Revelation: The Dragon and the Little Horn

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.

  The Bishop of Rome, the Pope of the Catholic Church, the blasphemous horn, was now unopposed and was able to wield its unlimited powers as it saw fit for 1260 years.

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,

In calling the pope the "antichrist," the early Lutherans stood in a tradition that reached back into the eleventh century. Not only dissidents and heretics but even saints had called the bishop of Rome the "antichrist" when they wished to castigate his abuse of power.^[39]

The Pope as the antichrist was so ingrained in the Reformation era, that Luther stated it repeatedly. For example:

"This teaching [of the supremacy of the pope] shows forcefully that the Pope is the very Antichrist, who has exalted himself above, and opposed himself against Christ, because he will not permit Christians to be saved without his power, which, nevertheless, is nothing, and is neither ordained nor commanded by God”.^[40]

and,

"nothing else than the kingdom of Babylon and of very Antichrist. For who is the man of sin and the son of perdition, but he who by his teaching and his ordinances increases the sin and perdition of souls in the church; while he yet sits in the church as if he were God? All these conditions have now for many ages been fulfilled by the papal tyranny."^[41]

John Calvin similarly wrote,

"Though it be admitted that Rome was once the mother of all Churches, yet from the time when it began to be the seat of Antichrist it has ceased to be what it was before. Some persons think us too severe and censorious when we call the Roman Pontiff Antichrist. But those who are of this opinion do not consider that they bring the same charge of presumption against Paul himself, after whom we speak and whose language we adopt .. I shall briefly show that (Paul's words in II Thess. 2) are not capable of any other interpretation than that which applies them to the Papacy."^[42]

John Knox on the Pope wrote,

"Yea, to speak it in plain words; lest that we submit ourselves to Satan, thinking that we submit ourselves to Jesus Christ, for, as for your Roman kirk, as it is now corrupted, and the authority thereof, whereon stands the hope of your victory, I no more doubt but that it is the synagogue of Satan, and the head thereof, called the pope, to be that man of sin, of whom the apostle speaks."^[43]

Thomas Cranmer on the Antichrist wrote,

"Whereof it followeth Rome to be the seat of Antichrist, and the pope to be very antichrist himself. I could prove the same by many other scriptures, old writers, and strong reasons."^[44]

John Wesley speaking of the identity given in scripture of the Antichrist wrote,

"In many respects, the Pope has an indisputable claim to those titles. He is, in an emphatical sense, the man of sin, as he increases all manner of sin above measure. And he is, too, properly styled, the son of perdition, as he has caused the death of numberless multitudes, both of his opposers and followers, destroyed innumerable souls, and will himself perish everlastingly. He it is that opposeth himself to the emperor, once his rightful sovereign; and that exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped - Commanding angels, and putting kings under his feet, both of whom are called gods in scripture; claiming the highest power, the highest honour; suffering himself, not once only, to be styled God or vice-God. Indeed no less is implied in his ordinary title, "Most Holy Lord," or, "Most Holy Father." So that he sitteth - Enthroned. In the temple of God - Mentioned Rev. xi, 1. Declaring himself that he is God - Claiming the prerogatives which belong to God alone."^[45]

Roger Williams of the Vicar of Christ or Pope wrote,

"the pretended Vicar of Christ on earth, who sits as God over the Temple of God, exalting himself not only above all that is called God, but over the souls and consciences of all his vassals, yea over the Spirit of Christ, over the Holy Spirit, yea, and God himself...speaking against the God of heaven, thinking to change times and laws; but he is the son of perdition."^[46]

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichrist

Part 13: A Double Meaning.

Okay, this is Belle writing right now. If any of you are upset by math and numbers, you may be getting either bored or upset by now. Just stick with us. We move into Revelation in the next post.

I know these dates and numbers are very important or else God wouldn't have given them to us so we could know what would happen in the last days. God is a God of great detail. Just read about the instructions of how to build the Sanctuary in Exodus and how to sew the priests clothing!  Details are important to God because each detail has a meaning.

Continued from previous post...

So does this mean Octavian is the horn of Daniel Chapter 8?  Yes, and no.

The angel Gabriel told Daniel that this particular vision “…pertains to the time of the end.” (Daniel 8: 17)  How can it pertain to the end of time when we know Egypt became a province of Rome over 2000 years ago?  That is because this vision has a dual application.

  

We saw in chapter one of this book that Jesus’ prophecy in Matt. 24: 6-8 applied to both the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE and to the end of the world at the end time.  So, too, does the vision of the horn in Daniel Chapter 8 apply to two time periods; the emperors of Rome in ancient times and the power that grows from Rome in the end times.  One produces the other and, just like from parents to children, similar traits are passed down.

      

So if we look at the power that followed Greece in Daniel Chapter 8 as being a twofold prophecy, we can break it down like this.

Ancient Times                                                          End Times

Rome                                                                      Offspring of Rome

Emperor                                                                  Blasphemous Horn

Destroyed Temple                                                    Trample the Holy Place

 at Jerusalem

 Demanded the Emperor                                           Calls itself equal to God

 be worshipped                                                        and removes Jesus’ sacrifice

Daniel 8: 11 and 14 say that the horn “…removed the regular sacrifice from Him (meaning God), and the place of His sanctuary was thrown down…For 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the holy place will be properly restored.”  In Gen. 1: 5 we see that an evening and a morning is another way of saying ‘one day’, and we have proven that a day in prophecy is actually one year, so here we have a timeline of 2300 years.  The first thing we must determine is where this timeline starts.  

We understand that this vision applies to events in both ancient times and the end times.  It also applies to the old system of religion practiced by the Jews (the “…small horn which grew…toward the Beautiful Land” where the temple in Jerusalem was) and to the new system set up by the sacrifice Jesus made for us and that he is offering in our place in heaven (the horn “…grew up to the host of heaven…and it removed the regular sacrifice from Him…”), so the 2300 years must cover Rome and its offspring, and time periods before and after Jesus was crucified.

We saw that the 70-week probation period given in Daniel Chapter 9 was the last chance for the Jewish nation to get with the program.  They failed and the spread of the gospel to all people began with the scattering of Christians.  After the vision containing the 2300 days, but before giving Daniel the 70-week prophetic warning for the Hebrews, the angel Gabriel told Daniel that he had come to give him ”…insight with understanding.” (Dan. 9: 22) 

How does the 70-week prophecy of Daniel 9 give help in understanding anything else?  Part of what it gives us is a starting point for the previous vision’s timeline…457 BCE.  So if the 2300 years also begins in 457 BCE, then its end would be 1844 CE.  Did anything important happen in the year 1844?  Not that we can see with our mortal eyes because Daniel 8: 14 says that at the end of the 2300 years the “…holy place will be properly restored” and, as we have seen, this applies to what Jesus does for us in heaven.  We will go into more detail about this in later chapters.