The Ten Prophetic Kings of Rev. 17

So we don't have a hymn after the announcements. I need all the time for this PowerPoint sermon on prophecy. And so as we get set to prepare for this sermon, you can put it on the TV sets. That's very fine. I hope everybody has a handout. If you don't, raise your hand. You'll be given one. I'll be going over this PowerPoint. It's called, What About the Ten Prophetic Kings? Talking about in Revelation 17, where it talks about ten prophetic kings that will arise before Jesus Christ comes back. And they will actually do battle against Jesus Christ. So I begin here, and I'll make comments as I mentioned what is on the PowerPoint slides. What will the year 2020 bring? There are many serious trends in the world. Will the COVID plague finally end? We really don't know. Sexual immorality and gender wars are increasing. If you read Victor Kubik's latest newsletter, the e-news this week, just talking about what is going on. In Canada, they are basically saying, they are the President Trudeau, that this idea of a man marrying a woman, or a woman marrying a man, and that this is the normal. He said it's a myth. And it's really upsetting, and I invite you to read that newsletter when you have time, or I can get you a copy, send it to you. It's very important. There are troubling hot spots in the world. Russia is the biggest danger right now, and it's close to invading Ukraine. That's all over the news. And this threatens the peace in the European Union. Europe has not had a threat like this for a very long time. And of course, we hope things are resolved. We hope there won't be an invasion, because that's going to shake Europe to its foundations. It's going to become more warlike as a result, because Ukraine is right on the border of the European Union.

Iran, China, and North Korea are also serious problems in the world. What is a framework of prophecy in the Bible in which to view such events? In Luke 10, verse 21, and 2 Peter 1, 17-21, mentioned the privilege we have of properly understanding the Bible and its prophetic framework through God's Spirit. Although we now only know in part 1 Corinthians 13-12. But I'd like to read Luke 10-21 first. Luke chapter 10.

Starting in verse 21.

It says, In that hour, Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes, even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight. God has not given this knowledge of Bible prophecy to the great people, to the theology professors of this world. He calls the people that he is using and working with babes, because they are not the smartest, they are not the wisest. And Christ is thanking God for doing that, calling people whose hearts are open to his truths, that are sincere, that are not there to take advantage of religion, as we see in so many areas. Then in 2 Peter chapter 2, Peter says the following. Starting in verse 17. 1 Peter 1 verse 17.

Let's go back to verse 16. It says, So he says, this is not something that our cunningly devised fables. This is the truth, and they were witnesses to it. And then he mentions when they were witnesses. Verse 17.

Peter heard that as the rest of the disciples.

This is when Jesus was transfigured.

As a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. So it says, do well to heal. He's talking about understand. Pay attention to this. It's important. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation. For prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. So we are blessed to be descendants of these men in the first century that are able to understand. Not because of wisdom and all this knowledge that God has called us into this wonderful truth. A key understanding of these prophecies is the statue in Daniel 2. Then it's historic development in Daniel 7, Revelation 13 and 17. So God starts out with an image and then as it progresses in time, He uses other images to fill in the details. You'll see how it happens because we only have one Bible and we only have this framework for viewing many of these prophecies. I'm not talking about other frameworks like Matthew 24. This is a main framework to understand. It says here, ending in the time of the ten kings going against the returning Christ. So we're going to go from the time of Daniel all the way to the final ten kings that will oppose Christ when He returns. We're only talking about 2,500 years. That's a long time, but we'll see how we can cover it. Let's understand this vital part of Bible prophecy that is unfolding today. Now, the idea for this sermon started when reading the October 23, 2021 article in The Economist magazine. It mentioned as the title, Court of Kings. I was really astounded when I read that article. And that's what got me started preparing this sermon. It took me more than a month to research it. This article said, in the European Union, every leader becomes a monarch, which is another name for a king. The European Council hands leaders too much power. So from an economic community, now you've got kings in charge of this European Union. And that's what this article brought out. How it has evolved into basically the heads of state are the ones that are calling the shots.

