four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse form one another. As you know, the sea, as used in the Bible, is symbolic of people in the great mass, non-Israel people. So out of the great mass of non-Israel people, the empires in the true sense, are four great beasts, different from one another.
The first beast was like a lion and had eagle’s wings. Daniel 7:4 says, “I beheld, till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand upon its feet like a man, and a man’s heart was given to it.”
The word “man” in this particular sentence is the Chaldean word “enash,” which is derived form the same root as the Hebrew word “enosh” which distinguishes the non-Adamic peoples form the Adamic. Wherever the Adamic peoples are mentioned, the Hebrew word Adam is used. There is also the word “ish” which means simply a male person of any race, and is used sometimes, referring to Adamic people. But wherever the word “enosh” is used, ti is speaking of non-Israel people and it is speaking generally in a rather derogatory sense. By mentioning this Chaldean word “enash,” remember that the Book of Daniel is written partly in Hebrew and partly in Aramaic. The portions of the book that pertain to non-Israelite peoples are written in the much more widely used Aramaic language, which was spoken everywhere, from southern Babylonia on up through the Fertile Crescent, through Assyria and Syria. In other words, it was spoken everywhere in western Asia, other than in the earlier days in Palestine when the related but not quite identical Hebrew language was used.
Daniel’s vision of the first of these beasts that came out of the sea was like a lion, the eagle’s wings were plucked off, it was made to stand erect on its hind feet like an “enosh” man, and was given the heart of an “enosh” man.
“And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had on the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast also had four heads; and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teth: it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it as diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.” (Daniel 7:6-7)
Remember what was said about that fourth empire of Rome, the iron. “The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and subdues all these things: as iron that breaks all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.” (Daniel 2:40)
Here again this beast had iron teeth, was terribly strong, it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped upon the residue with the feet of it, and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it. So here again is a vision of the same succession of empires and again is making clear that this was Rome, by a similarity of certain identifying features and the symbolism of it. Then the angel explained to Daniel the meaning of this vision. He said these great beasts, which are four, are four kings which shall arise out of the earth.
Daniel said, “The I would know the truth of fourth beast, which was diverse form all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet.” (Daniel 7:19)
So the angel explains it; “Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon the earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and shall subdue three kings.” (Daniel 7:23-24)
One can go into further symbolism in her, if they need to follow this up, but for the present we will not. We have identified previously these different kingdoms and this succession of empires, so now let’s go on to other things.
For more understanding, let’s go back and review a little; the first kingdom was like a lion, and you remember, in the vision of the great statue, it was the head which was of gold, superior to the others in its degree of culture. Likewise the power, the lion being the most powerful of the great beasts, it was a great military power with high civilization, but with only the characteristics of the “enosh.” They lacked din power the spiritual capacity of the people of Israel; with all their faults.
The second kingdom, was like a bear, and it raised itself up on one side. Well, that is the Medo-Persian Empire, originally Media, north of Persia proper, which was the leading kingdom during the first stage of this empire. And as they expanded westward, they first shattered with a sword the empire of Assyria, which was north of Babylon, and that was of course done under the dominance of Media. Then Persia gained the dominance. So it raised itself up on one side. In other words, Media and Persia were not equal, they were the unequal power of two kingdoms in one. It also says there were three ribs in its mouth. It conquered and absorbed three great empires; Assyria, Babylon and Egypt, for identification here is unmistakable.
The third empire, the third beast that came up out of the sea of these “enosh” peoples, was like a leopard, and certainly your could not have taken a better symbol, with it swift striking, terrible power. It says it had four wings and four heads. In other words, already, while it was still a single empire under Alexander, it had in it the seeds of this break-up into four parts, and dominion was given unto it. Yes, dominion it certainly had.
Alexander conquered all that the previous empires had ruled. He occupied and conquered Egypt, then he went on to take over all the empires of Assyria, Babylon and Medo-:Persia had ruled, including portions of northern India.
Finally, there was the fourth one, a beast that was dreadful, terrible, strong exceedingly, and he would devour the whole earth. Well, it covered all the then known world, all that was civilized enough to be known at that time, all but the eastern most part of the earlier empire. Rome didn’t penetrate into Afghanistan, or as they called it Bactria them. India but it had everything west of that.
Rome also had what the other empires had never had: it had all of Europe except Germany. It had northern Africa, but was excluded from all the principal lands then occupied by the people of Israel. It only overran England where the Israel people were as yet very few in number, because the bulk of the Israel people had not come into England. There was just a tiny handful there, before the withdrawal of the Roman legions.
He said this beast would break in pieces and devour all things; as Daniel 2:40 says, “The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and subdues all things: as iron that breaks all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.”
Then Daniel said this fourth beast was diverse, or different, from all that went before it. It was, it originated as a republic. Republics were known in Greece before this time, they were small cities, they were not great empires. This is the first time in all history that the world saw a republic rising to he power of a conquering empire.
As a kingdom Rome kept its identity in force after the death of even its most powerful kings. The others tended to weaken and sometimes even break up, when a great and powerful king died. But in Rome there was a continuity of the empire as such, for these many centuries.
This next vision now obviously concerns the same four empires, but now you have a tie-in with the Book of Revelation, because you have these four beasts rising out of the sea. As we shall note when we get to the Book of Revelation, where John was given a vision, it was one beast that rose out of the sea, but the one beast combined in itself the characteristics of the first four. Obviously there is a connection there which can not be overlooked.
By way of more confirmation of this order, in the eighth chapter of Daniel, he was given another vision, of a ram and a goat. He said, “Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. I saw the ram pushing westward and the northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great. And as I was considering, behold, as he goat came form the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran into him in the fury of his power. And I saw him close unto the ram, and he was moved with anger against him, and broke his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great born was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.” (Daniel 8:3-8)
The angel gives Daniel the explanation of this; remember this is prophecy BEFORE it happened. This is while Babylon was still at the apex of its power. The angel says, “The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power.” (Daniel 8:20-22)
This was written some time in the middle third of the 500s B.C. 550, 545, somewhere in there, and the fall of Babylon did not come until about 538 B.C. so this was at least two centuries before the rise of Alexander the Great. Note again the accuracy of prophecy; the ram had two horns, Media and Persia, both were high but one was higher, and the higher one came up last. Persia was the one that came to power later, absorbing Media.
Concerning the rough goat, the cultured Greeks despised all Macedonians as being barbarians. Of course the Greeks despised absolutely everybody else in the world as being barbarians, because they recognized only two classes: Greeks and barbarians.
The Greeks looked down upon the Macedonians, maybe more than some of the others, because these were a rough, tough bunch. “And when he was strong, the great horn was broken.” Alexander died at the very height of his power, 323 B.C.
In the earlier vision of the four beasts that came out of the sea, Alexander had been compared there to a leopard. Let’s read now, from “The History of Nations,” published by P.F. Collier and Sons: “Alexander was one of the generals who won by rapid strokes and daring expedience. His long marches were perhaps the most characteristic part of his career. Urged on by him, his army seemed to be able to annihilate time and space. The rapidity of their motion was almost incredible. He was on the spot when his enemies believed him to be still hundreds of mils away, and when once arrived, Alexander had an eagle eye for seizing the moment to strike. He hardly ever made a mistake; his attacks, however reckless, succeeded to a miracle.”
So Alexander is compared to the leopard; the leopard is not a big animal; it is terrifically strong for it size. It is extremely fast, and it makes its attacks in just that way. Now, “four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power.” All the members of the family of Alexander the Great were assassinated in the struggle for power.
Egypt was taken over by his general, Ptolemy I. Thrace, the old Macedonia and Greece, was taken over by Lysimachus, Syria and Asia Minor went to Antigonus. And Cappadocia and Paphlagonia, which were eastern Turkey and the areas inland to the south of it, went to Eumenes. It says “...not in his power,” that is, it was not an orderly division of the empire, but each quarter was simply seized by the local commander as his own independent act. So, the accuracy of Daniel’s vision here is beyond any question. Now we are beginning to get into what the symbolism of this thing means.
Let us turn now to Revelation 12:1-5: “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: and she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his head. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be born. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.”
That woman is unquestionably is Israel, because you have here a repetition of Joseph’s dream. Back in the Book of Genesis, it says this about Joseph: “And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.” (Genesis 37:9-11)
The sun and the moon obviously represented Joseph’s father, Israel, and his mother; the eleven stars of course, Joseph himself being the twelfth. Now you have a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, upon her head a crown of twelve stars, unmistakably talking about Israel. Then in Revelation 12:2 that the woman was about to give birth to a child, and it says in Revelation 12:5, “...who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron,” a child who was caught up to the throne of God.
Of course that child who was to rule all nations is unmistakably Jesus Christ. He was born of course, as we are reminded by Paul; He came, so far as the flesh is concerned, of Israel, of the tribe of Judah. And, so far as ruling all nations, we read in Revelation 19:11, 15-16: “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and wrath of Almighty God. And he has on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords.”
As to being caught up to the throne of god, in Hebrews 12:2 it says, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” And as Jesus Himself says, in Revelation 3:21, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”
This is also tying in with Daniel; the dragon that stood before the woman, ready to devour her child as soon as it was born, had seven heads and ten horns. Daniel’s fourth beast, which was the Roman Empire, had ten horns. The dragon of course is Satan. Here the tie-in emphasizing the satanic character of the Roman Empire is clearly seen. Remember what it degenerated into, under the emperors; in its early days under the republic, they produced some men of stern and great character (just as the United States), although even at that stage, their morals had decayed pretty badly. Under the emperors it reached to point where it could not have gotten any worse; about like Hollywood today, plus more murders.
Satanism is the unifying theme which runs through all of this, showing its origin; the dragon stood before the woman to devour her son. Herod the Edomite Jew, you remember, tried to murder the infant Jesus, and in the second chapter of Matthew we are told about that. He slaughtered all the male children up to the age of two, in Bethlehem, just to make sure that he wouldn’t fail to kill the right on. So you see, if you ever needed it, this is further confirmation of the satanic origin and character of the Jews.
Getting back to the Book of Revelation we find that Revelation chapter 13, begins with verse one. "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 name of blasphemy." (Revelation 13:1)
Now this "I stood," that is John, this revelation is being given to John. I, John, 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.
