This is a chapter by chapter copy of my sister's book, "The End is Near."
Continued from previous post...
“And
when the dragon saw that he was thrown down the earth, he persecuted the woman
who gave birth to the male child. But
the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly
into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times
and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. And the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause her to
be swept away with the flood. But the
earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river
which the dragon poured out of his mouth.
So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with
the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the
testimony of Jesus." Rev.
12:13-17
Satan
is furious about losing to Jesus and decides to go after those who follow
Jesus. The true followers of Jesus were
forced to flee, many hiding in the mountains and forests where they were able
to avoid the flood of people searching for them (see Appendix 2). Those who remained in the populated areas
were less able to avoid persecution. The
persecution lasted “…a time and times and half a time…” which is
the 1260 days mentioned in verse 6. It
is calculated this way: “a time” is one year, “times” is two
years, and “half a time” is six months, giving a total of 1260 days (360
+ 720 + 180 = 1260). This time period is
also mention in Daniel 7.
“…out of this kingdom (Rome) ten kings will
arise; and another will arise after them, and he will be different from the
previous ones and will subdue three kings.
He will speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the
Highest One…and they will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a
time.” Dan. 7:24, 25
Do you
remember the mouthy, blasphemous horn we saw in chapter two of this book?
It is mentioned in Daniel
7:8 and Daniel 8:9-14, 23-26 as arising after Greece. But we had questions about this because we
knew Rome followed Greece. Well, here
our questions are answered. This mouthy,
blasphemous horn does arise after Greece, but we can see here that it comes out
of Rome and after the Western Roman Empire had been carved up into ten
kingdoms. And this horn does uproot and
subdue three of the ten kings. When the
Emperor Justinian declared the Bishop of Rome as head of the Christian churches
and gave him civil powers to go with his new religious powers, three of the ten
kingdoms opposed this. The Heruli, the
Vandals and the Ostrogoths fought against this new arrangement but by 538 CE
the last of them had been crushed.
This is Belle writing now: If you think it cruel and unfair to name the Pope as being the little horn, I am adding what the protestants of old said.
Protestants[edit]
Many Protestant reformers, including Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, John Thomas, John Knox, and Cotton Mather, identified the Roman Papacy as the Antichrist.[38] They held that the Antichrist power would be revealed so that everyone would comprehend and recognize that the Pope is the real, true Antichrist and not the vicar of Christ. The Centuriators of Magdeburg, a group of Lutheran scholars in Magdeburg headed by Matthias Flacius, wrote the 12-volume "Magdeburg Centuries" to discredit the papacy and identify the pope as the Antichrist. The fifth round of talks in the Lutheran–Roman Catholic dialogue notes,
The Pope as the antichrist was so ingrained in the Reformation era, that Luther stated it repeatedly. For example:
and,
John Calvin similarly wrote,
John Knox on the Pope wrote,
Thomas Cranmer on the Antichrist wrote,
John Wesley speaking of the identity given in scripture of the Antichrist wrote,
Roger Williams of the Vicar of Christ or Pope wrote,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichrist