PART VII – COMPETING PROPHETIC SCENARIOS
Since about the time of 911, what had become the traditional view of End Times prophecy and the identity of the Antichrist has faced some challenges. Thus is the scenario that passes for the standard interpretation in many circles. The Antichrist will come on the scene after a war and / or a series of catastrophic events presenting Israel and the world with their last best hope for peace. So far so good! He will hail from the EU, which will be the Revived Roman Empire, – tied closely with the Church of Rome. (And that’s where the problems start. Many of the newer scholars have come to believe that the evidence indicates that the Antichrist will likely be a professing Muslim, coming as the Islamic Messiah, the Mahdi. In comparing the Islamic writings with the Bible, we see that the predicted careers of the Mahdi and the Antichrist are almost identical. During the course of his reign Israel will be attacked by a leader named Gog from Magog, understood by many to be Russia. The Russians will lead a coalition that will include Iran, Turkey and many of the outer tier of the Islamic former Soviet Republics, – (all the ‘STANS’ – Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan etc.) That’s essentially right, except for one rather big thing…The Scriptural evidence that Russia will be a part of that coalition Is,- in the eyes of many scholars,- fairly weak. In fact, the Bible may have another prophetic role picked out for her. Let’s start unpacking the evidence.
THE ‘STANDARD’ PROPHETIC LINE
“Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” (Revelation 17:1-2)
Let’s begin by looking at what has become the more traditional and popularly dominant view of prophetic interpretation. Here are the words of Daniel 7:7-8: “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth; it was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. I was considering the horns, and there was another horn, a little one, coming up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. And there, in this horn, were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking pompous words.” Daniel is describing here both the system and the man that will dominate the 7-year period at the end of this age known as the Tribulation.
But why do Bible scholars believe that this refers to a revived Roman Empire? Well, let’s look at some more Scripture. Daniel chapter 2 describes a dream given to Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon. The dream has prophetic significance, – but is only able to be interpreted by Daniel. The King won’t tell him, so Daniel learns of both the dream and its interpretation directly from God. In this prophetic vision Daniel sees a statue with its various parts representing the succession of empires that would rule the Middle East including the Holy Land. During the final empire, as Chuck Missler puts it, “God Himself would establish his own kingdom with the ‘stone cut without hands,’” (Daniel 2:45), the coming Messiah, Jesus Himself.[i] Historians have recognized that the empires of the statue represent in succession; – Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. Each succeeding world power conquered and took the mantle of power from the previous. Now at the bottom of course, this statue of a man was divided into its 2 legs and of course 10 toes, – 5 in each foot. This division represents the division of the Roman Empire into its Western and Eastern halves during the Middle Ages. While the Western leg disintegrated, the Eastern Empire, known as Byzantium, survived in Constantinople until it was conquered in 1453. Hang on to that little nugget of information. It will become important later. But still: Why a New Rome?
Let’s keep going. Daniel had another vision recorded in chapter seven. In this one he sees four beasts, – again depicting the four empires. And each of the “four great beasts came up from the sea,” (Daniel 7:2) representing the nations and peoples. “The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings,” (Daniel 7:4) – the very symbol of Babylon. The next was a bear representing Medo-Persia. Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon when he established the Persian Empire. Following that was a leopard with four heads. The Armies of Alexander the Great conquered with the swiftness of a leopard, establishing an empire that stretched from Egypt to India. At his death his kingdom was divided among his four leading generals.[ii] Finally, Daniel saw “A fourth beast, exceedingly terrifying…different from all the beasts that had preceded it…[with] ten horns.” (Daniel 7:7) These 10 horns of this beast, (and horns represent power), are the ten kings that comprise this manifestation of empire. Daniel 7:8 goes on to tell us: “I was considering the horns, and there was another horn, a little one, coming up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. And there, in this horn, were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking pompous words.” This specifically describes the rise of the Antichrist himself from within this imperial system.[iii]
But there’s more. Daniel 9:24-26 describes the exact timing of Christ’s first coming, his execution and references the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70. And it tells us who will work that destruction and why it is significant. “And the people of the prince who is to come Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.” (Daniel 9:26) It was of course the Roman legions that wreaked their havoc on Jerusalem and the Second Temple; – specifically Legions V, X, XII, and XV.[iv] So Bible scholars recognize that the “prince who is to come” will have some connection to the people that fulfilled this prophecy of destruction. So, there will be some connection with the ancient Roman Empire. [But what will that connection be? We will revisit that question later.]