This is not some multi‑headed monster as they would like to teach you, but rather indicative of one worldism. Remember, the number seven represents spiritual completeness, meaning all encompassing, around the world. The seven heads are seven continents if you will. This beast also has ten horns, horns are always indicative of rulers.
Also, this beast is coming up out of the great mass of the non-Israel “enosh” people, a beast having seven heads and ten horns. What did the dragon have? Seven heads and ten horns, and the dragon of course is always representative of Satan. “And upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feat of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion.” It designates one beast, but having the composite characteristics of the earlier ones, so that, whereas each of these had originally in its turn been, all by itself, a world empire; now we have something which would succeed them, which would take in all of these previous empires and all the same satanic character.
So what you have here are seven continents ten horns, ten rulers, and upon his horns ten crowns. In other words, crowns being indicative of rulership, authority, and upon these heads the name of blasphemy.
We want to understand there are two beasts in Revelation 13, and by the way, remember the number 13 is the number of rebellion. Rebellion, understand!
1). So what do we have here?
We have seven continents.
2). What are we talking about?
We are talking about that first beast of Revelation 13
Which is a Political System!
Again, the seven heads are those continents around the world. The ten horns are ten rulers, ten people who come together in rulership, for they are given ten crowns, a crown a piece.
3). What is this sea that John sees the beast rise out of?
The seas are the people.
Seas or waters are indicative of people. We are not talking about H2O here, but people. How do we know this? Let's document it. Turn to Revelation chapter 17, where it says:
"And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me (John), saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication." (Revelation 17:1-2)
In other words, what happens when you get drunk? You're thrown into a stupor. Make a note of Romans chapter 11, the word slumber:
"(According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day." (Romans 11:8)
God Himself saying He brought a slumber upon them, but in the Greek if you will go back in your Strong's Concordance and your King James Bible and check out that word slumber, you will find it better translated as stupor.
slumber...
Greek #2659: katanuxis. kat-an'-oox-is. from Greek 2660 (katanusso); a prickling (sensation, as of the limbs asleep), i.e., (by implication [perhaps by some confusion with Greek 3506 (neuo) or even with Greek 3571 (nux)]} STUPOR (LETHARGY) slumber.
It is that same intoxication that is brought upon the waters. Now let's find out what these waters are. Go a little further in Revelation 17:
"And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues." (Revelation 17:15)
The waters are the peoples of this world. Now do you under-stand that we're not talking about H2O. Revelation 17:15: these waters or the sea are indicative of people. Alright, let's go back to Revelation 13.
“...and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Revelation 13:2-8)
It is interesting to note some of the symbolism here, for we are dealing with something smaller than world wide conditions, we are dealing with a single kingdom or country. Rivers are often used to symbolize a mass of people; Assyria and Egypt especially have been thus symbolized. In Revolution 12:15, speaking of that woman Israel who was persecuted by the dragon, it says, “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.” That refers to the floodlike invasion of the Huns under Attila, in the middle 400s A.D.
Remember, the people of Israel on their march out of western Asia, from the southerly end of the Caspian Sea, some of them came up around the eastern side of the Caspian Sea, others came up around the westerly side of it, through the Caucasus Mountains. An north of the Caspian Sea they joined forces again, moved along the easterly end of the Black Sea, crossed the Crimean Peninsula, found the Danube Valley, and started northwesterly up into Europe. But it took the right across the path taken by the invading Mongolian Huns under Attila.
Satan was trying to cut them off, the people of Israel, from getting to their appointed places. The frightful numbers of these Huns, had they been and remained in the path of them, could have literally overrun them and exterminated them, or at least swept them up in mass and mongrelized them. But Yahweh would not allow that; He had promised, 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 this flood of the Huns came, in intercept and carry them away, Yahweh held them back until the people of Israel had crossed this path. The very southern most portion of them were still in the path of the invading Huns, but the rest of them had moved north, on up into Germany and on to the Scandinavian peninsula.
The tribes of the Goths were being driven westward; just as it was prophesied.
“Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind...” (Hosea 12:1)
They came into the southerly portion and were in the path of Attila’s invasion, and they were driven westward before it. The Visigoths, the west Goths, starting from where they had been in Hungary, moved on across into northern Italy, sacked the city of Rome and, as a body, although they probably left a few stragglers behind, the great bulk of them moved on into Spain and settled there.
Then later, almost a generation later, as the flood of Huns was coming in now, snapping right at their heels, the Ostrogoths, the east Goths, split; some of them drove north, clear to the shores of the Baltic where they formed northeastern Germany, and part of them split off and went westward into northern Italy; and those remained there. They set up a Gothic kingdom that lasted for some years in northern Italy, although eventually they were overthrown, but their people remained there. In Italy you will find today, in northern Italy, tall, blond, blue-eyed people who are in no way related, racially, to the short, swarthy people of the southern Italy and Sicily. Those are the people now remaining of that Gothic invasion.
In tying down, firmly, our interpretation of the significance of water, in symbolism, the Book of Revelation, in 17:1, 15, shows that the Bible is consistent in its symbolism, it being used the same in the Book of Revelation as it was in the Old Testament. John said, “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 sits upon many waters. And he said unto me, the waters which thou sawest, where the whore sits, are peoples and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.” So out of the sea, this conglomerate mass of all the non-Israel people, rises this composite beast, that has in one beast the identifying characteristics of all four of the beasts that Daniel saw separately in his vision. The ten horns show that it is satanic and they also show that it is continuation of the Roman Empire, which was the fourth beast of Daniel’s vision.
Daniel then says, “I saw one of his heads as it were wounded unto death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.” (Revelation 13:3) Now the head of the western Roman Empire was wounded unto death it would seem, because they not only took away everything that had been under Roman domination in that area, but they captured and looted the city of Rome itself. The city was attacked by the Vandals in 455 A.D., and the Ostrogoths in 493 A.D., and then Theodoric the king of the Ostrogoths made himself king of all Italy.
Rome had now changed from a military and political capital to a religious capital: it was of no serious military or political importance after about 400 A.D. The capital of the empire, in a political sense, had been moved to Byzantium (Constantinople) in 330 A.D. So here was one head of the beast wounded as it were unto death.
These events had occurred in the meantime: The Emperor Constantine had issued his edict of toleration of Christianity in the year 313 A.D. Before that time, paganism was the leading power in Rome; the emperors were defiled and worshiped as gods, along with all the others: Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and so on.
Christianity became an officially recognized and tax supported religion, but at the same time Constantine took upon himself the title of Pontifex Maximus of Jupiter. Just how much of a Christian Constantine was, is something that is open to very considerable debate. He put up statues of pagan gods in Rome: all of this AFTER he issued his edict of toleration of Christianity. In 324 A.D., this Pontifex Maximus, this chief priest of Jupiter presided over the Christian Council of Nicaea.
There was a great deal of division among the early Christians; some of them said, “We have three gods, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and they are three different individuals, and somehow or other they are still one; but it is a great mystery because we have no understanding of it at all.” And believe me, it was a mystery to them, all right. The others said, “No, we have one God.”
They were quarreling bitterly over that, and this council was called at the demand of Constantine; he said, “You are not going to continue fighting over this: you are going to a council and get together and decide this.” It so happened that at this Council of Nicaea, the Trinitarians out-numbered the believers in one God, so on the Supreme Court’s famous “one man one vote” basis, the Trinitarians won and Christianity, which should have been a monotheistic religion, continued to be a polytheism of three gods who in some unknown way constituted one God. We of course know better: we know that we have one God who manifested Himself to us as the Son, but who was also the Holy Spirit, and the Father.
In 330 A.D., Constantine moved his capitol to Constantinople, and on his deathbed, in the year 337 A.D., he was baptized as a Christian. Up to about 376 A.D., the Roman Senate had a statue of Victory, where they burned incense to this goddess of victory, at the opening of each session. The rise to power of the bishops of Rome began when Pope Leo the Great persuaded Attila the Hun to accept a huge money bribe, offered by the emperor, instead of capturing and looting the city of Rome, in 452 A.D. And by the middle 700s A.D., Rome was really governed by the Pope.
This head had been wounded as it were to death, but Charlemagne revived the empire in Europe. He was king of Gaul, then he conquered and made himself master of Italy and practically all Germany, as well as his own country Gaul, which today we call France. He conquered and ruled part of Spain, as well as some islands in the Mediterranean. He became an emperor in fact by his own ability, but in the city of Rome he was crowned as emperor of the Romans by the Pope Leo III. This, by the way, was the first time that an emperor had ever been crowned by a pope, and is the basis for the Catholic claim that the pope has the right to rulership over kings.
Charlemagne was there for a celebration of his taking over all of Italy and while he was there, the Pope came out with a crown in his hands and put it on Charlemagne’s head and said, “I crown you emperor of the Romans.” As far as Charlemagne was concerned, why quarrel about it? He already was so, if they wanted to recognize him as such, that was all right. But the church ever since has claimed that authority. So Charlemagne ruled as emperor until 810 A.D., but they continued not to call this thing the Roman Empire, thereafter, the Holy Roman Empire, because the pope claimed the power to create and depose kings as a divine prerogative.
So the deadly wound was healed. Remember it said the people “...worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?” (Revelation 13:4)_
Charlemagne overran the Saxon peoples of Germany, the Visigothic peoples of Spain (both of them Israelites), as well as the various turbulent peoples of Italy; he was victorious everywhere. But by 888 A.D., his dynasty fizzled out. Whereas the founder of this dynasty was Charles the Great, the last two kings were known as Charles the Bald and Charles the Fat; and so it fizzled out.
In the absence of a strong emperor, Italy especially was torn by constant warfare between the various petty princes and independent cities. Anyone who could conquer a village of 400 people set himself up as a duke and aspired to conquer a neighboring village of 200 people and become an emperor, so there was an utterly intolerable chaos. These people were constantly fighting among themselves.
In other words, they could never live at peace in their own cities. If the petty ruler of that city was not drafting them into his army, to try to conquer the village 20 miles away, the ruler of that village 20 miles away was trying to conquer that city. They were in desperate need of some strong authority, to put down all this chaos. So they worshiped the beast, as it says. Whatever city or petty kingdom was getting the worst of it, always appealed to some other more powerful king for rescue. And the rescue always meant that you were absorbed into the kingdom of the rescuer.
