HomeARC ML 2208
REVELATION 13, VERSES 1-5! 6/85--And Review of Seven World Empires! DO 2208 ET#61
1. AMEN, LORD, HAVE THY WAY IN JESUS' NAME, & help this not just be a lesson in semantics, Lord, but in genuine understanding of the things that are coming, some already here. TYJ! PTL! Hallelujah! Prepare our hearts for it, Lord. Amen!
REVELATION 13:1!
2. CHAPTER 13 OF THE "REVELATION OF SAINT JOHN!" Actually, it was not the Revelation of Saint John. The very first verse of Revelation tells you whose Revelation it was--the Revelation of Jesus Christ!--That He signified to whom? Maybe we'd better go back & take a look at that, you've forgotten. 1st Verse of Revelation: "He sent & signified it by His Angel unto His servant John."
3. SO IT'S THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST WHICH HE SENT TO JOHN BY HIS ANGEL. Now what Angel He's talking about, we don't know, maybe it was John's Guardian Angel, maybe it was his ministering spirit, who knows? We know that on at least one occasion John fell down & worshipped him, & he said, "No no, don't do that, I'm one of your fellowservants the Prophets!" (Rev.19:10) So it could be quite possible that the whole thing was given to him by this same fellow, this spirit who was already in the Spirit World like my Abrahim & like many others I've had as Guardian Angels or good spirits that minister to me & others.
4. SO, REVELATION 13, VERSE 1: "AND I STOOD UPON THE SAND OF THE SEA." Where was he?--He was on the beach, how about that!--A nice place for a Prophet! But he wasn't there apparently to go swimming. Well, maybe he was, maybe he was taking a swim. But he was done swimming by that time & standing on the beach, & considering what he saw, maybe he was glad he was out of the water!
5. "AND SAW A BEAST RISE UP OUT OF THE SEA, HAVING SEVEN HEADS & TEN HORNS." Wouldn't you be glad you were out of the water? "And upon his horns ten crowns, & upon his heads the name of blasphemy." It sounds to me more like a monster!--Seven heads & ten horns! Even if it did have crowns on it, it wouldn't make it look very pretty. Of course, actually all of this is symbolic. The Antichrist won't have seven heads, & it's not likely he'd wear ten crowns! That would be quite a stack, wouldn't it?
6. "AND UPON HIS HEADS THE NAME OF BLASPHEMY." Now, you know what a beast is, you know what the sand is & the sea is. In a picture like this you know what heads are, you know what crowns are, but what is "the name of blasphemy"? Dead silence! "We never had that one before, did we, Dad?" Well, first of all, all of these are really merely symbolic, because the Antichrist isn't going to have seven heads or even ten crowns on one head. Well, in a way.
7. WHAT DOES "SYMBOLIC" MEAN? (Fam: It represents something.)--Or it stands for something else, it's a symbol or an insignia, a picture of something, visualising something, like we have in our Posters. A lot of those things, we don't really know exactly what they look like, except things we've seen in visions or in dreams etc., those we know, that's where we got some of those ideas. But others are sort of sym-bolic. We know it's going to be sort of like that. We may not know exactly but it's like it, it's similar.
8. BUT THE SEA IN THIS CASE REPRESENTS WHAT? (Fam: People & nations.)--Right, it represents the sea of the World, the multitudes of the World. So this Beast is also what? He rises out of the multitudes of the World. In other words, he represents people, some kind of people. And he has seven heads.
RED DRAGON OF REVELATION 12!
9. "SEVEN HEADS & TEN HORNS, & UPON HIS HORNS TEN CROWNS." Now this Beast sounds very familiar. Where'd you ever hear of one like this before? (Fam: Revelation 17.) Yes, but we haven't gotten to that one yet. I mean before, not later!--Ha! Chronologically or at least in the Scripture, numerically, where has there been a Beast like this before? (Fam: The fourth beast in Daniel 7 had ten horns, but he didn't have so many heads.) Well, there's one that you've heard of before that sounds almost exactly like this one. (Fam: In Revelation 12 he has seven heads, but he only has seven crowns.)--Revelation 12, very good, Honey!
10. IN REVELATION 12 THERE'S A BEAST THAT SOUNDS VERY MUCH LIKE THIS ONE, A GREAT RED DRAGON, just a Chapter before this. It was so obvious I guess you thought that was too simple. Haven't you studied these Chapters before? In the 3rd verse of the 12th Chapter: "Behold, a great red Dragon having seven heads & ten horns." Sounds like the same one, doesn't it? "And seven crowns upon his heads." Aha, there's a difference!--Only seven crowns. Something else is different about these crowns. (Fam: They're on his heads.)--Exactly! In this picture of the Dragon, each head has a crown. But in the picture of the Beast, each horn has a crown.
11. OF COURSE, AS YOU ALREADY KNOW & AS YOU'VE ALREADY STUDIED & ALREADY BEEN TOLD, EACH HEAD REPRESENTS A POWER or a different World Empire or Kingdom, obviously all a part of the same Dragon in one case & Beast in the other. But they sure sound a lot alike, they both have seven heads & both have crowns & they are both pretty bad, real monsters!
12. NOW WE SPECIFICALLY KNOW WHO THIS RED DRAGON IS, because later on it tells us exactly without having to theorise whether it's Red China or Red Russia or the Antichrist or blah blah blah! As I told you, in one of our first schools I had to stop some woman prophecy teacher teaching that the Dragon was Red China because it was red & China likes red & likes dragons & often uses red dragons as their symbol. They used to have a red dragon on a red flag symbolising China. They still have lots of dragons. Right over the entrance to the big graveyard there in Singapore, they had a great big monstrous red dragon! Because that's who they worship.
13. AND IT TELLS YOU HIS NAME RIGHT HERE IN THIS CHAPTER, exactly, what verse? (Fam: Verse 9.) And not only one name, just to make sure you got it straight & right & didn't misunderstand, it gives you three names! What are those names? (Fam: Old Serpent, Devil & Satan.) "That old Serpent called the Devil & Satan", all the same person. In this case the Red Dragon is Satan or the Devil.
14. WE MOST COMMONLY CALL HIM THE DEVIL. Satan is more specific, because little devils are called devils too & you might get them mixed up. But you don't get them mixed up in the original Greek. Because in the original Greek language from which they translated this English, a little devil is called a "daimon", not a diamond but a "daimon". It's transliterated into English letters, d-a-i-m-o-n, daimon. And we have translated it in English to the word demon.
15. BUT WHEN IT SPEAKS OF THE DEVIL, IT'S THE BIG SATAN HIMSELF!--Contrary to Khomeini who calls the United States the Great Satan. Well, that's sort of complimenting the United States, really, because really the United States isn't as great as Satan, because it's just a country & Satan is the ruler of the whole World, the god of this World, worshipped by the World. Whether they know it or not, they do. They don't worship the Lord, they worship the Devil. If they're not a child of God they're a child of the Devil.