The European Council hands leaders too much power. That was not the intended purpose. Notice in the drawing, each leader is shown wearing a crown. It reminded me of Daniel chapter 2 verses 36 through 44. Let's go there. The meaning of the statue of Daniel 2. Let's read Daniel 2, 36 through 40. This is the dream. Daniel is talking to King Nebuchadnezzar. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. You, O king, are this head of gold, this statue. So the head represents the kingdom of Babylon. So basically God is revealing the history from the time of Daniel all the way to the time when Jesus Christ returns. And so he has this statue that represents four great kingdoms. And then in the end time, the feet and the toes represent the fourth kingdom, but in the end time. So it goes on to say, but after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours. So look at the statue. You have the head representing the kingdom of Babylon, the one where Daniel was living and working in it. And then the next kingdom, which is the Medo-Persian kingdom, represents the chest and the arms of this statue. This is the one that says there will be another kingdom inferior to yours that wouldn't have the same glory as Babylon.

And then a third kingdom of bronze. So this is represented the Grecian kingdom started with Alexander the Great. And you see here, it has to do with the thighs and the waist of this statue. And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron. So the fourth one represents the legs. It would be a divided kingdom.

And that's what happened. Babylon was not a divided kingdom. It had the kingdom of Babylon in charge of everything. Then you had the Medo-Persian Empire, and they were in charge of everything. And then you had the Grecian Empire. That was divided up into four parts, as we will see. But the Roman Empire, actually the territory, was divided into two parts. The eastern part would be with the headquarters in Constantinople. That's where Constantine established his headquarters. And then Rome was the capital of the western part of the Roman Empire.

So just like the two legs, it would split into two. And this actually would last from the 700s before Christ, all the way to 1453, when the eastern leg of the Roman Empire was conquered. So you're talking about over 2,000 years that this empire rule. And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron. This one lasted much longer than any of the previous ones.

Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided. Yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. So at the latter part, before Christ returns, you're going to have this manifestation of the Roman Empire divided into ten rulers. You have ten toes on the feet. And it would be a mixture of nations that wouldn't fit.

They wouldn't be united. You had iron-type, strong nations, and you had weak nations. They're all united, but they're not solidified. They're not one nation. Let's go on to the next one. Daniel 2, 41-44. It says, And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, now God's going to explain what that means. So the kingdom, before Christ returns, with these ten kings, shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw iron mixed with the ceramic clay, they will, and in the New Living Translation has it more accurately, they will form alliances.

And that's what the European Union is based on. They've made alliances to join together, but they're not an integral nation. It goes on to say, But they will not adhere to one another. The French have their culture, they have their government, the German has its culture and government and language. But they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. And in the days of those ten kings, when we see that manifested in Europe, it says, The God in heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and it shall stand forever. And so, this statue is actually divided into five parts, because the Roman Empire is not just the legs, but then it has the feet and the toes as its manifestation at the end times.

All right. We continue on now to the next chapter in Daniel 7. So, God further reveals more details about the statue, but now, each of these four kingdoms, He's going to describe as beasts or animals. But, you're still talking about the statue, but now the head becomes that of a lion. Notice what it says in Daniel 2, verses 5, 2-5. Daniel 7, 2-5. Daniel said, I saw in my vision by night, and four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other. You had four of the kingdoms in the statue, but each one of those kingdoms is now described as a beast.

So, God is able to fill more details with this analogy. The first of the beasts was like a lion and had eagle's wings. This is talking about Babylon now. Another beast, a second like a bear. This is describing the Medo-Persian Empire. It was raised up on one side, so its back had one hump bigger than the other.

Just like the Persians were stronger, they were allied together, but one part was bigger, and eventually the Persians were the ones that ruled. And it had three ribs in its mouth. God had already described the Babylonian Empire, which eventually was defeated by the Medo-Persians. And in the process, when the Medo-Persians took over, they had conquered and swallowed up three nations. Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt. So, it's like having a part of the other nations that they had swallowed up. Let's continue.