While the empire lasted, it was the emperor’s policy to not allow any petty kinglet to grow strong enough to unify Italy. And both during the times when they had an emperor ruling, and in the intervals between, the popes exerted all their influence between, the popes exerted all their influence to the same effect. The popes already ruled some lands in central Italy, given them by earlier kings, and they wanted to extend their power. So, Charlemagne’s dynasty ran out in 888 A.D.
After about a century of chaos, the Italians called on Otho I, king of Germany, to come and rescue them from the Hungarians who were at that time devastating Lombardy in the north, and the Saracens form Africa who ruled Sicily and were seeking to take over southern Italy.
After making two expeditions into Italy to restore order, Otho was crowned emperor by Pope John XII in 962 A.D. This new emperor was the German king and his new empire thereafter was called the Holy Roman Empire, and it claimed to exist, as such, until the year 1806; almost 200 years ago.
After speaking of this strange composite beast, with the characteristics of all four that Daniel had seen rising out of the sea, John goes on, in Revelation 13:11-12: “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth...” (The first beast come up out of the sea, but this one came up out of the earth) “...and he had two horns as a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon. And he exercised all the power of the first beast before him, and caused the earth and them which dwell thereon to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.”
This next beast, this one that had two horns like a lamb but spoke as a dragon, this is the papacy; it came up out of the earth, not out of the sea. In the many times the words “earth” or “world” have been used symbolically in the Bible, it always refers to the so-called prophetic earth or world. They were the areas near the Mediterranean Sea and containing the nations which were covered by these earlier prophecies.
In other words, when the earlier prophets talked about the whole world, and so forth, they were not talking about Germany and Scandinavia, they were not talking about the American continent, they were not talking about China. None of these areas came in any way in contact with the peoples who made up the prophetic world.
Nebuchadnezzar had another dream: he dreamed about a tree, which symbolized himself in his greatness before his period of madness. He told Daniel, in the fourth chapter of Daniel, “I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great. The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth.”
Nebuchadnezzar was an important figure in all the prophetic world of his day, and the prophetic world in his day extended from the Tigris-Euphrates valleys, west to the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. That tree, you remember, was chopped down, though the roots were left in the earth, and there was a band of brass and of iron put around the stump of it, and so on.
The tree symbolized, not the entire Babylonian empire, but only Nebuchadnezzar himself. Remember he went through a period of madness, to remind him that he was not as important as he thought he was. The words “all the earth” which occur in his dream of a tree, refer only to the area of his prophetic world, the area of his dominion.
The Asiatic empire had passed away. The development of power was in the Roman Empire, and this now constituted the earth, symbolically, at the time of John’s vision.
The second beast had two horns like a lamb. The pope adopted the title “Vicarius Filii Deus” a substitute for the Son of God; “vicarius,” one who acts as a substitute in the absence of another. The pope said, “Yes, I am a substitute for the Son of God.” But our motto is, The original and only genuine one: Accept no substitute!
The pope claims two horns like a lamb. He always claims that he exercises all the power of Christ. He says that he can forgive sins or he can condemn to hell, and so on. So he tries to adopt the outward appearance of a lamb, but he speaks as a dragon. His power has been exercised in the interests of Satanism. He has taken over the office of Pontifex Maximus, who was the chief priests of Jupiter; so there is no mistaking this. He exercises all the power of the first beast before him, the Book of Revelation says.
The pope claimed the power to confer the empire upon kings and to depose them. He wouldn’t crown Frederick Barbarossa who reigned from 1152 to 1189 A.D., until Frederick swore that he would conduct a crusade to recover Jerusalem. And he excommunicated and deposed Frederick II in the year 1245 A.D.
So, having horns like a lamb, but speaking as a dragon, he is exercising the power of the first beast, this composite beast before him. In other words, there is a period in which the head of the composite beast has been wounded, it would seem, wounded as to death, but the deadly wound was healed. In the meantime there came this second beast that had horns like a lamb but spoke as a dragon, and took over and exercised the power of the first beast before him.
Now we are beginning to find out something about this symbolic beast that is in the process of getting such power over the earth, that it is going to reach a stage where it says, none might buy nor sell save he that has the mark of the beast.
Remember the symbolic beasts are mentioned in the seventh chapter of Daniel; also remember that Daniel had previously interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the image which had the head of gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of brass, and the legs of iron, as being a vision of the four world empires of the Babylonian succession of empires, which were then existing or would exist in the future; it was prophetic, it did not attempt to go back and give historical review of anything prior to that; and he interpreted those as being Babylon (the head of gold), then Medo-Persia, then Alexander’s empire, and then Rome.
Now we are getting into the same general thing here. Daniel had another vision to confirm that. Nebuchadnezzar had the first dream, but Daniel got his own vision, to make sure it was right, and he saw, one after the other, four symbolic beasts.
The first was like a lion, the second was like a bear, the third was like a leopard, and the fourth was a strange beast: it had iron teeth and brass claws and ten horns on its head; one head only with ten horns. And these again were four successive world empires, and they were the same four, of course, as in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.
We know who the bear is, that's good old Russia, Rosh. And the dragon gave him power, that's that same old dragon of Revelation 20:1-2. That old serpent, the dragon, Satan. Understand we are not talking about a flesh and blood man possessed by Satan, we are talking about the old dragon himself, he gave him his power. Who did he give his power to?
The seven heads and ten horns. Keep your subject and your object straight in the Greek and understand. Alright, and his seat, and great authority. In other words, God allows this. The feet of the bear means to travel, to carry this, put it forth. Also, while we are here, let's touch on as much as we can. Make a note of Daniel 7:1-7 in connection with this Revelation 13:2. You will see this same leopard, bear, lion, and dragon involved here.
"And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast." (Revelation 13:3)
One of his heads, that is of this first beast, the one with seven heads, ten horns. I saw one of his heads as if it were wounded it death. That's one of the seven continents. Keep in mind that the number seven is spiritual completeness. That means it's around the world, one-worldism, or a one world government system. That is what is being talked about here. So understand that this one worldism, this one world government system, suffers what is called a deadly wound.
Let's go on with this verse: And his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. Not some of the world, all of the world.
In other words, this has sucked in or brought in all nations, honoring this one world system. Again, as we are going to find in other Scriptures, they are going to cry "peace, peace" when there is no peace. Even to the fact that they teach us from the pulpit. God never said that He was going to bring peace to the world in the end times, but rather a sword. (Revelation 6:4)
It's time to start understanding what God's Word has been declaring all along rather than the traditions of men. Remember, Christ said "just when they cry peace, peace, then sudden destruction cometh upon them." You see, there is no peace, it is false. Because the whole world yearns and craves for this peace, that is going to be the method by which the one worldism sells its philosophy to the world.
Christians to boot, for almost all Christians., except those who know and understand that have eyes to see and ears to hear who know that there will be no peace until Jesus Christ the Messiah, the King of kings is actually present on earth, there will be no peace.
There will be a false peace brought in by Satan and this one world government system. "And they worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?" (Revelation 13:4)
And they (who?) the world as well as this one world system, worshiped the dragon. Who is this dragon? He is that serpent, the devil, Satan: "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years." (Revelation 20:1-2)
This dragon is not a flesh and blood man, therefore antichrist is not a flesh and blood man. It is Satan, the son of perdition. Perdition, from the Greek word Apollumi, meaning to be utterly destroyed.
perdition...
Greek #684: apoleia, ap-o'-li-a; from a presumed der. of 622 (apollumi); ruin or loss (phys., spiritual or eternal):-damnable (-nation), DESTRUCTION, die, perdition, X perish, pernicious ways, waste.
There is only one that has been sentenced to death, to be consumed or turned to ashes from within which is what the Hebrew says, speaking of Lucifer in Ezekiel chapter 28. "Thou has defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more." (Ezekiel 28:18-19)
A description of that time when God has Satan cast into the lake of fire and how he will be destroyed. He will be turned into ashes from within.
Only one has been sentenced so far and that is Satan. It is time to come out of Babylon, to come out of confusion and find out what the Spirit says according to God's living Word. "And they worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?"
They worship the dragon which gave power unto the beast. What beast? That Political System. What is this telling us? Who gives the actual power or the ability to go forth in the world as a reckoning power to the beast? Satan is the one who brings one worldism into being, all in the name of peace, not war.
And they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is like that seven headed, ten horned political system, that multi-headed system or organization. Who is able to make war with him?
If you remember, not very long ago Saddam Hussein found out, even though it was touted he had the fourth largest army in the world, he was not able to make war with the beast. Does that give you any idea who the beast is? Put on your thinking caps, let's reason together.
God is making the signs plain if you just have "eyes to see and ears to hear" and will stop listening to the traditions of men that will tell you to watch out for the European Economic Market. The European Economic Market couldn't wage war with anybody. Nor will they ever.
Oh, they may be a reckoning force in the world economy scene relative to Europe, but that is not the seven headed ten horned organization spoken of in Revelation 13.
There is only one that fits the description of that beast, that political system, and with just a little bit of thinking you can figure it out. And its not the United States. "And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months." (Revelation 13:5)
Months and nights always refer to Satan and his working, the negative part of God's plan. Days and years are always indicative of God and His working, the positive part of His plan. Alright, forty and two months, that is three and a half years.
This is speaking of specifically the back half of Daniel's 70th week. That time has been shortened to five months, the time of the locust. This is documented in Revelation chapter 9. "And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented FIVE MONTHS; and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man." (Revelation 9:3-5)
They were given power to torment five months, the time of the locust. The same locust spoken of by Joel the prophet. You can read the book of Joel, and it will fit right in with chapter 9 of the book of Revelation as well as in Revelation 17. So hear and understand what the Spirit is saying through this Living Word. Come out of that confusion, come out of Babylon. "And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven." (Revelation 13:6)
In other words, the true many membered body of Christ, all inclusive. Why? Because it declares in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 that the "abomination of desolation," properly translated from the Hebrew in Daniel 9:27, it says he comes in on the wings of the desolator.
