A new year for our nation has commenced with a new president sworn into the highest office of the land. An honest State of the Union address would reveal that our country is suffering under filthy lucre, demonic powers of chaos, abundance of strange and fleshly sins, a love for evil, and a pervading hatred for righteousness. In more recent years, both visible and invisible political and religious powers have increasingly endeavored to suppress and thwart any semblance of righteousness in the earth. Those who try to take a stand for truth become open prey to the sharks and wolves that have marked their territory of political possession. While ISIS has been planting its “sleeper cells” of terrorism throughout our country, the legacy of “obamination” has entrenched itself throughout the US government with its own carefully-planted sleeper cells awaiting an appointed time to do greater damage to the American hope. May God have mercy upon us as we witness iniquitous vultures pick clean the bones of any remaining legacy of decency.
While hypocritically warning Mr. Trump not to abuse his privilege of “executive order,” the previous Oval Office executive granted the largest number of pardons in our presidential history. His acts unleashed the worst of criminals back into society to rise again with greater power and wealth attempting to make it as difficult as possible for the next president to establish any law and order in the country. On his last day he attempted to quietly funnel $221 million to the Palestinians, while executively banning all lead bullets and fishing weights on federal lands.
The weekend following the inauguration of the 45th president witnessed women across the world rising against this president. Rioting was financially supported by world-order elites such as George Soros, a man who has tried to infiltrate governments throughout Europe to come to a new world order. Ironically, he has contributed to the overwhelming violence within Obama’s city, Chicago. The lawlessness that has exploded in our country in recent weeks is the character result of the man who ruled this country; this country has become the personification of the man. Yes, our new president has inherited a whirlwind; only a Sovereign God will be his hope.
Mr. Trump is not allowed to enjoy the privilege of becoming president because of ongoing demonstrations endeavoring to wreck and ruin any hope of bringing his idealistic vision of “making America great again.” More lives and reputations will be destroyed by secret powers that be; no mercy will be rendered by their covenant with the Devil to melt down any remaining semblance of nobility in this country. In this end-time collaboration of man with Satan, elitist America seems committed to destroying the US Constitution, as well as to blatantly obstructing any attempt at maintaining independence from the tyrannical rule and rapid emplacement of the New World Order.
Democracy inevitably ends in absolute anarchy. Our nation has come to this precipice. Once into the fullness of his duties, what deadly poison and rotting threads will this new president discover woven into the very warp and woof of our country’s present government. No doubt, he already has some such knowledge; if revealed, its very shock would effectively cause an unparalleled stampede of fear and panic to reverberate throughout the world. Already we have witnessed the dissolution of our sensitive national security agencies, including the CIA and the FBI. Scandalous debauchery, corruption, obsessive demoralization, and anti-American ideologies are deeply entrenched in our government. Yes, America presently has become the vilest, most corrupt nation in history. Such a statement takes into consideration the plague of corruption in countries marked by communism, dictatorship, and all the third world countries.
Nevertheless, we must continue to pray for this newly-elected president, his vice president, his cabinet, and those who surround him by appointment, amidst the powers of evil secretly seeking to infiltrate his inner circle to bring about his demise.
Dear Reader, this is the End Time! The wickedness of man is now empowered by the god of this world to bring global chaos. The belief is that deified man will birth out of the chaos a global utopia; this utopia will be man’s cosmos, his adornment, his own anti-God system of world order. The only hope we have is the return of Christ and the setting up of His global kingdom!
The Prophet’s View of the End-Time Governmental Powers
We are drawn once again to the Book of Daniel for insight into our times and the hope of God’s appointed future for this planet. This book naturally divides itself into two parts, each with an equal number of chapters. The first six chapters are mainly historical; the last six are prophetic. While there are prophetic matters in the first six chapters and historical references in the last six chapters, it is noticeable that the first part of the book is largely occupied with Daniel’s own history, and the last with his own visions.
