Friday, October 28, 2011

Nothing All That New Under The Sun

I hadn't realized Nero is said to have burned Rome because he wanted to rebuild it. I knew he burned the city, fiddled gleefully while it was burning, and then blamed the Christians.
- Nero was the first of major anti-Christs.
- The Roman Empire became (quasi) Christian after Emperor Constantine sided with what was the highest population of the empire at the time, Christianity. There arose fierce persecution against paganism, and wealth seized from them by the emperor was given to the bishops of Christianity. Church influence, power and political domination of the empire and its offices grew rapidly. (But it did not resemble the innocent and simple faith it began as, about three and a half centuries earlier, but was now a political entity.)
- The world of this entity became "Western Civilization". But when Western Civilization turns (extreme) and begins to have bias against Israel and Christianity, it will further evolve into a beast (Apocalypse 13:1-10 & Daniel 7:7,19) of ten crowns (horns, divisions, toes). It will prove itself a beast when it harnesses a sword of terror (Apoc. 20:4). Daniel the Prophet and John the Apostle wrote of and described the vision they saw of this beast. Both described the beast as having ten horns. John said it had a crown on each of its horns, and had seven heads. Daniel described it with teeth of iron, and its feet, which had bronze claws, tore things apart. We can assume the final beast (world empire) of man, will include all that both Daniel and John were shown.
- "Iron" and "bronze" had come up quite a while earlier, in Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a great statue (back in Daniel 2:31-43). God revealed to Daniel that this statue, made up of different metals, represented the world empires throughout history which impact Israel. That being the case, biblical historian scholars have calculated that "bronze" in the dream was (the highly dramatic, then secular) "Greece"and the "iron" in the dream was mighty Rome. The final beast has iron teeth (iron columns?) and bronze (secular) claws.
- We can certainly assume that the final beast has Roman/Graeco (Roman/Greek) roots. It builds a peace.. an accord.. a "league" (Strong's #1285 from Daniel 9:27) a "firm" (Strong's #1396 "strong, mighty") one with "the many".

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