Singular, masculine entity and not a situation or condition, but rather an individual and it is said that old dragon, Satan, antichrist from the Greek meaning instead of Christ, he stands in the temple declaring himself to be God. Naturally, blaspheming the true things of God and His tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven, the saints. Verse 7 of Revelation 13: "And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindred, and tongues, and nations." (Revelation 13:7)
Who are the saints? They are the set aside ones; those that God has set aside, that seed. Make a note of Psalm 22:30: "A seed shall serve Him; it shall be accounted to the LORD for a generation." (Psalm 22:30)
He has reserved a seed for that end generation, the generation since the planting of the two fig trees in Jerusalem. That happened May 15, 1948 when Israel became a nation. There were two fig trees planted.
If you aren't familiar with that we will try to present it some time in the future. Again, it is one of those seals you must be sealed with in your mind, if you are to stand in these end days. For you will either be sealed with the seals of God (Revelation chapter 7 & 9:4) or you will be sealed with the mark of the beast. (Revelation 13)
You see, it isn't this ludicrous, stupid notion of a tattoo on the back of the hand, or a stamp on your forehead read with ultraviolet light or something put under your skin. Satan is not that stupid.
The "mark" is something totally different as we will get to. This mark is in your forehead, your mind: use it! Hear and under-stand what the Spirit says and come out of the traditions of men for they will confuse you and lead you ever further into Babylon, into captivity, mystery Babylon, mother of harlots. Have you not read?
Well who is that? It is the deceived church, it is deceived Christianity, called Judeo-Christianity today, who has been more than happy to listen to the traditions of men and to be deceived than to come out of that and find out what GOD has to say.
Don't take for gospel the words of this man or any other man. Weigh all things according to the Word of God and not according to what men tell you, or you will not stand in these end-times. One more comment on Revelation 13:7: It was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. That means they should be delivered up. Make a not of Luke 21. "And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolk, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death." (Luke 21:16)
When you are delivered up unto "death." Who is death? Satan, Hebrews 2:14; he is the only one that has been sentenced to die, sentenced to perish.
perish....
Greek #622: apollumi, ap-ol'-loo'mee; from Grk 575 and the base of Greek 3639; to destroy fully (reflex. to perish, or lose), lit. or fig.-destroy, die, lose, mar, perish.
When he stands in that temple declaring himself to be God, if you are one of those elect, then at that time you will be delivered up. Why? To bear a testimony or witness against them. That is when the Holy Spirit will speak through you. Satan is already standing in most of the pulpits of America, in the person of the Judeo-Christian preachers, ministers, priests, pastors and etc.
"But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them. But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost." (Mark 13:9, 11)
Satan can not harm a hair on your head. In Revelation 9 God says only those who don't have the seal of God in their forehead will be harmed, "tormented." "And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads." (Revelation 9:4)
Also, see 1 Chronicles 16: "Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations; Saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm." (1 Chronicles 16:22)
Power was given over all kindred and tongues and nations. Again that's one-worldism having drawn in all peoples and nations into this common one-world government system. Put on your thinking cap, realize there is only one organization today that is capable of this.
Realize that it began about the same time the two figs were planted in Jerusalem. You also want to know that this is the system of deception that Satan brings upon the world through this one world political system and through the church.
For what purpose? To deceive people into believing that they are serving God, that they are serving Christ when in fact they are serving antichrist, the one that is first to come. They teach you falsely that you are going to "fly" away.
Nobody gets a free ride into the first resurrection. You earn it. Faith without works is dead. No one flies out of here or escapes. Make a note of Ezekiel chapter 13. God says I hate those who teach my children to fly to save their souls. "Have ye (Judeo-Christian preachers, ministers, etc.) not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination, whereas ye (Judeo-Christian ministers, etc.) say, the LORD saith it; albeit I have not spoken?... Wherefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold I am against your pillows, wherewith ye there hunt the souls TO MAKE THEM FLY, and I will tear them from your arms, and will let the souls go, even the souls that ye hunt TO MAKE THEM FLY...Because WITH LIES YE HAVE MADE THE HEART OF THE RIGHTEOUS SAD, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not BY PROMISING HIM LIFE." (Ezekiel 13:7, 20, 22)
Now let continue on with verse 8 of Revelation 13: "And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." (Revelation 13:8)
The old dragon is the one, who is the "him" they will worship, in the guise of a false Christ, which is being presented from most of the pulpits of America today; those whose names are not written in the book of life.
What is it that is translated as foundation? From the Greek it is not a foundation as something that is built upon, but rather a destruction or overthrow from the Greek word kataballo.
foundation...
Greek #2598: kataballo, kat-ab-al'-lo; from Greek 2596 and Greek 9906; TO THROWDOWN:-CAST DOWN, lay.
Greek #2596: kata, kat-ah'; a prim. particle; (prep.) down (in place or time), in varied relations (according to the case [gen., dat., or acc.,] with which it is joined):-about, according as (to), after, against, (when they were) X alone, among, and, X apart, (even, like) as (concerning, pertaining to, touching), X aside, at before, beyond, by, to the charge of [charity] bly, concerning, + covered, [dai-] ly, from...to, godly, in (-asmuch, divers, every, -to, respect of) measure, X mightily, more, X natural, of (up-) on (X part), out (of every), over against (+ your) X own, + particularly, so, through (-oughout, -oughout every), thus, (un-) to (-gather, -ward), X uttermost, where (-by), with, in composition it retains many of these applications, and frequently denotes opposition, distribution or intensity.
Greek #906: ballo, bal'-lo; a prim. verb; to throw (in various applications, more or less violent or intense):-arise, cast (out), X dung, lay, lie, pour, put (up), send, strike, throw (down), thrust. Comp. Greek 4498.
Properly translated, this word means CASTING DOWN OR OVERTHROW. Satan was sentenced to being erased from the book of life as a result of his activities that led to the overthrow of the first earth age.
Looking back to that first earth age. What old dragon was in the first earth age, the one before this one. His method of operation to deceive God's children was the same in the first earth age as it is here in this second earth age. "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." (Revelation 12:1)
Note that this wonder is "in heaven," not on earth. Those 12 stars are the twelve tribes of Israel. It is also indicative of the 12 signs of the zodiac of the constellations.
From the beginning, you have Virgo the virgin, the one who brings forth the birthing of people. In one day, Moses's mother birthed a million through one birth. Hear and understand what is being talked about here.
You have those 12 tribes of Israel through whom the Messiah, Jesus, would come. This is also an indication of the virgin Mary bringing forth the Christ child, the one who would redeem man through the shedding of His Blood. "And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born." (Revelation 12:2-4)
Seven heads and ten horns, Satan was in the first earth age using the same seven headed, ten horned organization in heaven that he is using now on earth in this earth age, the second earth age. According to Ecclesiastes chapter 1, there is nothing new under the sun. What has gone around for man in heaven will go around again here on earth. "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
Satan is a great imitator of God. He uses God's number 7 which means spiritual completeness to deceive the people of the earth. "If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints." (Revelation 13:9-10)
Again, the sword of the Lord (Revelation 1:16) is His truth: that two edged sword. "And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength." (Revelation 1:16)
Then we are told to: "And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." (Ephesians 6:17)
Back to Revelation 13. "And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon." (Revelation 13:11)
He LOOKED like a lamb. Why? He is imitating Christ because he is antichrist, meaning instead of Christ from the Greek. He is Satan, that old dragon, the serpent, the devil. Satan is one of the most beautiful creatures that God ever created. As it is written in Ezekiel 28, he was the finished pattern and full sum, and perfect in beauty. "Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty." (Ezekiel 28:12)
He will come in apparent peace and prosperity as it is written in Daniel 8:25, saying: "Come unto me, I love you. Bring your children unto me that I might save them and take them home."
Is this not what the Judeo-Christian churches do today, come down to the altar and accept Christ and you will be saved! They teach that is all that must be done.
However, the Scriptures teach a different story. For even the devils believe in Christ and confess that He is Christ, but they are not saved because of that. No if a person who supposedly accepts Christ does not do any works to prove that he/she is truly REPENTANT and is working for God Almighty is not saved, even though they might think so. Because they have listened to liars teaching false doctrines).
Do you not see how he used this same method in the first earth age? Remember that Satan is the first supernatural entity that will come to the earth claiming to be Christ. If you believe him, you will not be fit for the kingdom. Why? You will no longer be a "chaste virgin" (2 Corinthians 11:1-3) "Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me. For I am jealous over you with godly jealously: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtility, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." (2 Corinthians 11:1-3)
This word beguiled is number 1818 in the Greek.
beguiled...
Greek #1818: exapatao, ex-ap-at-ah'-o; from Greek 1537 and Greek 538; TO SEDUCE WHOLLY:-beguile, deceive.
Greek #1537: ek, ek; or ex, ex; a prim. prep. denoting origin (the point whence motion or action proceeds), from, out (of place, time or cause; lit. or fig.; direct or remote):-after, among, X are, at, betwixt (-yond), by (the means of), exceedingly, (+ abundantly above), for (-th), from (among, forth, up), + grudgingly, + heartily, X heavenly, X hereby, + very highly, in...ly, (because, by reason) of, off (from), on, out among (from, of), over, since, X thenceforth, through, X unto, X vehemently, with (-out). Often used in composition, with the same general import; often of completion.
Greek #538: apatao, ap-at-ah'-o; of uncert. der.; to cheat, i.e., delude:-deceive.
This wholly seduced includes spiritual seduction with is the "fornication" referred to in Revelation. See Matthew 24:19. "And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed." (Revelation 13:12)
The beast that was healed is THE ONE WORLD POLITICAL SYSTEM. The deadly wound is the fourth trump. The fifth trump is when Satan presents, himself having been cast out of heaven to the earth by Michael and the angels. (Revelation 12:7-9) "And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men." (Revelation 13:13)
He shows supernatural acts in order to deceive people into believing he is Jesus, or he will do so with advanced technology and make it appear to be supernatural. "And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live." (Revelation 13:14)
The second beast tells them to make an image (statue, profile, representation, or resemblance) of his one world political system. Already in the news, almost daily you see this image being thrown before you.