16. SO THE NAME USED IN GREEK WHEN IT MEANS THE DEVIL, not a little devil, not a demon, but the Devil, Satan himself, is Diablos. It's exactly the same in Spanish, the same word exactly. I've also told you that the word Satan means "the hairy one". So apparently Satan, in some of his manifestations or metamorphoses must really be a pretty ugly-looking guy! A lot of the Greek mythology pictures him as half-man, the top half is a man, the bottom half is a goat, a hairy stinky old goat! But let's not dwell too long on the Devil. Anyhow, here he is, not even a half-man hairy stinky old goat, but a seven-headed monster, that's even worse! And it calls him a dragon, think of that! So he's got how many names in the 12th Chapter? (Fam: Four.) Can you name them again? (Fam: Dragon, Serpent, Devil, Satan.) So there should be no mistaking who this guy is here in the 12th Chapter.
EGYPT--FIRST GREAT WORLD EMPIRE!
17. AND AS HAS BEEN POINTED OUT BEFORE, APPARENTLY BEHIND THE POWERS & EMPIRES OF THIS WORLD, THERE ARE SATANIC HEADS, Satanic archangels, Satanic rulers, even in some places in the Bible called kings & princes.--The real rulers of those empires & countries who no doubt possess the heads or the kings of that Empire. As we pointed out in a Letter long ago, no doubt every Emperor was demon-possessed by an archangel of Satan who was really running the country in his disguise. (See #961, "Satan--King of Empires!")
18. AND THERE ARE SEVEN, IN THIS CASE. Apparently World powers in God's Word are divided into seven major ones, & you have studied those. Does anybody want to volunteer to name them? Back in Daniel we only started with the fourth great World power, but there were three that preceded it. What was the first great leading World power of this World? (Fam: Egypt.) And then some years later came the next one, it doesn't matter how long to the Lord, He just names the next one to become a World power.
19. YOU SAY, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN? EGYPT DIDN'T RULE THE WHOLE WORLD! They didn't even know half the World was around!" But to be considered a World power or an Empire you have to rule other countries besides your own. You have to dominate other lands & other countries besides your own. When were the children of Israel living down in Egypt?--Even long before that Egypt was a power that had Pharaohs, great kings, & ruled other countries around them. Come on, you folks who had Bible Knowledge. (Fam: 1500 B.C.) Because what happened about that time? (Fam: Moses.) Moses was around then & the children of Israel were living down in the Land of Goshen, the delta of the Nile River, the best part of the whole country, rich in water & grass & grains & perfect for their cattle.
20. THE KINGS OF EGYPT AT THAT TIME, WHEN THEY FIRST WENT THERE, WERE ALSO SHEPHERD KINGS CALLED THE HYKSOS PHARAOHS, so they liked shepherds & they were friendly. So in the early days when the Jews got there with their father Jacob, & Joseph had preceded them, they were friends. They liked shepherds & they gave them the best of the land to live on. The people were starving back in Israel so they moved down to Egypt where there was still plenty of water & food. Egypt was not suffering a famine at that time, later on it would, but then it didn't.
21. THEN A NEW DYNASTY OF PHARAOHS AROSE WHO KNEW NOT JOSEPH & DIDN'T LIKE SHEPHERDS. They were not shepherds & they began to persecute the Israelites. And as you pointed out, that all came to a crisis about 1500 years before Christ. The Exodus actually took place in the 1400's before Christ.
22. SO EGYPT HAD BEEN AROUND A LONG TIME. There's no other great power mentioned before that in the Bible or even in history. Egypt apparently was a great power at the time of Moses, so it must have been a great power for some time before that. And according to actual history & the records of the hieroglyphics--that's that funny picture language they found on the Egyptian pyramids & idols & temples & things like that--Egypt's history dates back how far? Does anybody know? (Fam: 2100 B.C.) Well, I don't know where you pulled that figure out of the hat or the history book. (Fam: It's on the Revelation Chart.) Well, I never even noticed that before, that's news to me!
23. WELL, ACCORDING TO SECULAR HISTORY & THEIR FINDINGS, there are actual records which they have discovered about Egypt that date back almost 5,000 years ago, which would be back close to about 3,000 B.C. So your 2100 may be all right. What does it say about 2100 on that chart? I didn't make that Chart, by the way, somebody else made it! Don't blame it on me! It's a very good Chart though!
24. SO EGYPT WAS A VERY ANCIENT WORLD POWER & conquered nations around it & ruled what was known of the World in those days, I like to say all of the known World or the civilised historical World of the time, which was almost entirely the area of the World today called what? Egypt is a part of that area in fact. (Fam: The Mideast.)
HOW THE MIDEAST GOT ITS NAME!
25. WHY DID EUROPEANS & AMERICANS, BUT PARTICULARLY FIRST OF ALL EUROPEANS, CALL THAT EAST IN THE FIRST PLACE? Come on up here, David, & point out Egypt to them on the map. First of all, show them where Europe is, all that area there, from where you were born, Spain, to where? How far East does it go? Well, actually Russia was once counted East, & even today they classify Russia with the East. Europe goes way up yonder to the Scandinavian countries, clear up to Norway & Sweden & all those, & then way down to Spain. And what are the Southern European countries? What is that boot-shaped country? (David: Italy.)--Right, & Greece etc. So everything East of there was considered East.
26. BUT DURING THE DAYS OF GUYS LIKE MARCO POLO ETC., THEY FOUND OUT THERE WAS AN EAST THAT WAS VERY FAR AWAY. First of all, that end of the Mediterranean was called the Eastern Mediterranean & all those countries there were called the East by the Westerners. See, it depends on who you are & how you write history! But to the Prophets of the Bible, they weren't in the East, they were in the middle! They were right in the center of things & everybody else was someplace else. Europe was West & Russia was North & Egypt was South & all those countries over there, Persia & all that, they were East.
27. BUT THE WESTERN HISTORIANS FINALLY DISCOVERED THAT THERE WAS A LOT MORE TO THE EAST THAN EVEN THAT AREA THERE, EVEN TURKEY. Can you point out Turkey there? Even in those days that was considered East--East of the major historians of the West, of Europe. So all those countries around the Eastern end of the Mediterranean were considered East. And then when they discovered there were more countries way way off, clear over to China & places like that, they called them the Far East. And they got to calling these countries that were nearby, the Near East. But then when they finally decided to differentiate between the far East & this Near East, since it was kind of in the middle, nowadays they usually call all those countries around this end of the Mediterranean the Mideast!
28. SHOW THEM WHERE EGYPT IS AGAIN--THAT PURPLISH COUNTRY THERE. Now the people are not purple, just the map is purple. They just make the countries different colours so you can tell the difference! The countries actually aren't that colour. When you go to Egypt you wouldn't see that the ground was purple. And when you go to Spain it wouldn't be that colour. Well, France is green, though, it's beautiful green. But just to show the difference between the different countries on the map they make them different colours. Thank you, Son!
THE FERTILE CRESCENT!