In a previous issue of Straightway (October-November 2016), we drew from Daniel 2. In this issue we draw from the personal burden of the prophet Daniel in chapter 7. In this context of Daniel’s “dream and visions,” he beheld “the four winds of the heaven” striving upon “the great sea” (7:2). This term “the great sea” is often used in the Old Testament for the Mediterranean Sea (cf. Joshua 1:4). This terminology may suggest that the events portrayed in the vision will occur in the geographical area adjacent to this sea. However, the symbolic meaning of the sea seems to be more important in the interpretation of this vision. Revelation 17:15 speaks of the many waters as “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.” This perspective seems to be the greater meaning of the four winds of the heaven striving upon the sea. These winds are brooding over the masses of humanity (throughout history) to bring all to a unity that is a manifestation of the spirit of these forces. In this context, we have a key to understanding world politics and the secret behind every worldly organization.
As declared in Ephesians 6:10–12, there are principalities and powers vying for control of mankind on earth. The apostle Paul strongly calls upon Christians to put on the whole armor of God in order to withstand these powers and their influence upon us. At the same time, clearly the world does not have this protective armor; the world is greatly susceptible to evil spiritual powers. Note 1 Corinthians 2:7, 8:
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
The Greek word princes means “the high rulers of that age.” Likewise, note 2 Corinthians 4:3–6:
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world [this age] hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
The psalmist of Psalm 2 clearly declares that the kings of the earth are against God. Certainly behind all of this hatred is the Devil projecting evil thoughts into the minds of these kings. A clear example of this ploy occurs in Ezekiel 38:10–12 during the time of Gog (the prince of Magog):
Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought [what is the thought?]: And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
Yes, Satan continues to convince man that he too is able to overthrow God, that he can make the world his own throne against God.
The Man Is a Beast
In Daniel’s vision in chapter 7, the sea was thrown into contrary waves by the actions of the winds of the heavens. Out from this sea (evidently because of the operation of the four winds), successively emerged four beast-like monsters. As observed in a previous issue of Straightway, the kingdoms in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream were portrayed as a great image of a man (Daniel 2). In Daniel 7, the kingdoms of Daniel’s vision are presented as beasts. Daniel received heaven’s perspective of these kingdoms.
The Scriptures often speak of man as beastly when referencing his depth of sin. For example, when referring to both religious and political apostates of the last days, 2 Peter 2:12 states, “But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption.” Paul, in writing to Titus, spoke of the Cretians as liars and evil beasts (1:12). Jude, in writing of the apostates in the last days, declared in verse 10, “But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.” Thirty-four times in the Book of Revelation the beast out of the sea (the Antichrist) and the beast out of the earth (the False Prophet) are alluded to. David used similar language in Psalm 22:12, 13, 16, 20, 21 that became prophetic words when Christ Jesus was on the cross:
Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. . . . For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. . . . Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
The apostle Paul states in 2 Timothy 4:17, “And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.” Similar to Daniel 7, the prophet Jeremiah in 25:32 states, “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth.” What did these winds churning the waters bring forth?
Daniel 7:4 speaks of a lion whose wings were plucked and was made to stand as a man with the heart of a man. This was a description of Nebuchadnezzar and His Babylonian Empire. Because of his pride, God greatly humbled Nebuchadnezzar saying, “Let his heart be changed from man’s, and let a beast’s heart be given unto him” (4:16). At the end of seven years living beastly, Nebuchadnezzar’s understanding returned and he arose and blessed the most High; he was made to “stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it [him]” (7:4b).
Daniel 7:5 mentions a bear, a more ravenous beast, rising on one side, with three ribs in his mouth, one who devoured much flesh. This bear was the Medo-Persian Empire with the latter, or “one side,” being Persia, and the three ribs representing Media, Persia, and Babylonia.
Daniel 7:6 references a leopard, an agile animal, describing Alexander the Great and his conquest in the Greco-Macedonian Empire. Following his death this empire eventually was divided into four portions and ruled by four generals.
Daniel 7:7 gives a final beast presented as “dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly.” This indescribable beast has been identified as the Roman Empire.