There is only one multi-headed organization that no one, when it wants to exercise its power, can make war with it. Who do you suppose that is? Figure it out: There is only one, THE UNITED NATIONS. "And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed." (Revelation 13:15)
The deception that the political beast will use is one of WORDS. To be killed here is to be delivered up to death, Satan himself. God says touch not my anointed. He also says not a hair of your head will be harmed.
You will be delivered up to death, to councils and synagogues for a testimony (to bear witness). You will bear witness to the truth.
Those of you who know you have a destiny, who have known for a long time that there is more to God's word than you have been taught by the Judeo-Christian preachers who have sold out to Judaism and Zionism.
Those of you who love God's word and are willing to study and ferret out the truth, you will be delivered up. Take no thought or premeditation regarding what you will say in that day for God will speak through you.
That is the true "tongues" spoken of that will be spoken where every ear will hear in its own dialect, its own language, clearly and distinctly with understanding. This happens when you are delivered up to bear witness. "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads." (Revelation 13:16)
Nobody is going to put a stamp on your forehead or on your right hand. What do you do with your right hand? You serve or work for. That is why Jesus said woe unto them who give suck in those days. And what is in your forehead? Your mind, use it! This mark is referring to the deception of your mind, deception assisted by traditions of men, for most have loved teachers rather than the word of God. "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears." (2 Timothy 4:3)
This is listening to those who would tell you what you want to hear, rather than teach the Word of God. For example, "flying" away to escape all the trouble when the Word says that "he that endures unto the end shall be saved."
JESUS HIMSELF EVEN PRAYED THAT WE BE NOT TAKEN OUT OF THE WORLD, BUT RATHER PRESERVED IN THE WORLD. "But he that shall endure UNTO THE END, the same shall be saved." (Matthew 24:13)
For a second witness: "I PRAY NOT THAT THOU SHOULDEST TAKE THEM OUT OF THE WORLD, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." (John 17:15)
Okay, this "mark" isn't going to be bar codes or any other obvious mark. Satan is very crafty and would not try to deceive us with something so blatant. How crafty is he? "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" (Genesis 3:1)
He is more wise and crafty than any other beast of the world. It is through lies that he will deceive the people.
We are searching for wisdom. Where is the one place that wisdom comes from? "For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding." (Proverbs 2:6)
We are further told: "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six." (Revelation 13:18)
Many people ignorantly believe that just because it says, "of a man," that this means some flesh and blood man. They lose sight of what the rest of the words say. It is that old dragon. He comes in like a lamb, and speaks like a dragon. It is also written in Isaiah 14:16, dealing with Lucifer, Satan, the old dragon: "is this the man that made the earth to tremble..."
Again, Satan is not of flesh and blood, yet is called a man. Six hundred three score and six, six being the number of man. Man always falls short of the spiritual perfection, which is seven. The best Satan can do is imitation.
Okay, let's take a look at the word count from "count the number of the beast."
count...
Greek #5585: psephizo, psay-fid'-zo; from Greek 5586; TO USE PEBBLES IN ENUMERATION, i.e. (gen.) to compute:-count.
Greek #5586: psephos, psay'-fos; from the same as Greek 5584; A PEBBLE (AS WORN SMOOTH BY HANDLING), i.e. by impl. of use as a counter or ballot) a verdict (of acquittal) or ticket (of admission); a vote:-stone, voice.
This "count" means to enumerate stone worn smooth in service over a long period of time. What are these stones? They are children, and count them all the way back to where? All the way back to the garden, all the way back to Cain and the other seed line planted in the garden, back to that mark that was put upon Cain in Genesis 4:15.
Even those familiar with the Strong's Concordance are likely to have trouble finding six hundred three score and six. It is called "Stigma" from an obsolete Greek letter that is not used in modern Greek.
stigma....
Greek #5516: chi xi STIGMA. khee xee stig'-ma; the twenty- second, fourteenth and an obsol. letter (Greek 4742 as a cross of the Greek alphabet (intermediate between the fifth and sixth), used as numbers; denoting respectively SIX HUNDRED, SIXTY AND SIX; SIX HUNDRED SIXTY-SIX as a numeral:-SIX HUNDRED THREESCORE AND SIX.
Greek #4742: stigma, stig'-mah; from a prim. stizo (to "stick," i.e. prick); a mark incised or punched (for recognition of OWNERSHIP), i.e. (fig.) scar of SERVICE:-mark.
QUITE SIMPLY IT MEANS A MARK THAT LOOKS LIKEA CROSS! Hear and understand that the mystery Babylon, mother of harlots, is the greater population of Christianity today. They have been deceived.
The Kenites (or Pharisees, the Jews - sons of Cain, Christ said so in John 8:44) have worked their way into Christianity and mis-translated God's Word and mis-taught it from the seminaries right on through.
It is the time of the calling out of God's children from Revelations chapter 7. Do not be deceived by this mark. Let's go to Ezekiel for more documentation. "Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar." (Ezekiel 13:10)
They coated the wall with untempered mortar or white-wash. Those who claim to be men of God build up a weak wall and paint it with white-wash. They deceive God's children. Not only do they prevent themselves from entering the kingdom, they also would prevent God's children from entering in. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." (Matthew 23:27)
Hear and understand the picture that God is trying to bring forth to your understanding. It is time to come out of Babylon. "To wit, the prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions of peace for her, and there is no peace, saith the Lord God." (Ezekiel 13:16)
How plain does God have to make it? They all cry peace, peace when there is no peace. This peace is the false peace of the one-world government system. Even our most illustrious leader of this great nation himself, pushing as strongly as possible for a one world system where by peace can supposedly be brought into the world. God says there is no peace! "But the Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation." (Jeremiah 10:10)
Why? It is because they have whored after antichrist believing him to be Jesus. They have been taught by Judeo-Christian ministers, preachers and etc., that he is the first one to show up, their bride groom. They, like that old Jezebel, will jump into that sack and whore after him, thinking he is Christ. "And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him." (1 Kings 16:31)
Again: "Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion. When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures." (Jeremiah 10:11-13)
This wind is Hebrew 7307:
wind...
Hebrew #7307: ruwach, roo'-akh; from Heb. 7306; wind; by resemblance breath, i.e., a sensible (or even violent) exhalation; fig. life, anger, unsubstantiality; by extens. a region of the sky; by resemblance spirit, but only of a rational being includ. its expression and functions):-air, anger, blast, breath, X cool, courage, mind, X quarter, X side, spirit ([-ual]), tempest, X vain, ([whiirl-]) wind (-y).
Hebrew #7306: ruwach, roo'-akh; a prim. root; prop. to blow, i.e. breathe; only (lit.) to smell or (by 'impl. perceive (fig. to anticipate, enjoy)):-accept, smell, X touch, make of quick understanding.
"Every man is brutish in his knowledge: every founder is confronted by the graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them." (Jeremiah 10:14)
Brutish is Hebrew 1197:
brutish...
Hebrew #1197: ba'ar, baw-ar'; a prim. root; to kindle, i.e., consume (by fire or by eating); also (as denom. from Heb. 1198) to be (-come) brutish:-be brutish, bring (put, take) away, burn, (cause to) eat (up), feed, heat, kindle, set ([on fire]), waste.
Hebrew #1198: ba'ar, bah'-ar; from Heb. 1197; prop. food (as consumed): i.e. (by exten.) of cattle brutishness; (concr.) stupid:-brutish (person), foolish.
Every man is stupid in his knowledge. Every person who casts a graven image is confused by it because it is a falsehood. There is no life in them. The word breath is ruach, spirit, Hebrew 7307. "For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape." (1 Thessalonians 5:3)
We are close to the birthing of a new "age." This age, and the sixth day, is almost over. Just like as described in Matthew 24 and Mark 13.
Read them. As labor pains grow closer and closer together, so do the signs of the approaching tribulation. When antichrist arrives, the world, the Christian world, is going to buy it hook, line, and sinker because the false men of God today teach God's children to pray for peace.
The true prince of peace will come after that. Those who are deceived will not be "fit" to enter the kingdom. Don't be one of those. "But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation." (1 Thessalonians 5:4-8)
This false peace comes in the midst of Daniel's 70th week. "And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate." (Daniel 9:27)
The true sacrifice is the true Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, and none other. Here is more from the book of Daniel dealing with Satan, many believe to be the antichrist. "And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people (is this not what the Judeo-Christian preachers doing?). And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand." (Daniel 8:24-25)
Remember, he (Satan) will come bringing peace and prosperity, not warfare. Put on the Gospel armor of Ephesians 6. "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle NOT AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephesians 6:11-12)
Just so you clearly understand about this mark, that so many people are worrying night and day about let’s do a little review here.
To do that we will pick up enough similarities about Daniel’s vision; and it even goes beyond that for in Revelation 12:3, he saw a great red dragon having heads and ten horns, and seven crowns on his heads. Remember, the vision was of this woman, obviously representing the entire nation of Israel, all 13 tribes, clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and with a crown of twelve stars (now we are talking about the original 12 tribes before Jacob/Israel adopted Joseph’s two sons) which is pure Israel symbolism. It was Joseph’s dream as a boy, all over again.
Then it said, this red dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth to a child, ready to devour the child as soon as it was born; and this of course the attempt to kill Christ in infancy, which He escaped because His parents went into Egypt. So the devil wanted to kill Him before He could do His redeeming work. And it said, her Son was caught up into heaven to the throne of Yahweh, which gave us further confirmation that this was Yahshua.
But now there was also this great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and there was a crown on each of the seven heads. So this symbolizes Satan, the leader of the angelic revolt, trying to frustrate Christ’s redemption of His people and salvation of humanity, by killing Him in infancy.
In Daniel’s vision, this fourth beast, which had only one head, had ten horns growing on it, and he mentioned that a little horn grew up among them which plucked up, by the roots, three of the original ten horns. So this little horn is pretty well identified as the papacy.
It has been customary among the Protestant churches to try to blame everything on the Catholic Church, including things that happened thousands of years before the Catholic Church came into existence. The prophecies made no pretense of being anything corresponding to the Catholic Church until well into the 500s A.D., so the things that happened before that, obviously, can’t be blamed upon it.