29. SO EGYPT & THE NEAR EAST, OR MIDEAST AS IT'S CALLED TODAY, IS ALSO CALLED THE CRADLE OF WHAT? (FAM: CIVILISATION.) Well, you learned something in school, how about that? I don't think I ever told you that. (Fam: Yes, you did, in "Bible in Pictures!") Oh, really? How about that! That's about all the history you guys really know, what you read in "Bible in Pictures". It's also called the Fertile Crescent.
30. FIRST OF ALL, WHERE DID THE ARK LAND? (Fam: Mount Ararat.) Clear up here on the Northern border of Turkey. Then they drifted down what river? (Fam: Euphrates.)--The Euphrates & Tigris Rivers down this way, because that's the easiest way to travel. They built Babylon about in here, what is now Iraq, & they drifted on down to what is now called the Persian Gulf where all the oil is around there.
31. AND RIGHT HERE WAS A TOWN CALLED UR OF THE CHALDEES WHERE THE CHALDEANS LIVED. They were a pretty smart people, they knew all about astrology, the stars, astronomy & mathematics, a very brilliant people. And probably because that was where Abraham was from, as we call him today. He was originally called Abram, & in other languages he's called Abrahim or Ibrahim. They pronounce it several different ways.
32. SO THEY CAME DOWN THE RIVER & THEY BUILT A CITY CALLED UR, & they spread out, mostly along rivers & camel trails in those days, the easiest places to get to. Then they went up the river & they curved back around this way down along the sea shore, because the sea shore was a nice place to sail boats & you could go places all over the World in boats.
33. SO THE EARLY CIVILISATIONS WERE ALL LOCATED HERE IN THIS CURVED AREA SHAPED LIKE A CRESCENT. Do you know what a crescent is? These kids probably never heard of a crescent! When you see the waxing Moon, that's a crescent-shaped Moon. They call that symbol of the crescent the horned Moon because it has two horns, two points on it when it's like that. And they call that area the Fertile Crescent because it's well-watered & they could grow lots of food. So the people naturally spread out around the Fertile Crescent, as it's called, from the head of the Arabian Gulf, up the Tigris & Euphrates Rivers, across to the Eastern end of the Mediterranean, & down through Lebanon, Assyria & Israel into Egypt, because Egypt was well-watered too with the Nile River. It also extended down here along the Red Sea. You guys are learning a little bit of history & geography too!
34. NOW HOW DID WE GET ONTO ALL THAT HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY FROM JUST ONE VERSE? Come on, give us credit for two verses, we've read two verses now.--The first verse of the 13th Chapter & the 3rd Verse of the 12th Chapter!
SEVEN GREAT WORLD EMPIRES!
35. SO THESE SEVEN HEADS IN THE 12TH CHAPTER, AS WELL AS THE OTHER ONE, ARE SEVEN GREAT WORLD EMPIRES OR POWERS. The first great power that actually ruled over other countries besides itself was Egypt. The most powerful nation on the face of the Earth at that time was called the Egyptian Empire, & was the greatest World power of its day. There was no other country, in other words, as powerful as Egypt, no other country as great as Egypt.
36. BUT SOME YEARS LATER IT WAS FOLLOWED BY ANOTHER COUNTRY WHICH ALSO BECAME A WORLD POWER AFTER EGYPT DECLINED. Decline means going downhill. What was that? (Fam: Assyria.) Assyria was way over here & today is Iraq & Syria. This is where Assyria used to be. Syria still exists, it's an actual country today, which was a part of Assyria. The only difference is that Assyria had an "ass" on the front end, not on the back end! But Syria is right here just North & East of Lebanon & Israel. And in those early days it was part of Assyria or the Assyrian Empire. We don't want to spend too long on this or we'll never get into the rest of it, but you've got to understand it!
37. SO THEN ASSYRIA BEGAN TO DECLINE, OR THEY CALL IT "FALL". Most of these World powers, you can't exactly date the day that they became a World power, or even the day that they un-became a World power, their so-called fall, although sometimes they give certain dates, usually when their capital city falls. I almost called it capital silly instead of city, & that's for sure! Some of those capital cities were silly! They were so wicked & so vice-laden, & as they got rich they got horrible! So God let'm be wiped out or let'm be conquered by some other country. So when a great World power's capital city fell to some other great country, that was the end of that World power, & the country that conquered them was of course the new World power! So when Egypt was no longer a World power & Assyria became the World power, Assyria was the second head.
38. THEN WHO CONQUERED THE ASSYRIANS? (FAM: THE BABYLONIANS.) And they lived down here in this part of what is now Iraq near the mouth of the Euphrates & Tigris Rivers on the Persian Gulf. You say, "Well, that was a part of Assyria." Yes, it was. But this part of Assyria became so strong & so powerful, while the part of Assyria up North became so corrupt & so weak, that finally the people down here conquered their own conquerors. And that's the way it usually went. Often a part of the same Empire rose up & became strong & conquered the capital city of the Empire.
39. AND THEN THE CAPITAL CITY BECAME BABYLON, WAY DOWN SOUTH OF NINEVAH. The remains of Babylon have now been discovered, but for a long time they didn't even know where it had been! Some higher critics of the Bible said, "Well, it shows you the Bible's wrong, if it had been such a great city & all that, we should have found the remains by this time, so the Bible must not be so." They used to say there was no such place as Ur of the Chaldees, therefore there was probably no Abraham, blah blah blah! But they've now discovered all these ruins. They even found a table of stone in Ur that said that Abraham was a judge in Ur of the Chaldees! They also found a table of stone in Sodom & Gomorrah that said that Lot was one of the judges of Sodom. See how thick Lot got with the wicked, why the Lord had to practically drag him out!
40. SO THE CITY OF BABYLON & ITS PEOPLE CONQUERED NINEVEH, & then Babylon became the capital of which World Empire, first, second or third? (Fam: Third.) So there were two before Daniel's Babylon, Babylon was the third. Because in Daniel, he starts with Babylon & he describes Babylon first of all because they were captives in Babylon, in this area down here, & it was the great World power of the day that conquered Assyria, that conquered Nineveh, & Babylon was the capital then. But he predicted that another World power was going to conquer Babylon, & what World power was that? (Fam: Medo-Persia.)
41. PERSIA IS OVER HERE, & TODAY THEY'VE CHANGED THE NAME TO IRAN.--Although the people are still called Persians & they still speak a language called Persian or Farsi, they haven't been able to eradicate that. You can pronounce it I'ran if you want to, & I wish they would sometimes, at least Khomeini! So this big country over here, the lands of the Medes & the Persians, they came over & conquered Babylon. And what was their capital? (Fam: Shushan.) Actually they made Babylon their capital for awhile, but Shushan is a little on the East side of the Tigris, I think it was like a Summer capital where it was cooler in the heat of the Summer. So that made four Empires.
42. WE'VE GOT EGYPT, ASSYRIA, BABYLON, MEDO-PERSIA, & NOW ALONG COMES THE BIG HE-GOAT WITH THE GREAT BIG HORN, & he rams the ram of Medo-Persia with two horns, & who's the fifth one? (Fam: Greece.)--Righto! And who was the big horn on the he goat? (Fam: Alexander the Great.) And he came from way back over here in this little tiny country called Greece & Macedonia. But they were very smart people, great on art & culture & philosophy & religion & language & literature & beauty. They loved to carve statues of beautiful women, a very sexy people.
43. AND THEY CAME CLEAR AROUND OVER HERE & CONQUERED ALL THESE OTHER COUNTRIES OF THE MIDEAST, including the Medes & the Persians who by this time had spread clear out through what's today called Turkey. His first battles with them were here in what we now call Turkey. They put a quarter of a million men in the field, the greatest army that's ever been put in the field of infantry. Countries have had that many men in their armies, but not all in one big battle in the field at one time!
44. BUT DESPITE THAT FACT, GOD LET ALEXANDER WIN! And why have we pointed out that the Lord must have done that, to let the Grecian Empire spread all over the known civilised World of the day? (Fam: To spread their language.) So that the Gospel, when Jesus came along, could be spread all over the World in one language! Think of that!
45. THE ROMANS HADN'T BEEN AROUND LONG ENOUGH & CONQUERED THE WORLD LONG ENOUGH WHEN JESUS CAME ALONG. Their Empire dates back to when they pretty much had control of that area beginning when? What date do we date the Roman Empire from? (Fam: 44 B.C.) Very good. It's a good thing you keep good notes! 44 B.C. is considered the beginning of the Roman Empire.
46. BUT THEY HADN'T BEEN AROUND VERY LONG, 44 YEARS ISN'T A VERY LONG TIME. They weren't as successful in imposing their culture & their language etc. on the whole World as Greece, which had now ruled for how many years? What date do we give the rise or domination of the Grecian Empire? (Fam: 333 B.C.) That's an easy date to remember. That was the date of the Battle of Gaugamela, the fall of the Persian army to Alexander. You can remember that Alexander had definitely conquered the Medes & the Persians by that time because he died only ten years later in 323. He'd conquered all the known World in about ten years.
47. THEY USUALLY DATE THE CONQUEST OF THE MEDES & THE PERSIANS BY THE GREEKS AT 333 B.C., which means that Greece ran the World then & was the greatest power on Earth, & not the Medes & Persians any longer. The Greek Empire then, if we set those dates, ran from 333 B.C. And the Roman Empire apparently conquered Greece in 44 B.C., so that's about 300 years in which Greece more or less ran the World.
48. I DON'T KNOW WHY THESE COUNTRIES ALWAYS WANT TO RUN THE WORLD, THEY REALLY MAKE A MESS OUT OF IT EVERY TIME! I don't know why anybody would want to run the World, really, at least this kind of a World! I can understand why we want to run the World in the Millennium because we're going to make it the right kind of World, a good World! I suppose they all thought they were going to make it their kind of World & that their kind of World was the right kind of World. But since their kind of World was always the Devil's World, it always wound up like Hell! Now you've got to get all these things clear in your head once again. I'm just trying to kind of review you to see if you remember.
LEARNING LANGUAGES!
49. IN JESUS' DAY, IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE CHURCH, THE APOSTLES, THE MOST PREDOM INANT LANGUAGE THAT WAS ALREADY SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD WAS WHAT LANGUAGE? (FAM: GREEK.) I thought it was 44 years already after Rome took over, & they still spoke Greek?--That's right, they did! It takes awhile for another culture to take hold. Their armies may conquer, but their culture doesn't conquer for quite a few years! Everything's moving faster nowadays, but in those days things were pretty slow. There was no telephone, no telegraph, no television. The only main communication they had in those days was tell-a-woman! So it spread a little slower. Women are pretty fast, but spreading it mouth to mouth didn't go very fast. But now it goes through the airwaves & on the wires & by airplanes etc. real fast. Everything's moving faster nowadays & spreads faster.
50. SO EVEN WHEN JESUS WAS BORN, 40 YEARS LATER, ROMAN, OR LATIN, HAD NOT TAKEN OVER THE WORLD. It was the language of their conquerors, but they didn't like their conquerors & they didn't even want to speak their language until they were forced to by law. In business & in legal & governmental matters they were compelled to use Latin, so gradually they had to learn Latin till finally nearly everybody was speaking Latin, the Roman language.
51. BUT GREEK WAS A BEAUTIFUL LANGUAGE, STILL IS A BEAUTIFUL LANGUAGE! Latin was a fairly simple language, but kind of a hard language compared to Greek. Greek is more musical, it's more liquid, sort of like Spanish. Greek & Spanish are similar in that they are both musical, flowing languages. There's a lot of Greek in Spanish & their music is very similar, I think probably carried by the Gypsies back & forth. But Roman, the Latin, was kind of tough & hard like the Romans, a tough hard language to learn too.
52. CAN YOU IMAGINE, I STUDIED ALL THOSE LANGUAGES ONCE UPON A TIME! I guess the Lord must have had some reason for it. The four languages that I know the most about, three of them today are virtually dead languages! Well, they have revived Hebrew, but Latin, Greek & Hebrew were dead languages before Israel came along. And the other language I know is Spanish. Thank God it's a living language & we really lived it up speaking it down yonder in Spain! Hallelujah!
53. SO ROME TOOK OVER & BEGAN SPREADING ITS CULTURE, MOSTLY ITS ARMIES AT FIRST, FROM 44 B.C. ON. And even though they were the legal power & the World power in Jesus' day, still the cultured, the educated, the doctors, lawyers, artists & writers were more proficient in Greek than they were in Latin. Latin hadn't really taken ahold yet. The Romans were trying to impose Latin on'm & make'm speak Latin, & they made'm speak Latin in court. They made'm speak Latin when they had any legal matters to take care of & they made it the official language. But still, most people who were scholars etc. spoke Greek besides their own little local language like Hebrew or Syrian or various other languages.
54. THESE SUBJECTED PEOPLE ALWAYS HAD TO LEARN THE LANGUAGE OF THEIR CONQUERORS. Their conquerors always insisted on speaking their own language, & to understand your conquerors you had to learn their language, & it's a good idea to learn the language of the power that rules the World. I think they would feel a little insulted if you'd have made no attempt to learn their language, & they might feel a little complimented that you made a little progress in learning it.
55. SO WE KNOW WHAT POWER IS GOING TO RULE THE WORLD VERY SOON? (Fam: Russia.) So everybody who can speak Russian will have the jump on the rest of the people, right? Everybody that can speak Russian will be able to converse with the rulers of the World, so smart people are learning Russian! Of course, China is also a great country & Japan's a great country & it would be wise for people who live in this World, especially in the East, to learn those great countries' languages.
56. JAPAN IS A GREAT RULER & IT RULES THE WORLD WITH A GREAT COMMERCIAL EMPIRE. It is today the strongest nation on the face of the Earth moneywise, economically & commercially. It out-trades every other nation in the World. It even runs a great big surplus with the United States, it sells more products to the United States than the United States is able to sell to Japan. So I think that would be a good language for some to learn.