And after this, I looked, a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. So, as you can see, this is the equivalent of the waist and the hips, which describe the Grecian Empire, the Greeks. And what happened? Alexander the Great began the conquest of Asia at that time, but he died. He was only like 33 years old, and it was the four generals that really developed this Grecian Empire. And so, that's why it talks about four heads of the leopard, because the kingdom was divided into four parts. You've heard of some of these, the Ptolemies in Egypt. That was because one of the Greek generals was named Ptolemy. The Seleucids are another. And so, each one of the generals of Alexander took part of the Grecian Empire. So, here you have again the leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. It was very rapid to conquer things. And dominion was given to it. After this, I saw a fourth beast, dreadful and strong. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. We don't have any type of animals that have ten horns this way. It's talking about something very different. He didn't even describe it. It didn't appear like any animal on the earth. And it had ten horns, and I was considering the horns. And there was another horn, a little one, coming up among them. So, this is actually like an eleventh horn, before whom three of the first born were plucked out by the roots, and a mouth speaking Pompa's words. So, this little horn is different than the others, and it just speaks Pompa's and Blasphemous words. So, we continue with the meaning of the beasts of Daniel 7. So, the four beasts of Daniel 7 represent the four world powers of the statue of Daniel 2, and last from the time of Daniel until the second coming of Christ. The fourth beast with ten horns and a little horn represents the Roman Empire, its ten resurrections, and a later leading religious power.

Let's go on to the next slide. This is a representation of that ten horned beast representing the Roman Empire, and with one horn looking like a human being. It doesn't have that much power, but boy, it sure claims a lot. It boasts a lot. And it was able to actually remove three of those horns of the Roman Empire. So, the fourth beast of Daniel 7, with the ten horns and a little horn among them, a man with a pompous mouth who symbolizes the prideful religious leader that would later rise to power and remove three of the transitional leaders in Rome, the three temporary Gothic rulers.

So, we can look at the chart, and just to highlight how this chart works, it works from left to right. So, you have, this is a chart that appeared in Mr.

Armstrong's book, Who and or What is the Prophetic Beast? This is a very valuable chart. It's updated. You have Daniel 2, the image. So, we've already covered in Daniel 7, the head of gold is the first beast like a lion, and it is the first head of prophetic Babylon, the Chaldean Empire. The second is the breast and arms of silver.

This represents in Daniel 7 the second beast, the bear. It actually in Daniel 8 also is the ram with the two horns, and explanation, the second head of prophetic Babylon, which is the Persian Empire, Medo-Persia. It tells you here the length that it lasted. And then you have the fourth part of the image in Daniel 2, the belly and thighs of brass or bronze.

It's similar. This represents the third beast, the leopard with four heads, the he goat with the great horn and four notable ones. This is described in Daniel 8, and it actually talks about that the he goat with the great horn represents the first king of the Greeks, which was Alexander the Great, and then the four notable ones were his generals.

The Grecian Empire actually was divided in that way that you had the Seleucid Empire, you had the Egyptian Empire, you had the area there in Greece, in Macedonia. The Symmachus was the one that was in charge, the general there, and then you had the one which was in charge of Babylon and Persia as well. It says here in the explanation of the symbol, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth heads of prophetic Babylon. This is Greece under Alexander the Great, and four divisions began in 333 BC when Alexander the Great died.

He actually died when he was 31 years old at Babylon. Then you have the legs of iron, which the equivalent in Daniel 7 is the fourth beast, strung like iron with ten horns. Then in Revelation 13, the beast with seven heads and ten horns, we're going to go over that. The seventh head of prophetic Babylon with ten horns, and this symbolizes the Roman Empire from 31 BC to AD 476. With the two divisions, the two legs, the west and the eastern part of the Roman Empire. Now, if you look in the Daniel 7 part, it talks about the first horn plucked by its roots, and the second horn rooted up, and the third horn rooted up.

If you go to Revelation 13, those are the first three horns, which are the three resurrections after the Roman Empire collapsed. It says here, these three horns destroyed at the behest or the request of the Pope. They fill what the historian Meyers mentions as the Transcision Age. This wasn't a very powerful time to resurrect it, but it did continue on. These were the three Gothic tribes that took over the Vandals, the Heralii, and the Ostrogoths.