Remember, after the collapse of the original Roman Empire, there was a long period of chaos in which there was nothing but a mad scramble for power, by every military adventurer who could make himself king of a little village of fourteen families or so, and was always trying to conquer neighboring territory and add it to his kingdom, until finally the people in despair over this chaos were worshiping the beast that at least gave them peace and order, even if it was with brutal and repressive tyranny at the same time.
Then when the papacy grew up, the ambitious popes were not able to gain political rule over any large territory of their own; also remember that wherever the Catholic Church holds sway, that they keep the people ignorant so they are more easily controlled. Italy broke up into a number of smaller kingdoms, and the Papal States were just one of these small kingdoms in Italy.
When Charlemagne was king of the Franks, corresponding to modern France, and after he had conquered a great deal of Germany, then Spain, and after he had taken over Italy, and as he was consolidating all of these territories into his kingdom, the pope saw a chance to grab some power for the papacy; so he crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Romans and thereby asserted that the imperial crown was the property of the popes, and theirs to confer on whomsoever they chose.
So it said, this little horn plucked up three of the other hors. Well, something of that sort did happen. The pope excommunicated and deposed Henry IV, king of Germany, in1076 A.D. The papacy withheld the imperial crown from Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1152 A.D., until Frederick swore that he would conduct a crusade to free Jerusalem from the Mohammedan infidels who held it. So then when he kept his word and led his army on the crusade, papal troops proceeded to steal some of his territory and added it to the Papal States. Then in 1245 A.D., the pope excommunicated and deposed Emperor Fredrick II.
Now, getting back to what we find in the Book of Revelation, you get to the bigger thing here in the thirteenth chapter, beginning with verse one, where John said, “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 later, when you get over into the seventeenth chapter, it ells you that this beast was scarlet in color, which again ties in with the dragon which had seven heads and ten horns.
“I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea...” and the sea of course symbolic of the non-Israel “enosh” people in general “...having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns...and the beast was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion...”
Here you see the characteristics of all of the four beasts that Daniel saw: the lion, the bear, the leopard, and this odd beast that had seven heads and ten horns. All these now were combined into a single beast. In other words, Daniel saw these things as the four empires coming into power successively.
But John was shown the fact that these were nothing but several successive manifestations of the same power which manipulated these kings as mere pawns in the game. These empires were themselves only a part of something much bigger than themselves. And it says that “...the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.”
This beast was/is definitely satanic, and that is this system which has antedated all these other empires; it was in existence earlier. It is the same thing that operated continually through them. As in the case of pagan Rome, you didn’t get anything different when one of these degenerate emperors was succeeded by another of the same stripe. (Much the same as with the presidents of the United States, for all of them have been traitors, apparently since Andrew Jackson) It was still a manifestation of the same evil power, just under a different man on the throne.
Then when you go over to the seventeenth chapter, he got the vision of this scarlet beast with the woman riding on the beast. And he was somewhat astonished at these unexplained things that he saw, wondering what they meant. So an angel comes to tell him about it. It says, in 17:7, “And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and ten horns.
The beast that thou sawest WAS, and IS NOT; and SHALL ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition...and here is the mind which has wisdom...” Some of the different translations say, Here is a problem for an alert mind, a wise mind. “...The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sits. And THEY are seven kings...”
Your King James Versions says, “And THERE are seven kings,” as though this was something different. But the correct translation is, “And THEY, the seven mountains, are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is yet to come; and when he comes, he must continue a short space. And the beast which WAS, and IS NOT, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition.”
Remember that John wrote this Book of Revelation very probably about the year 94 A.D. That is about as close as we can date the thing. There is a possible leeway of two or three years before and perhaps for or five years afterward, but that is approximately it: in the 90s A.D.
Now when you compare this with Daniel you are getting into something more than Daniel had: Daniel had a vision concerning only four empires. Now we are told that there are seven in John’s vision, of which five already are fallen; they have had their day and gone. And the fourth, the Roman Empire, was then just getting to its height, in John’s day; that would be number six.
So what are these things which were great world empires in their day, and have gone, and nevertheless are part of this satanic system? Of number one, you can take your choice of two. There is a difference of opinion among those who have studied this, but I would say that number one is Egypt. A very respectable writer, Sayce, would put the first one as Cain or Nimrod’s empire, He takes Nimrod rather than Cain: Nimrod’s early Babylonian Empire. I don’t believe he is correct, for this reason: The Bible only goes into any particular detail about those things which in their day had contact with the people of Israel and influenced them.
There is no mention whatsoever of the great kingdom of China, a vast empire covering an enormous continent and which goes back thousands of years; and it is not even mentioned in the Bible. There is no mention of the very respectable, in material ways though pagan and evil of course, civilizations of the Aztecs and the Incas on this continent; again, because they never came in contact in any way with the people of Israel.
Neither Cain’s original empire nor Nimrod’s affected the people of Israel, and therefore we would say that neither of those identifications are likely to be the correct one, and that Egypt is probably number one of the series. That of course Daniel didn’t have, because Egypt had passed its peak.
Somewhere around 775 B.C., Egypt was overrun and conquered by Negroes from the south, and they held it for about 75 years, and in that time Egypt became a mulatto country that it is today, and all of Egypt’s greatness disappeared. It was thereafter kicked around by whatever military adventurer came along with something in the way of an army at his heels, and it ceased to be of any consequence.
Daniel was writing in the mid 500s B.C., which was 150 years after Egypt finally threw off the Negro yoke; but couldn’t get rid of the Negro blood. So that is why Daniel didn’t get it. Then came Assyria; the Assyrian Empire was overthrown and destroyed; Nineveh fell in 612 B.C. But remember, Daniel wasn’t writing this until the mid 500s B.C. So the Assyrian Empire was out of the way when Daniel wrote.
Therefore, Egypt is the first of these five that are already fallen when John was writing. Then came Assyria which is number two. Then number three is Babylon, number four is Medo-Persia, number five is the empire of Alexander the Great; all of these had come and gone. So as the angel said, “...there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is...” and that was Rome, which completes the four that Daniel saw.
Daniel’s vision, in the first place, was entirely a prophecy of the future, as of his time: it covered no review of past history, and even his look into the future only brought him to the beginning of the Christian era; it didn’t carry on beyond that. John now was taking up with the beginning of the Christian era, and he got the vision concerning everything from then on.
Now concerning this strange beast with the seven heads and the ten crowns, he said, “And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed...” (Revelation 13:3)
Remember, when we were studying the Roman Empire, we saw it spit into two, corresponding to the two iron legs of the image that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his vision. There was the old western Roman Empire whose capitol most of the time remained at Rome. On the other hand, it was moved to Ravenna for part of that time. But the city of Rome remained the seat of administrative authority, most of the time, of the western Roman Empire; in other words, Gaul, Spain, their north African territory for awhile, and a little bit of the Balkans, the part that would correspond to modern Austria. The easterly portion of the empire, with its capital city never moving from Constantinople, took over the easterly portion of the Balkans, and of course Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and before long Egypt was added to it.
But the power of the western part of the empire was fading out, it experienced a series of defeats. The Israelite people, the Visigoths, captured and looted the city of Rome itself in 410 A.D., and then after a short time they moved on across southern France and the Pyrenees, into Spain, where they established themselves. They were not the only people then living in Spain, but they were the dominant, ruling people in Spain, from then on, until the Moorish conquest in 711 A.D.
Rome was captured and looted by the Vandals in the year 455 A.D., and it was again conquered by the Ostrogoths in 493 A.D., but it really had reached the end of its power before the Ostrogoths came along.
The Romans had degenerated to the point where this formerly great military nation, which had conquered the known world, could no longer defend itself. The only way they could hope to fight off their enemies was to hire German mercenaries to defend them. Odoacer was the German general in charge of these mercenary troops, but he finally became tired of the trifling interference from the dissolute and incompetent Roman emperor. So Odoacer deposed him from the throne, historians in general say that the western Roman Empire came to its end at that time.
So here was one head of these seven, wounded apparently to death, and yet John is told, “...its deadly wound was healed.” And of course that consisted of the setting up the so-called Holy Roman Empire, when Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Romans in the year 800 A.D.
The rise of the power of the papacy really began before the total extinction of the empire there. In 452 A.D., Pope Leo the Great, acting as intermediary, persuaded Attila the Hun to spare Rome for a huge ransom payment which the emperor had raised, and that is where the popes began showing an influence greater than the emperor. By the middle 700s, the popes really had a thoroughly firm grasp on the power over Rome.
The Roman Empire of course had collapsed completely, but the domination of the popes was a matter of ruling the city and the suburbs around it. Then when Charlemagne came in and took over Italy, he was crowned emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III in the year 800 A.D., and he personally continued his rule until his death in 810 A.D.
His dynasty fizzled out under his descendants. It started with Charlemagne, who was known as Charles the Great, and the last two of his descendants on the throne were known as Charles the Bald and Charles the Fat, their only distinguishing characteristics. In 888 A.D., the dynasty fizzled out, and there was again a return to chaos, with all these little petty kinglets scrambling madly for power, each one of them utterly despotic and keeping things in a continual turmoil, a continuous fight of one petty kingdom trying to conquer another.
There was such anarchy that definitely, as John was told, they worshiped the beast, this powerful beast who ruled them with tyranny, but at least with firmness.
The Holy Roman Empire had no actual power, from about 1648 A.D., although the title itself was formally claimed by one of these kings each time, until it was formally abandoned in 1806 A.D.
So the deadly wound was healed, and the people within the realm there worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast “...and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?” In other words, to be rescued from the constant warfare of their petty princelings, they set up this bigger tyranny because, they said, This is too big for any of the little, local, ambitious leaders to make war with.
So the way it was described to John, back in the 90s A.D., worked out correctly. Well, that is the cynical view of it, which is actually a correct one. But if you want to credit it with what idealism there may have been in the minds of some of them, you can say they had the dream of a united and Christian Europe, powerful enough to suppress all this scramble for power among these little petty princelings.
Of course in those days, for lack of any competition, when you say Christian you would mean Catholic, because the Reformation had not yet come along. But basically it was the worship of plain, blunt POWER. The utter tyranny hat went with it, the utter dissolute character of the ruling class, they accepted as just part of the price of having somebody with power enough to rule with an iron fist and put down the disorder.