57. AND CHINA IS THE BIGGEST COUNTRY ON EARTH AS FAR AS PEOPLE ARE CONCERNED, there are over a billion people, so it would sure be a good idea for some to learn Chinese. Little children's minds just sop up knowledge like that, it's wonderful! They say the best age to learn another language besides your native tongue is the early years, even as a subteen. They say by the time you get to be 16 your mind is getting pretty set in one language & it's a little hard to learn another language. But isn't that marvellous, Children? God made your minds so that they can learn almost any language when you're young & a child, quickly & easily.
58. SO IT MAY COME IN HANDY ONE OF THESE DAYS TO LEARN RUSSIAN! You say, "Well, what's the good of learning Russian for people clear out in the Orient & the East, so far away from Russia?" Well, the Orient is not very far away from Russia! You want to know how close Russia is? See this big green country? That's Russia. On all the maps that the United States makes, it puts itself right in the middle of the World! You always thought all the way through school that the United States was the middle of the World, right?--And everything else was either that way or that way!
59. TODAY THE PACIFIC OCEAN HAS BECOME THE MIDDLE OF THE GREATEST PART OF THE WORLD, & the greatest powers on Earth, all of them are located around the Pacific Ocean. You knew that North America & the United States & even South America are all located around the Pacific Ocean, right? But what other great power is located on the Pacific Ocean? (Fam: Russia.) Russia extends clear over! You go off one end of the map & you start on this end of the World, because the World is round, & you come over here & Russia is here too! And you come down the Kamchatka Peninsula here to Vladivostok & Russia is still here! And not only that, you come down here & Russia is still here in Communist Vietnam. And for that matter, nowadays here next to Japan, North Korea is Communist. It's not Russian, but it's Communist, literally under Russian domination. It's another Communist country.
60. IN FACT, YOU CAN COME WAY WAY ON DOWN HERE AROUND CHINA, & CHINA IS COMMUNIST TOO! And you can come down here & there's a long country along here where the U.S. just finished fighting a big war a few years ago & lost it to this little tiny country here, Vietnam. The major Russian naval base in the East on the China Sea is right there at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, right down about here south of the Gulf of Tonkin. And Russia's ships are sailing up & down all through the China Sea all the time. So except for China, Russia pretty much controls this whole area here. Russian is spoken all over here, & no doubt the North Koreans have to learn Russian because they've got to deal so much with the Russians. And I presume the Vietnamese are now learning Russian because they've got to talk to Russians all the time.
61. YOU CAN EVEN LEARN A THIRD LANGUAGE EASILY WHEN YOU'RE SO YOUNG AS YOU CHILDREN ARE. It's pretty hard to teach an old dog new tricks like me. I learned all my tricks when I was young like you. That's the best time to learn, when your mind is nice & absorbent like a sponge & you can learn all these different languages easily & quickly when you're young, but it's difficult to learn'm the older you get. They say after you pass 16, really your mind is pretty hardened to a certain language as a mother tongue & that's your best language, whereas at your age you can learn to speak fluently in almost any language, easily, & they say you can even become as fluent in another language as you are in your mother tongue!
62. WHAT'S YOUR MOTHER TONGUE? (David: The tongue that your mother speaks.)--Exactly, the tongue that your mother taught you because she was your mother & you were a little toddler & a baby & she was taking care of you all the time. Grandpa or Daddy or somebody was working & busy, so your mother taught you your language, & of course she naturally taught you her language. So that's called your mother tongue, the tongue your mother spoke. Several of you here speak other languages that are of other origins & that's your native language or the tongue you were born to, your mother tongue. Nevertheless you've learned to speak other languages fluently.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEAST & DRAGON! "NAME OF BLASPHEMY"!
63. SO HOW MANY WORLD EMPIRES DO WE HAVE NOW?--Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece & Rome. That's only six so far. So that means there's going to be another great World Empire more powerful than any other that's ever ruled the World, but in the power of Rome, like Rome, virtually a revival of the old Roman Empire, but it is going to be a new World power. And it's going to be number seven. So here we have seven heads on this Dragon, & because he possesses the Beast, the Beast also has seven heads.
64. BUT THERE'S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE TWO BEASTS, although they both have seven heads, & later on we find they're both red.--Which is very symbolic & very significant regarding the last days of this World, that it'll be ruled by a Red Beast. And who is called red today? (Fam: The Communists.) The Communist governments of the World are called Reds, because that's their favourite colour, that's the colour of their flag. In the first days of Communism in Russia they were called the Red Army & the Reds, & they've been called that ever since.
65. BUT THERE'S A VERY STRANGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE TWO BEASTS. Can anybody tell me the difference between them, besides the fact, of course, one was called the Devil. They both have seven heads, they even both have ten horns. What's the difference? (Fam: In Revelation 12 the crowns are on the heads, & in Revelation 13 the crowns are on the horns.) Each head on the Dragon has a crown, but the crowns on the Beast are on the horns.
66. THE 3RD VERSE OF THE 12TH CHAPTER SAYS "SEVEN CROWNS UPON HIS HEADS" & TEN HORNS. But in the 1st Verse of the 13th Chapter, each horn has a crown. There's a difference.--Why? We find out from the 17th Chapter later on that all of the horns are on the 7th head, & they symbolise the final ten kings or World powers who cooperate with the Beast & do his will & have one mind with him & turn against the Whore of America & destroy her with fire. But we haven't gotten to that yet, that's over there in the 17th Chapter, but we know that by that. Amen?
67. "AND UPON HIS HEADS THE NAME OF BLASPHEMY"--what do you suppose this name of blasphemy is? What is blasphemy? They blast God, that's about what it means. This Beast is going to blast God! He's going to try to blast God off the Earth & even try to blast Him out of Heaven! Isn't that ridiculous?
68. ONE OF THE POPULAR POSTERS OF THE EARLY COMMUNISTS OF RUSSIA which I saw published many years ago in a book when I was young, about David's age, was a poster showing this Russian Communist climbing a ladder up into the clouds & it said, "We have driven God out of Russia, now we're going to drive Him out of the heavens!" Isn't that ridiculous? They've never even driven God out of Russia yet, much less out of the heavens! There are more Christians in Russia today than there were then! Isn't that wonderful! Persecution has strengthened the church, strengthened the Christians, to where they're better Christians now & more of'm than there ever were! Isn't that wonderful! TTL! So they haven't driven God out of Russia & they certainly weren't going to be able to drive Him out of Heaven! Isn't that crazy? Oh, man really thinks he's pretty big & important, but he's not. PTL!
69. EVERYBODY HAPPY? (Fam: Yes!) I know this is a kind of difficult lesson, but I want to make sure you get it right, because you've heard a lot of things & Mama wants me to go into detail. Right now we're going into de-heads, but not de-tails yet!