Collectively, the metallic colossus of Daniel 2 now is seen as four wild beasts. From God’s viewpoint man’s kingdoms are composed of wild, blood-thirsty beasts devouring and destroying one another.
The Final Beast
Ever since the fall of the Roman Empire, world governments have tried and failed to copy it using the force of its symbolic iron. In the end the iron shall try to mix with the miry clay of man. The literal Hebrew for this clay is the “burnt clay of the potter: miry clay depleted of moisture leaving brittle, burnt mud.” This iron certainly can be seen in the tenfold division of the Roman Empire into the nations of medieval and modern Europe; and it can be seen in the history of the papacy, as a system, the little horn.
In Daniel 2 there is a great gap between the image’s legs and the feet, the so-called “ankle” area. Similarly, there is a gap between the indescribable beast of 7:7 and the mention of its tens horns (represented by a semi-colon). The ten toes of Daniel 2’s image are the ten horns of Daniel 7’s exceedingly fierce beast. We have not yet come to this period of the ten toes and horns of these prophecies. However, we are now nearing the time when this “iron” will try to rule through the “burnt clay” of humanity in order to bring about some form of order.
These prophetic gaps seem to be in history the time of Christ’s Church. The Church Age period in history was a “mystery” to all Old Testament prophets, because it had nothing to do with the nation of Israel. This term mystery is used by Jesus to declare the Church Age period in Matthew 13:11, 16, 17, 35; it is also used of Paul in Romans 16:25 and Ephesians 3:3–5. We must remember that in the Greek the word mystery has a different concept than our English word. The Greek designates something that though now hidden will be brought to light at an appointed time.
The Church is one of several mysteries of the Bible. We believe that the visible Church Age is coming to an end because of its global apostasy. We believe that Laodicea of Revelation 3 is the last of the Church Ages. We look for a rapture to bring the end of the Church Age; the term church ceases to occur in Scripture after Revelation 3.
This ankle period’s ten horns are yet to come. They seem to arise out of the geography and ruins of the old Roman Empire. Certainly the twentieth century through its two world wars hastened the process of restoring this empire, which ultimately will bring a tenfold kingdom ruled by ten allied kings.
Daniel 7:8 mentions another horn that is to come, an eleventh horn, the Antichrist of the Tribulation Period. There has been great controversy concerning whether the Antichrist is a system (the papal system) or a real, personal man. If one takes the position that Antichrist is the papal system of Romanism in nature and spirit, he will still have to acknowledge that the system has always been personified in a “man” who sits in Peter’s cathedra (“chair”). Moreover, this Antichrist will physically enter the Holy of Holies of the “temple” (2 Thess. 2:4; Matt. 24:15), not the church. This Son of Perdition, this man of sin, must be a personal, individual man.
Likewise, while we acknowledge that the Spirit of Christ was in the prophets of the Old Testament (1 Peter 1:11), Christ as a man, a person, eventually came. Antichrist is evidently “that Wicked” (or wicked one) of 2 Thessalonians 2:8; the “mystery” of iniquity was working even when Paul uttered this prophecy. Doubtless, this period of the ten horns/ten toes is to be prophetically found at the time of Revelation 13:1–10 and other developments in Revelation 17.
Conclusion
In light of God’s prophecies concerning Israel, the conditions of the nations of the earth, and even the conditions of Christianity across the world, it is evident that God is sifting and shaking the world as never before known or seen. To the professing Christians the global church is witnessing the words of Hebrews 12:25–29:
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom, which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire.
Is this shaking of the Church part of the “vomiting” prophetically uttered by Christ of the final church in Revelation 3:16, “I will spew thee out of my mouth”?
There is also the sifting of the nation of Israel found in Amos 9:9: “For lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.” Today, Israel is in a most precarious hour of its history. And yet, we also read of the precarious hour of all the nations as found in Haggai 2:6–9:
For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts.
We are in this trilogy of the shaking of the Church, Israel, and the nations. May the Lord help us to see we are in the swirling of the powers of winds and doctrines, and of the coming of the Lord and of the Antichrist.