Let us now see what the angel continued to tell John, “The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition.” We have already seen six out of the seven kings: five fallen; and the sixth, Rome, existed at that time. And then the angel said, The other is not yet come. Now, something after the end of the sixth, or Roman Empire head of this thing, constitutes the seventh head: the seventh empire.
These churches, that have been following the tradition that you have to blame everything including the weather on the Catholic Church, are trying to put the Catholic Church into the position of being this seventh head. But of course, never at any time were the Papal States more than a tiny little thing in central Italy, petty indeed among petty kingdoms.
Then they have tried to say, Well, it is a revival of the Roman Empire, to come back and rule for three and a half years. You remember, when Mussolini came to power, how they were saying, “See, I told you so: Mussolini is going to conquer the entire world and rule it for three and a half hear.” And then suddenly they shut up about it when Germany had to step in and rescue Mussolini and his Italian kingdom from being conquered and destroyed by the Greeks. In other words, if it has been taught you by your clergyman, the odds are a million to one he is wrong. John was told “...the other is not yet come; and when he comes, he must continue a short space.”
This seventh head is in a class with the first six: it can’t be a revival of the Roman Empire, because the Roman head of this thing is the one that had the deadly wound and yet was healed. Rome has had its day and gone: it was number six. The angel didn’t tell John that head number six is killed off, and then we go on to head number seven. There isn’t a one of these heads that can fit in the picture in that way. Number six was the Roman Empire, and it was to be succeeded by another, and the seventh has to be of a like kind.
Definitely, no man can understand this book out of any mere human cleverness. With a great deal of prayer for guidance, you begin to make some headway. Any man who can say, I am the first one to stumble on the correct explanation of some of these thins is perhaps likely to be wrong. You could literally pack a room from wall to wall and floor to ceiling with the books that have been written by people who tried to explain the Book of Revelation. Without exception, they are all wrong in at least part; many of them wrong in their totality. Some of them have seen portions of it correctly, but they slip up somewhere.
But there is a big empire, important, satanic in its nature, exactly on a par with the kind that went before it, that they have overlooked. Remember hearing about a man named Napoleon Bonaparte?
Napoleon was commissioned an officer in the French army in 1785 A.D. After the communist revolution of 1793 A.D., and that is exactly what it was, he continued in the service and rose rapidly because of his brilliant successes in battle. The incompetent communist revolutionary government got themselves of course into messes, exactly like the incompetent communist governments have gotten themselves into, in our own day; only they didn’t have a wealthy United States, governed by traitors, to bail them out of their troubles; like the commies/Jews have had today.
They were reaching the pont of collapse by their gross incompetence in governing France, and they were overthrown by a sudden revolution, a coup d’etat, in 1799 A.D. A new government was set up, to be headed by a ruler called a consul. They had gone back to the name at least of the old Roman officer, of consul. A consul was not just somebody who got you out of jail if you were arrested in some foreign country, as he is today. A consul was an important officer under the Romans.
Napoleon was appointed the first consul in 1799 A.D. By 1802 they voted him the office of consul for life, and then in 1804 he decided to stop fiddling around with formalities that didn’t mean anything, and he had himself proclaimed emperor of the French. Then the pope decided to get into the act.
The old Holy Roman Empire was fizzling out completely. Napoleon had already licked a number of the kingdoms that were part of the main strength of the Holy Roman Empire. So the pope was going to crown Napoleon again, and say, You see, you got your empire from me; I conferred it and I can take it back. But Napoleon wasn’t having any. He walked up and seized the crown out of the pope’s hands and with his own hands placed it on his own head. He had gotten here on his own steam and he was letting the world know it. So December 2nd, 1804 A.D., Napoleon crowned himself emperor.
Napoleon then set out to establish a complete European empire. This was toward the end of 1804 A.D., when he assumed the imperial crown. In 1805 A.D., he took over Italy and was proclaimed king of Italy. In 1805, likewise, he defeated Austria, and the following year the king of Austria formally abandoned the title of emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1806 A.D., Napoleon defeated Prussia. In 1807 A.D., he defeated Russia and made the Russian cede some territory to him. In 1808 A.D., he defeated Sweden.
That left no nation in the field opposing him except England. The only nations on the continent of Europe which had undertaken to oppose him were defeated and conquered. Only England maintained a hostile attitude. So Napoleon was now the master of the entire continent of Europe. He then began placing his various relatives on the throne over these various nations: the throne of Spain, of Holland, of Sweden, and so forth. In 1809 A.D., he annexed to his territory the Papal States, and when Pope Pious VII excommunicated him for this, Napoleon threw him in jail until the pope signed a treaty recognizing the conquest of the Papal States and that they were part of Napoleon’s territory.
Thereafter, the pope was reduced to merely religious leadership without any political power. The Russians, however, were getting tired of their situation and beginning to rebel, ready to make war. So, in June of 1812, Napoleon began his invasion of Russia. He started out with his Grand Army, the largest ever raised in Europe up to that time, 500,000 men drawn from all the nations of Europe that he had conquered, and he marched into Russia. He captured Moscow in September, on the 14th of September.
The thing that enabled Napoleon to get his great successes in war, was the fact that he actually took a leaf out of the book of the two greatest commanders before him, Alexander the Great and Hannibal. Instead of relying upon supplies sent from home, which system never worked out satisfactorily because, as soon as their army was gone, it was “out of sight out of mind” and the politicians at home would much rather embezzle all the local money than spend any of it on supplies, to send to the army.
It was always a case of “too little and too late.” So these great leaders and the armies they commanded simply lived off the land they conquered.
Remember now, they didn’t have all of the elaborate machinery to supply, that we have. Their soldiers didn’t need guns and ammunition; their weapon was a sword. As long as the men were fed, that was all the ammunition they needed or could use. They plundered the country they went through and stole its wealth to take home. I mean, anything in the way of money they could find, which was entirely metallic in that day, and in its way good anywhere for its bullion value, they stole and took with them.
But basically, the important thing was, they stole enough food to keep themselves fed; and that was all they needed to remain in business; and Napoleon early learned how to do that, when he was an officer under the Jewish-Communist government of France. The people at home never sent him enough supples to keep his army in the field, but he plundered the conquered territories of whatever food was needed. Furthermore, he had his soldiers so enthusiastic over his leadership that they were willing to really put forth some effort, and they marched with terrific speed.
The secret of success in battle is to get there before your enemy is ready to meet you; Hannibal had it, Alexander had it, General George S. Patton had it in our day, Napoleon had it. His troops would make tremendous forced marches, up to as high as forty miles in a day, not riding modern mechanized stuff, but on foot every step of the way. And several days before the enemy had their forces ready to meet him, his armies were already in position, and such troops as were mustered to oppose him were easily routed.
So Napoleon, having demonstrated the success of this tactic, figured. Well that’s fine, I will conquer Russia the same way, I will live off the land. Now here he was: he had crossed all of Europe and now he was proceeding deep into Russia. Any supplies from back home had hundreds of miles to go, and basically the land was not his territory, other than France. The French might perhaps be loyal enough to him, to feel they had to support him, but why should the conquered people of Austria and Hungary, and so on, feel a particular need to help him remain in power?
The easterly portion of Europe, even before he got to Russia, was already hostile territory for his supplies to move through, and then he went into Russia. Of course he whipped the Russian armies every time he caught up with them, but as they retreated they adopted the scorched earth policy. They destroyed everything behind them. They destroyed all food supplies. They burned the cities and towns and retreated, leaving him nothing but a desolation to go into.
Napoleon captured Moscow on September 14th; however, all but a tiny fraction of the population had already fled before he got there. And on the 15th, fires broke out, and, from the 15th to the 19th Moscow was in flames and the whole city was burned down.
So here he was, he had expected to make Moscow his winter headquarters, his soldiers would sleep comfortably in warm, well heated houses, and feed nicely on the food supplies of the Russians. But now there were no houses and no food, and the terrible Russian winter was coming on. So he had to turn back.
However, he was a stubborn man he hung on for a month. It was October 19th, before he started his retreat. He had gotten back into European territory when, early in December he no longer tried to remain with his retreating army. He went on ahead to see what he could salvage at home in France. Out of the half million men that he took into Russia, four-fifths of them, 400,000 were killed. The retreat finally brought back 100,000 starved and tattered scarecrows out of half a million men that he had led into Russia.
A loser has no friends: no allies surely. The nations that he had conquered when he was winning, wouldn’t stay with him now. They joined with England to overthrow him; and his efforts when he got back to France, to hold this off, were unavailing. So on April 12, 1814, Napoleon abdicated. He was banished to the little island of Elba, a small mountainous island off the coast of central Italy. If he wanted to play at being a king there, none would object. So they gave him the title of King of Elba, much as you might name somebody as emperor of Tijuana.
However, there was no one competent to take over in France, in his absence, and he saw a chance, he thought, to get back. On March 1, 1815, he and a small party of his followers landed in France, trying to take over again; and so far as army loyalty was concerned, the old magic was still there. The troops that were sent out to seize and arrest him came up to where he was, and he stepped out in front of his party and said, “If there is any one of you that wants to kill your emperor, here I am.”
The troops greeted him with tremendous enthusiasm and joined his followers, and they started back to retake France. But it didn’t work; his whole attempt at a come-back lasted approximately a hundred days, and, in the campaign that was waged around Waterloo, he was defeated and crushed in the middle of June, 1815.
Remember what was said about that seventh head: “...the other (the seventh head) is not yet come (in John’s day); and when he comes he must continue a short space.” You remember that we commented before, on what a brief time Alexander the Great’s empire lasted. Starting out as king of Macedonia in 336 B.C., his empire lasted until his death in 323 B.C., and that is thirteen years. But Napoleon’s empire lasted only ten years. So he fills-the-bill perfectly. Here it was, a tremendous empire, and it ruled nearly all of the civilized world in its day, certainly the territories that were ruled in Europe by the preceding empires. The character of it was as wicked as the preceding empires; just plain, brutal, tyrannical force, and it endured but a short time.