70. SO THE DIFFERENCE IS THAT IN THIS RED BEAST THE CROWNS ARE UPON EACH HORN. Now why do you suppose each head had a crown on the Devil beast? (Fam: Because they were all big powers.) Each one was a great World power, therefore symbolised by a crown on its head, meaning that it ruled, it was king of the World in its day. However, in this last one, the crowns are on the horns, indicating that these last ten kings or powers are going to be kings of nations, all of them kings of nations in a sense, in the very last days under the Antichrist on the last head. And blasphemy, blasting God, is about as easy a way to explain it to you without going into too much technical detail.--Speaking against God, in other words. Now here's a very interesting thing in the 2nd Verse.
REVELATION 13:2--AC EMPIRE ENCOMPASSES FORMER EMPIRES!
71. (VERSE 2:) "THE BEAST WHICH I SAW WAS LIKE UNTO A LEOPARD, & HIS FEET WERE AS THE FEET OF A BEAR, & HIS MOUTH AS THE MOUTH OF A LION." Have you heard about these three beasts in prophecy before? Where? (Fam: In Daniel 7.) In Daniel 7 there came up a lion & that was Babylon, then there came up a bear, Medo-Persia, & after the bear came up a leopard, which was Greece. So what does this mean, if this Beast is part lion, part bear & part leopard? (Fam: He's part of all those kingdoms.)--Exactly, or those kingdoms are all a part of this final great World Empire. God is literally painting a picture for the Prophet here to show that thisfinal empire is going to be part of all of these Empires.
72. SO YOU MIGHT SAY THAT THE CENTRAL PART OF THE ANTICHRIST EMPIRE WILL ENCOMPASS ALL OF THESE COUNTRIES & FORMER EMPIRES, INCLUDING ITSELF, which was what? What was the fourth beast of Daniel 7? (Fam: A great & terrible beast.) A great terrible horrible monstrous beast, the iron beast, the Roman Empire! So why doesn't it say it's part of that beast too? Is that beast named in Daniel 7? It hasn't got a name. It's just pictured in the Image as legs of iron, right? It's just mentioned in Daniel 7 as a great & terrible beast. And what empire was the fourth beast of Daniel 7? Say it, Honey, don't be afraid! (Fam: Rome!)
73. SO WHY DOESN'T HE SAY THAT IT'S PARTLY THAT FOURTH BEAST? (Fam: It didn't have a name.) It didn't have a name of any particular animal, that's true, what else? (Fam: Because this Beast in Revelation 13 is specifically about that certain beast.) Yes, exactly! Because this Beast is the revival of the Roman Empire! I can't prove that to you from this Chapter, but when we get to the 17th Chapter it's very clear. And that's one of the secrets of the interpretation of that 17th Chapter. We haven't gotten there yet, but I did tell you in one of these classes not long ago, that the Antichrist World government is going to be a revival of Rome. And these ten kings, these ten horns with ten crowns are what ten nations, nations of what part of the World? (Fam: Europe.)
74. SO NOT ONLY BEING HIMSELF FROM RUSSIA & EGYPT & RISING, IT APPEARS, IN THE NEAR EAST, when he really takes over the World is when he can get control of Europe & its ten World powers. Then he's got the World! The only World power then left opposing him is the United States.
75. SO THE BEAST IS IN A SENSE ROME, & ROME WAS COMPOSED OF WHAT? What are these other beasts? It goes backwards this time: Greece the leopard, Medo-Persia the bear & Babylon the lion, all the Mideast & spreading out over all that territory. Let's see how much territory that covers on the map. We've got all the way from Greece clear to here, this whole area here.--The entire Mideast, in other words, plus the ten kings, all of Europe. And we know he's already King of the North, & of course Russia is considered in most history as part of Europe, it was in the early days. Today it's become an Eastern power as well because it stretches clear to the Pacific. Some people call it Asiatic. There is some difference of opinion over whether Russia is a part of Europe or part of Asia. Well, it's both! But in earlier history the Russians were considered Europeans & a part of Europe.--Especially the part of Russia here with Moscow as its capital here in Europe.
76. SO WE KNOW HE'S KING OF THE NORTH, OF RUSSIA & ALL THAT. He may have originated in Egypt, as far as we can figure from the prophecies, but he apparently gets his power in Russia, somehow, & he possibly first of all becomes powerful here in the Mideast. And most of these countries that we're talking about, from the Grecian leopard to the Medo-Persian bear, with the lion in-between, most of those countries are Muslim, or as the World calls them, Mohammedans. They are not just Arabs, the Arabs mostly occupy this general area here & across North Africa. But they are also Persians & Turks as well as Arabians etc.
77. SO HE APPARENTLY GETS CONTROL OF THE WHOLE MIDEAST SOMEHOW. And it's predicted in the Bible that his kingdom is composed specifically of the former kingdoms of Greece, Medo-Persia & Babylon, all of them. But he's also a revival--according to a later Chapter we're going to study--of a great Empire which not only conquered all these countries, but originated in Rome, Italy, & conquered all of Europe in its day.
78. SO THE BEGINNINGS OF THE ANTICHRIST EMPIRE ARE GOING TO BE HERE IN THE MIDEAST, AND THEN EXTEND CLEAR OVER HERE TO EUROPE WITH THE REVIVAL OF THE OLD ROMAN EMPIRE. So it then will rule all of this area here, one of the most powerful areas in the whole World, including Russia, and will dominate the World from there with only one opponent left. Who is that? (Fam: The United States.)--The only other World power that could possibly oppose it or fight it or threaten its existence. And finally when he's got these ten kings on his side, then he says that these kings are the ones who do what? We'll read that in the 17th Chapter. (Fam: Destroy the Whore.) They destroy her & burn her with fire in one hour of one day! What does that sound like? (Fam: Atomic war.)
RUSSIANS RUSHIN' ALL OVER THE WORLD!
79. MOST PEOPLE IN THE U.S. THINK, "WHY WORRY ABOUT RUSSIA? It's 5 or 6,000 miles away across the Atlantic in one direction or 10,000 miles away across the Pacific the other direction!" Whereas the fact of the matter is, Russia is this big country here, & the closest route from Russia to the United States is right over the Pole! See? That's the short route. Most Americans think Russia's this far away, way over like this, but actually, Russia over the Pole is from the United States only as far away as Europe is from the United States. See? And not only that, but over here on the other side, of which the Americans don't think very much, Russia's only across the Bering Straits! Here's Russia, here's the United States. What state is this little green one? (Fam: Alaska.) And it's only this far away! You could almost swim it!--Except it's so cold, don't try!
80. BUT THAT'S PROBABLY HOW THE INDIANS GOT TO NORTH AMERICA. They came clear up around from way over here in India, crossed all these countries and went up through Siberia and went over the Bering Straits & went over into Alaska & down through Canada & the United States & Mexico & Central America clear down into South America!--Although they've also proven that you can cross the Pacific Ocean by island-hopping clear from over here in China & some of these countries, & even Russia, across here by boat, & finally wind up in South America or North America. But the easiest way to come was to just go that way. This part of Russia is called Siberia & the shortest route is right there at the Bering Straits, you can almost jump across!