Let’s return to the vision of the statue in Daniel 2. In verses 41 & 42, the prophet is giving the explanation of the final version of the final empire; The kingdom of the Antichrist. “Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.” Many see the ethnically mixed European Union; – possessing essentially the borders of the Western leg of the old Roman Empire; – as The Revived Roman Empire. Others point to the UN with the ten horns being the 10 bio-regions into which the globe was divided.[v] Still others look at the burgeoning division of the world into 10 economic regions such as the EU and a still-to-come North American Union.
So, boiling all of this down, here’s what we’ve got. The “beast” is a system, or kingdom of world domination. It will find its ultimate expression in the man that heads it, the Antichrist. Now look at the next verse as it describes a kingdom that will combine all the characteristics of the vision found in Daniel 7. Yes, the final world empire of Antichrist will take on the most fearful character of all the previous world empires. “Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.” (Rev 13:2) This world power will draw its authority and its ability to govern from Satan himself. And it will well serve his destructive purposes.
The Case For The New Rome
It has been a rather traditional view, that the European Union would fulfill the role of the Revived Roman Empire, that would usher in the Antichrist and ultimately be brought to an end by Christ Himself. In building the case for the EU as the revived Roman Empire that will rule the world during the Tribulation, it’s proponents use Daniel 2, quoted above, and then add in Daniel 7:24. “The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all other kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth.” Daniel 7:19 describes this fourth beast as “exceedingly dreadful, with its teeth of iron and its nails of bronze,” and having “ten horns,” lining up with the ten toes of the statue in Daniel 2. The number ten-fold formation of this final world power is referenced again in the Book of Revelation. “The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast.” (Revelation 17:12-13)
A few years back, while writing for Contender Ministries, Jennifer Rast gave an interesting summary of the case for the EU as fulfillment of chapters 2 &7 of Daniel. The European Union grew out of the European Coal and Steel Community formed in 1950. By 1965 the Treaty of Brussels began to put in place the rudimentary foundation of European government, for what many believe is the Revived Roman Empire. There were 10 member states in the original EU, and for a long time, those ten remained the “permanent member states.” They formed what was known as the Western European Alliance.[vi] The 10-nation Western European Union (WEU), revived by the Rome Declaration of 1984, served as the legal & de facto military arm of the EU. However, the WEU went defunct in 2011, dealing a blow to the theory. Another blow was delivered when the UK left the EU through Brexit. Just a few years back, both organizations were controlled by one man; Javier Solana. Solana had served as Secretary General for the WEU and Foreign Minister for the full EU.[vii] He was at the head of this reviving Roman Empire. The really interesting part of all this is that the authority to legally wield that military power was granted on June 5, 2000, by something called the WEU Assembly Recommendation 666. In #12 of that bit of legislation, the High Representative, (Javier Solana at the time), was granted the power to take personal control of the EU’s armed forces in case of an emergency.[viii] That legislation, – Recommendation 666, – has created an office / mechanism through which some future leader, – could assume authority of the whole of Europe, all the while maintaining the veneer of legality. This was all part of a drive for the consolidation of power within the organization through a one-time attempt to secure the ratification of the EU constitution. It failed. Still, in light of Recommendation 666, the essential next step that the EU strategy group looked at was the creation of a unified European Army.[ix] With such a Continental Army, the EU could project power around the world. By early 2020, while some progress has been made, the Continent still seems far away from realizing that dream.
The dream however remained; that Europe would speak with “one voice” and carry the weight of a superpower like the United States.[x] Rast explains: “The purpose of the EU’s creation was and is, ultimately, to create a European super-state or ‘United States of Europe,’ as some have suggested naming it, that would eventually rival the United States in influence and military might. That has actually become the official position of the Council of Europe.
Then there is the religious symbolism that is an EU-sanctioned by-product of the Union. In an official publication, the EU identified “Europe with the rebuilding of Babel,” the ancient symbol of Man’s rebellion against God. A poster was put out showing the people of modern Europe rebuilding the Tower of Babel with the motto “Europe: Many Tongues One Voice.”[xi] So taken is the EU with this God-defying symbolism that it incorporated that very ‘unfinished Babel’ design into the parliament building in Strasbourg, France, – a replica that some of the European press has dubbed, “Eurobabel.”[xii] Another favorite symbol of this New Europe is the Woman Riding the Beast, an echo of Revelation 17:7. Europe has embraced this symbolism in posters, stamps and statues. Rast, again: “The EU flag has a circle of 12 stars on a blue background. These stars were inspired by the halo of 12 stars appearing around the Madonna as depicted in Catholic pictures of her. Leon Marchal, former secretary general of the Council of Europe, confirmed that the stars are representative of ‘the woman of the Apocalypse.’” The scriptural reference however is to Revelation 12 and biblical scholarship argues strongly that the woman in the passage represents the nation of Israel, NOT a Madonna figure. And the official European Anthem, Ode to Joy by Beethoven with lyrics by Schiller is “actually about the entering of the shrine of a pagan goddess and the uniting of all men in brotherhood, by the power of magic.”[xiii] [xiv]
Another argument used to advance the theory that the EU represents the Revived Roman Empire that will serve as the host for the Beast / Antichrist is found in Revelation 17:7-8 and then verse 11. “But the angel said to me, ‘Why did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is…. The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to]perdition.’” The argument, summarized by author Jack Smith is this. “The Roman paradigm also includes the interpretation of Revelation 17:11 that the empire that ‘was,’ and ‘is not,’ and ‘is about to come up’ (Revelation 17:8) refers to Rome. Hence, the Roman Empire ‘was.’ The Roman empire ‘is not’ (because it collapsed in the 5th century A.D); and, it is ‘about to come up’ in some form or revived empire, e.g., the European Union. (3) Rome is further supported as the fulfillment of these passages because it uniquely fulfills Daniel 9:26 (‘the people of the prince who is to come’) in that the Roman Empire destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70.”[xv]
[i] Chuck Missler, Europa Rising: Part I, Chuck Missler, 2003
[ii] John MacArthur, The John MacArthur Study Bible, notes for Daniel 7:6
[iii] Jennifer Rast, Is the E.U. the Revived Roman Empire?, Contender Ministries
[iv] Chuck Missler, Europa Rising: Part I, Chuck Missler, 2003
[v] Jennifer Rast, Is the E.U. the Revived Roman Empire?, Contender Ministries
[vi] Jennifer Rast, Is the E.U. the Revived Roman Empire?, Contender Ministries
[vii] Hal Lindsey, ‘Late Great Planet Earth’ revisited, World Net Daily, December 16, 2004
[viii] Herbert L Peters, Recommendation 666: The Rise of the Beast From the Sea, Chapter 11, December 2004
[ix] Question of Peace or War in Europe, Spende, March 25, 2007
[x] We have finally decided…, Financial Times, March 9, 2007
[xi] Europe’s Part in the End Times, The Watcher, (Monitored online on April 5, 2007)
[xii] Jennifer Rast, Is the EU the Revived Roman Empire, Contender Ministries
[xiii] Jennifer Rast, Is the E.U. the Revived Roman Empire?, Contender Ministries
[xiv] Dr David R Reagan, Europe in Bible Prophecy, Lamb and Lion Ministries, http://www.lamblion.com/New10.php
[xv] Jack Smith, The Revived Roman Empire Paradigm and the Impact of Brexit, JackSmithprophecy.org, June 25, 2016
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