Moving on to our own time, as of today, all of the seven heads are now past, but remember there was to be an eighth. The angel said, the beast himself is the eighth, and is of the seven; of the same character. So there must be another great empire, but remember this: the beast is bigger and mightier than all of his heads put together. Each of these seven world empires was ruled, after all, by the king of a single city or nation; those are the heads. But the eighth beast is something much greater than that. It is not of a single nation, so it is not the revival of the Roman Empire for three and a half years, as has been falsely taught.
Let us try to identify this eighth beast. It had existed in the past, John was told. The beast WAS, but in John’s day, “IT IS NOT.” What is there that corresponded to this, that would have been a world empire on a greater scale than any one of these heads? What about Satan’s original, total world empire, the thing that Adam was sent here to overthrow? That is your original beast.
The dragon is obviously Satan because the bible calls him “dragon” and “serpent.” The dragon gave the beast his power and authority. So the beast itself was Satan’s total world rule that had ceased to be; and in John’s day, the first century of the Christian era, the sixth out of these seven world empires was in effect. There were to be only seven.
Remember that the great red dragon of John’s vision had seven heads and seven crowns. Seven world empires were all that Satan had any authority to give. Remember also what Satan told Yahshua when he was tempting Him. He said, “Look at all these kingdoms of the world. If you will worship me, I will give you all these kingdoms because they are mine to give to whom I please.” (This is a paraphrase of Matthew 4:8 and Luke 4:5) And you will recall, Yahshua didn’t say that isn’t true; He accepted it as a perfectly correct statement for the time when it was made. But He told Satan, “Get thee behind me: it is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (A paraphrase of Matthew 4:10)
When you come to Daniel’s vision, his fourth beast, the Roman Empire, had only one head. It had ten horns on that one head, and ten crowns; one crown for each horn. Now when you get to John’s vision in the Book of Revelation, there were seven heads and ten horns, but it doesn’t say that they were all on one head, but since this thing ties in so closely wit Daniel’s vision, undoubtedly these ten horns were part of the Roman Empire. They were relatively minor; the crowns that Daniel saw were not as important as the crowns that John saw in the Book of Revelation.
The beast that is bigger than any of these previous empires and of the same character as the seven heads, had existed before John’s time, before the seven heads started, but it was not in power during John’s time. It was to return to power as a universal world empire, not just a few nations clustered around the Mediterranean Sea.
The United Nations is the only thing in all history that will begin to fit it, and the United Nations fits it perfectly; tyrannical, brutal, and satanic as any of these others.
The United Nations headquarters is in New York (sometimes called Jewyork), the only concession they make to recognizing the existence of any god is a stone idol of the pagan god Zeus standing in the lobby. The name Yahshua can not be mentioned in any of its sessions, for fear of offending the various pagan nations or the Jews who run the whole show. It is definitely satanic, utterly tyrannical wherever it has gotten any power, and absolutely brutal in enforcing it.
In the thirteenth chapter of Revelation you read about something else. John says, “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon. And he exercised all the power of the first beast before him, and causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he does great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceives them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast.” (Revelation 13:11-14)
Undoubtedly the papacy is at least a phase of this, because fake miracles have long been the papacy’s stock-in-trade. You know how many churches they have where one of their stone idols of the Virgin Mary weeps from time to time, and others where they have the blood of Said Whosis which liquefies on certain days of the year, and all this sort of thing. It had two horns like a lamb and it claims to be the successor to Yahshua. The Catholic Church speaks as a dragon and certainly has introduced many satanic doctrines, and it is ruled by satanic corruption and evil though the centuries, so the papacy fits as a portion of this picture.
But this thing is so big that you can’t blame everything on the Catholic Church, just as you can’t blame everything that ever happened on the Medo-Persian Empire, but the Medo-Persian Empire was a passing phase of it, and for a time it carried out the satanic purpose of rule over many nations. And also, you can’t say that every thing wrong that ever happened or ever will happen is the fault of Alexander the Great; he was simply one of the cogs in the machine. And the same is true of the papacy; it is one of the cogs in the total satanic machine.
You notice the Book of Revelation, when you get to the eighteenth chapter particular, it talks about the final fall of great Babylon, but it doesn’t say a word about religion or religious corruption; what it talks about is the economic phase of it, right straight down the line.
During the early periods through the Roman Empire, the military-political phase of the great Babylonian system ruled the world. During the Middle Ages, the religious phase of the great Babylonian system ruled the world. And when you get out of the Middle Ages and into our, say, beginning in the 1700s, the financial and economic phase of the Babylonian system rules the world. They are all part of the same system; in other words, you can say the same hand has picked up three different clubs to beat us with. But the clubs are not the total enemy we face. The total enemy is the hand that wields those clubs, and which is bigger than any of its weapons.
So, without undertaking to defend the erroneous doctrines of the Catholic Church, and without undertaking to defend its utterly murderous career over many centuries, when it brutally murdered several million Christian martyrs, far more than pagan Rome ever did; nevertheless, you can’t blame all this on the Catholic Church, because the Catholic Church is only a portion of the evils of this system, just as today the Protestant churches, in the main, are being taken over and used by this satanic system, as part of their method to corrupt and destroy us. Look at the way Communism has taken over the Methodist Church, for example, or the World Council of Churches.
“And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon. And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him, and causes the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he does great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceives them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.” (Revelation 13:11-14)
This second beast is as much a satanic manifestation, and as much bigger than any of these little individual kingdoms, as the first. It is part of the complete satanic kingdom, and while it has corrupted and used the Catholic Church in part, the second beast, just like the first beast, is far bigger than the Catholic Church. “And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast be killed. And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” (Revelation 13:15-17)
The Catholic Church can’t complete the role of this second beast, any more than the first. The description doesn’t fit the papacy. While the papacy undoubtedly created the Holy Roman Empire, this was not the image of the beast, this was just the healing of the deadly wound of one of the heads. The Catholic Church did not create the United Nations; it was the same satanic power that corrupts and uses the papacy, which also corrupts and uses our own government, in the creation of the United Nations and who is currently controlling the United States Government.
The satanic power then demanded that an image of the first beast be created, not just an image of the Roman Empire. Remember, the firs beast was Satan’s total world rule, and the United Nations was created to be an image of that, to be a total world-wide rule over all nations. It had power to make the image of the beast speak the various resolutions and conventions, and so forth, of the United Nations, when it speaks these various commands that the nations are obliged to follow, “...and causes that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.” Well, there can be no doubt, that has and is being done at the present time.
Remember what they did in Katanga on the break-up of the Congo, none of them had shown any ability to govern even one of the small, many warring tribes that made up the Congo, and yet the entire Congo was turned loose with these cannibals running it. Many of them had never even learned to wear shoes, much less to run a nation.
There was only one small part of the Congo that showed signs of stability and keeping some semblance of civilization, when the rest of it was breaking down into general anarchy and cannibalism, and that was a province of the Congo under Moise Tshombe. So what did the U.N. do? They sent in United Nations troops, largely from Sweden and Ireland, in a brutal attack on Katanga, overthrowing his government and incidentally their air force bombed well marked hospitals, by the way. Everything that we have generally falsely accused Germany of doing as an atrocity, was actually, in fact, done by the United Nations army there in Katanga, and somehow they got praise for doing it. Much the same as happened in Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Iraq, and others in our time.
Now what they did in Rhodesia and South Africa? Remember, they have already destroyed the government and given it to the blacks who have no idea how to run the country, for they are cannibals, murderers, and thieves; they are killing not only the white people who once ruled those countries, but their own black people as well. In the former Rhodesia now Zimbabwe they have just about driven all the white farmers out of the country, and the blacks are starving to death. Of course this is their plan, to make the people dependent on outside help to even live, therefore, more easily controlled.
Rhodesia may have had Negroes there before the White man came, but don’t let anybody tell you the falsehood that the White man wen in and took South Africa away from the Negroes, because he didn’t. There was not a single Negro in South Africa when the Whites went in and settled it. There was a very small handful of widely scattered, purely nomadic Bushmen there, of a low sub-human type, something like the Australian bushman, but no Negroes. The Whites settled it and began improving it, laying out their farms, digging the mines, and so forth, prospecting, improving the country, before the first Negro drifted in from the north.
Then Negro tribes began drifting in, they killed and ate the bushmen. It is doubtful if there is on survivor of the bushmen now. So all the Negroes in South Africa are Johnnie-come-latelies who went into a Whiteman’s country, not in lawful immigration, but in unlawful entry. They are not in position to say, White man go home and leave us our country; because it isn’t their country, it never was their country. Nevertheless, the United Nations helped to overthrow White civilization there, as it is everywhere else. But they would never have been able to do it were it not for the traitors in government, just as there are in the United States today that are trying to destroy it.
There is one more thing it says it was doing: “...that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Well, this is already going into effect, to the extent they have had the power.
Remember what they have done with Rhodesia? With South Africa? With the Congo? They have already, by resolution, commanded all nations to completely boycott Rhodesia and South Africa, neither buy any of their products for export nor sell them anything, and our own traitors in Washington are going along with that, as is England.
It was the Jews, dominating the rest of the world, who set up the strangulation boycott against Germany, before World War II; and they are setting it up now, and have done the same thing to Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Iraq. When a boycott alone isn’t successful, then they follow it up with war; as they are talking about doing to Iraq. So now, none may be able to buy or sell, save those who have the mark of the beast.
In John’s day, slaves were marked with either branding or tattooing, and soldiers of some armies were also tattooed with a mark, so if they were deserters, they would be easy to find and capture. Sometimes that brand was put on the forehead, so everybody could see it; sometimes on the hand. So it was simple thing to use as a symbol here; but it is more than just the following of an ancient custom. This mark on the forehead signifies their control over the products of the mind, and the mark on the hand signifies control over the products of our physical work.
Don't be one of the five virgins that run out of the oil, which is the Word of God. Have enough oil in your lamp that you can continue to shine forth and hear, with understanding, God's Word and not the "traditions of men."
Satan will destroy wonderfully, with loving, prosperous works rather than with a pitch fork and red underwear. He will cause craft to prosper and false peace. (Taken, in part, from an study entitled “Mark of the Beast,” by Bertrand L. Comparet)