81. THE FACT IS, THE RUSSIANS ARE NOT COMING TO CANADA OR ALASKA, THE UNITED STATES, THEY'VE ALREADY BEEN THERE! Russians came across here many years ago. There are lots of communities of Russians still in Alaska. We used to support a young missionary to the Russians in Alaska named Walter Kovich. His picture's in the Book of Remembrance, a Russian boy. (See BOR Vol.1, Pg.156.) Our little Young People's Society used to give him five dollars a month.
82. SO THEY CAME RIGHT ACROSS HERE & WENT INTO ALASKA & CANADA, & do you know what?--They came clear down into Washington, Oregon & California! When the pioneers first got to California there were sizeable Russian communities on the coast of California! In fact, that was when the famous multimillionaire John Jacob Astor made his fortune in furs! His name was still famous when I was a child & he built a financial empire beginning with importing furs from Canada & from the Western United States, & he bought large quantities of furs from these Russian communities in California. He became a multimillionaire, a famous New Yorker, John Jacob Astor! How about that, that I should remember a name like that! He came out there & dickered with the Russians for furs & they sold him furs & he helped make his multi-millionaire fortune off of furs from Russian Californians!
83. SO THE RUSSIANS HAVE BEEN RUSHIN' ALL OVER, & right now they're rushin' all over the World, & they're rushin' all over Africa & India & they tried to rush over China! They had a little problem there, but at least they made China Communist. And they were certainly rushin' all over the Middle East & they're going to be rushin' all over Europe pretty soon, & one of these days they'll even be rushin' all over North & South America & rule the World!
84. ALL RIGHT, WE'RE GETTING TOWARD THE END OF OUR LESSON, I'm going to have to speed up a little bit! But if you can't remember all your history & geography & get a picture of this, how are you going to understand all this in Bible Prophecy!
REV.13:2B!
85. SO, HOW COME HIS MOUTH WAS AS THE MOUTH OF A LION? Roarrrrrr! I even scared David that time!--Startled him! You didn't know I could roar like a lion! Haven't you ever heard about old Papa Lion & his roars? Roarrrrr! Well, what does it say about the Devil? "He goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour!" (1Pet.5:8) Roarrrrrrr! Because what? Last part of the 2nd Verse:
86. "AND THE DRAGON GAVE HIM HIS POWER & HIS SEAT & GREAT AUTHORITY!" Who gave this also red Beast, also seven-headed Beast, which also has ten crowns & ten horns, who gave him his power? (Fam: The Dragon!) And who's the Dragon? (Fam: The Devil!) Where does the Antichrist get his power from? (Fam: The Devil.) "And his seat"--his throne, in other words, to rule the World--"& great authority" all over the World, the Bible says in other places. He'll rule the World! That doesn't mean that every country in the World is going to submit to him always. At first, who can oppose him? "Who can make war with him?", it says. Who is great enough to do it?--Nobody, it tells us a little later. But by & by there are people who are going to!
REV.13:3--DEADLY WOUND HEALED!
87. AND NOW COMES A VERY INTERESTING VERSE, (VERSE 3:) "AND I SAW ONE OF HIS HEADS AS IT WERE WOUNDED TO DEATH." There are seven heads & you've already named them, we won't go over it again, & according to this, he is the last head. But one of these heads is wounded, like it's wounded to death. "And his deadly wound was healed: & all the World wondered after the Beast." It sounds like one of these heads was wounded like it was wounded unto death. Now the heads are what? (Fam: World powers.) Great World powers. Except that this head, though it was wounded & should have died, revived! His deadly wound was healed. "And all the World wondered after the Beast."
88. NOW WHICH ONE OF THESE GREAT WORLD POWERS HAS DIED, BUT IS GOING TO BE REVIVED IN THE ANTICHRIST EMPIRE OF THE 7TH HEAD? (Fam: Rome.) Rome! It's that simple! Rome was wounded as unto death. Rome is considered to be fallen, right? Big books have been written on the fall of Rome, "The Fall of the Roman Empire" I think was one of Toynbee's first great books etc., how it fell & why it fell, to whom it fell, etc. God's Word says, "Wounded unto death & yet did live!" "Deadly wound was healed."
89. ROME UNITED MORE OF THE WORLD UNDER ITS EMPIRE THAN ANY OTHER EMPIRE HAS EVER UNITED, & ruled more of the World than any other Empire has ever ruled! So that deadly wound is going to be healed & now it's going to rule the World again under the Antichrist! So the Antichrist Kingdom is considered a revival of the old Roman Empire. A head that was wounded to death, fallen, died as far as the World was concerned, but it's going to be revived once again in the Antichrist Empire. It will be like the revival of ancient Rome.
90. "AND ALL THE WORLD WONDERED"--it doesn't say wandered, like you're wandering around not knowing where you're going, but wondered!--Marvelled!--Were amazed!--Even the people that don't like him, even the people that maybe hate him! It doesn't mean that all of them are going to like him or even obey him, but they're all going to marvel at his power & wonder at his miracles!
REV.13:4 & 5--AC'S FULL POWER COMES AT MIDDLE OF THE 7 YEARS!
91. (VERSE 4:) "AND THEY WORSHIPPED THE DRAGON WHICH GAVE POWER UNTO THE BEAST." The people who are going to worship the Antichrist are the same people that are going to worship the Devil, & they're literally worshipping the Devil in the Antichrist! "And saying, Who is like unto the Beast & who is able to make war with him?" Who's saying this?--The people who love him & worship him & worship the Devil. They're saying, "Who is like him? There's nobody in the World like him! Who is able to make war with him?" The Antichrist Beast-marked people are going to think nobody's able to oppose him, nobody's able to make war with him. But is that true? (Fam: No!) You find out later there are going to be plenty of people who are not going to think he's much or aren't going to like him, & are going to make war with him too!
92. (VERSE 5:) "AND THERE WAS GIVEN UNTO HIM A MOUTH SPEAKING GREAT THINGS & BLASPHEMIES." He's going to be a big mouth! He's going to roar like a lion!--Speak with the roars of Satan himself & say great things, great blasphemies against God!
93. "AND POWER WAS GIVEN UNTO HIM TO CONTINUE FORTY & TWO MONTHS." "Oh, but Dad, I thought you said he was going to continue 7 years!" Wait a minute though! By the time he gets this far & he's doing all this & saying all this & the whole World is wondering after him & saying "nobody is able to make war any more & nobody's like him" & they're worshipping him, when is that?--At the midpoint of the seven years, right? They don't start worshipping him & marvelling at him so much & wondering after him & all that until the midst of the 7 years, in the middle of his reign, when they begin to declare him to be god & to worship him & to consider him the ruler of the World, nobody like him, nobody able to make war with him!
94. HE DOES NOT COME INTO FULL POWER OVER THE WHOLE WORLD, worshipped like God & with such power they think nobody is able to make war with him, until the middle of the 7 years of his total reign. He does not, in other words, become an absolute monarch, an absolute dictator, even an absolute god to the World until the middle of the week. And how do we know when that's going to happen? What happens right at that point?
95. FIRST OF ALL HE BREAKS THE COVENANT, second he sets up his Image & sets himself up as god to be worshipped, & next he insists on the Mark of the Beast. He's already got the Image up & is proclaiming himself to be god & making everybody take the Mark of the Beast. That's when he has full power & when all the World wonders after him & all the World worships him, or most of it, & he has full power as an absolute dictator, absolute monarch, absolute ruler of the World without question. It is not until the middle of the 7 years of his total reign.
96. SO IF HE DOESN'T BECOME ABSOLUTE RULER OF THE WORLD UNTIL THE END OF THE FIRST 3-1/2 YEARS & the beginning of his most horrible reign of terror, the Tribulation period, the last 3-1/2 years, what's he doing during the first 3-1/2 years? (Fam: Consolidating his power.)--Exactly, he's growing in power. He apparently appears on the World scene sufficiently to consider that he is becoming a known power, a known ruler, a known World leader of some kind. Who knows?--Maybe unknown! Maybe he's sneaking up on the World & doesn't really reveal himself, as 2 Thessalonians 2 says, until finally he breaks the Covenant & declares himself to be god & has his Image set up. Then he reveals his true nature, he's really revealed then to the whole World as what he really is & who he really is.
97. SO WE DON'T KNOW NOW WHETHER IT WILL BE KNOWN DURING THE FIRST 3-1/2 YEARS REALLY WHO HE IS, but I think we're going to recognise him. If he appears in any way, shape or form, I believe we're going to know who it is. If in 1986, for example, some great World leader begins to rise in power & his name begins to be known, I believe we'll recognise him, & I don't see how he could possibly make the Covenant & make it possible for the Jews to rebuild their Temple according to the time period that we have figured out from Daniel etc., unless he is pretty well-known pretty quick in the first half of those 7 years.
98. I BELIEVE THAT WE'RE GOING TO KNOW THAT HE EXISTS & PERHAPS EVEN HIS NAME & THAT HE'S BECOMING A WORLD LEADER! Because he has got to make the Covenant in the beginning, according to what Scripture? You've got to go back to Daniel. (Fam: Daniel 9:27.)--Exactly!
99. IN DANIEL 9:27 HE MAKES THE COVENANT FOR 7 YEARS. Therefore, if he's going to make it for 7 years & break it in the middle, he's got to make it at the beginning of the 7 years. And I don't see how he could possibly make that Covenant without the World knowing it. Of course, the covenant of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was made a hundred years ago or so & unknown to most of the World & they still deny it, it's secret.
100. MAYBE IT COULD BE DONE BY WORLD LEADERS IN SECRET. A lot of treaties & pacts & alliances have been made secretly, secret alliances between nations & countries etc. without being publicised to the World, & were later discovered when trouble broke out, who was who & who was for who & who was against whom! There's a possibility, I'm just saying, that he might be able to make it secretly. But I really am inclined to believe not. I think we're going to know when that Covenant is made!
101. IT'S MORE LIKELY THAT A COVENANT LIKE THAT COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE MADE WITHOUT BEING KNOWN WORLDWIDE. How could they settle these differences between the Arabs, Jews & Christians etc.? How could they make such a religious pact, especially that declares peace in the Mideast & internationalises Jerusalem & the great places of worship etc. under the World government such as the U.N., how could it possibly be done without being known? It's just not logical, it's not reasonable, it's not likely that we would not know when that Covenant is made.
102. MY PERSONAL OPINION & CONVICTION IS THAT WE'RE ALMOST BOUND TO KNOW! Maybe if the rest of the World doesn't recognise what it is, at least we will! And according to some of our time schedules & interpretations & estimates & guesstimates & the way we have interpreted the things the Lord has given us, that seven years is likely to begin when? (Fam: 1986.)--Good for you! 1986! We can't swear to it, I can't promise you, I can't guarantee it & I'm not going to stick myself out on a limb & saw it off & say it's gotta be 1986. But that is what we've estimated according to the various things the Lord has shown us, by "The Watch" & the "70 Years Prophecy" & several other things God has given us, even the "Birthday Warning" & others, that perfectly fit that time schedule.--If that is what is to be drawn from those prophecies, that it's most likely to begin in 1986!
GRANDMOTHER 100 YEARS OLD IN 1986!
103. I WOKE UP EARLY THIS MORNING THINKING ABOUT THAT, & FOR SOME REASON OR OTHER I GOT TO THINKING ABOUT MY MOTHER. I'm sure the Lord works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. I was thinking about my Mother & thinking, "My oh my, you young folks don't realise how near the past you are!" Do you realise that my Grandfather, my Mother's Father, lived through the American Civil War back in the 1860's? I began to review our family history, I don't even know why I was doing it, & I thought of something I never thought of before! My Mother was born only 20 years after the Civil War, does anybody remember what year the Civil War ended?--1865, & in 1866 there was peace. My Mother was born exactly 20 years later, 1886!
104. I WAS TRYING TO THINK OF MY MOTHER'S BIRTHDAY & I remembered it & I did mention it, I think, in May, the 27th. My Mother was born in 1886. And I was thinking about Heaven & how old she'll be. In 1986 she'll be 100 years of age! You say, "Well, that's a coincidence, so what?" I don't know, it just struck me suddenly as being significant somehow, that my Mother will be 100 years old next year, born in 1886, & next year will be 1986, possibly the year of the Antichrist!
105. NOW I DON'T MEAN BY THAT, THAT THE LORD'S GOING TO CELEBRATE HER BIRTHDAY BY INTRODUCING THE ANTICHRIST, that would be a pretty sad birthday present. But anyhow, if it means the beginning of the 7 years & of the End & we're that much closer to getting to Heaven & meeting my Mother again, well, it's not so bad after all!--If it's only 7 more years to Heaven! Anyhow, that's a fact, & that's all we have time for, for such facts today.
WE'RE GETTING READY FOR IT!
106. GOD BLESS YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE! It takes so long to go over these details & we've been over them so many times, & over & over, but that's the way you remember, that's the way you memorise, that's the way you refresh your memory so that you'll know. Now we'll resume this study in that same Chapter, Lord willing, next class, whenever that will be. We never know, do we? God willing! D.V.! Amen? PTL! GBY!
107. I HOPE YOU'RE NOT TOO BORED WITH ALL THIS HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY & PROPHECY & INTERPRETATION & ALL THAT! I hope you're learning something that's going to be of value & of usefulness & help you to recognise what's happening & what's going to happen.
108. WE'RE GETTING READY FOR IT! WE'RE EXPECTING IT! We're not just thinking so or believing so, but we believe it enough to be expecting it to happen & we're trying to get ready for it.
109. BLESS & KEEP US ALL, LORD, SAFELY IN THY CARE, busy in Thy work & to accomplish much yet even today. Bless & keep the children, Lord, about their play & their work & school & all. Help them to be cautious & careful & prayerful in everything they do & glorify Thee all day long, & glorify Thee in everything we do. Whatsoever we do in word or in deed, do all to the glory of God, in Jesus' name! Amen! PTL!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