That's where we are in this chart. Let's continue. Now, we go from Daniel 7 to Revelation 13. In Revelation 13, we now see one composite beast of Daniel 7 from John's day to the fall and restoration of the Roman Empire. Here, God now uses another analogy, another illustration. It's not four beasts, but this is actually the four beasts combined into one. In John's day, the Babylonian Empire had already been swallowed up. The Persian Empire was swallowed up. The Greek Empire was swallowed up by the Roman Empire. Here you have one beast now that has all of these heads that it had swallowed up. It represented one head that had ten horns.

It's talking about that it would be resurrected or have revivals throughout history. Notice what it says here in Revelation 13. I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his head a blasphemous name. Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard. We know that had to do with Greece, the animal representing the third beast. His feet were like the feet of a bear that has to do with Persia. His mouth was like the mouth of a lion that had to do with Babylon.

So it's all together now in this fourth beast. The dragon gave him power, his throne, and great authority. Talk about the Roman Empire. I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed, and all the world marveled and followed the beast. So when the Roman Empire collapsed, in previous empires, some other empire had started. But this was different because after the collapse in 476 AD, then there were resurrections of this Roman Empire.

We actually have had even one resurrection of that Roman Empire in the 20th century, which we will cover. We'll see the 10 resurrections or revivals. So if you look at the figure, the one with the horns is representing the Roman Empire, and notice it has this wound on its neck, but it was healed. The Roman Empire revived instead of dying like the other empires. So let's go on. Notice the beast of Revelation 13, with seven heads and ten horns on the last head, had no rider on it, because it represents the Roman Empire that swallowed up the three previous nation beasts, Babylon, Persia, and Greece.

So Babylon had one head, Persia had a second head, and then Greece had the four heads of the four generals. So there you have the six heads. The seventh head is the Roman Empire. Until the time of its downfall in AD 476, that's when the last emperor ruled Rome, when it received a deadly wound but was later healed. Afterwards, there would be ten revivals until the time of Jesus Christ coming back. Let's go further. Now we go to Revelation 17, verse 3. So now we see this beast further in history. He says, So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness.

And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. Now in Revelation 17, we continue to progress prophetically in time. This beast now represents the seven resurrections of the Holy Roman Empire. When the woman, the Roman Church, rides the beast in later history. So the seven heads are after those three have been removed at the behest of the Catholic, the Roman ruler of the Church. So now you have seven, which is not, they are not removed by the woman, but the woman actually rides. She's made an alliance now with this beast power.

Let's continue. So in Revelation 17, we see seven remaining resurrections symbolized by a beast with seven heads and ridden by a fallen woman, symbolizing a church state union. Now it's not just the emperor. Now he has in cahoots a religious leader that is as powerful and actually is riding this beast. The emperor needs that support and the religious ruler needs the support of the emperor. Notice the one representing the seventh and last head of the Holy Roman Empire is the one with the ten horns. So the ten horns are not distributed in all these resurrections. Now it's only the last resurrection that has the ten horns which represent the last ten kings of this kingdom. Depicting the ten toes of Daniel 2 or ten rulers of this system in power when Christ intervenes in the world. So let's review the history of these seven revivals of the Holy Roman Empire as we presently know it. So you see it wasn't the Holy Roman Empire with the first three resurrections, but the last seven, yes, there you see the connection. So let's look here in the graph. So we have covered what is the fourth horn of Daniel 7. Well, let's go here in Daniel 7 where it talks about there's a section of state and then church. Church, the little horn among the ten, is the two-horned lamb dragon, an image in Revelation 13. And this is the scarlet woman of Revelation 17 who rode the beast and in explanation of symbols it ruled the beast so carried called Babylon the Great. This is false Christianity and church government or image of the Roman Empire government. So then we go to the fourth horn after this little horn worked its way to remove the first three of these resurrections, temporary ones. The fourth horn is the first remaining of the seven horns. The deadly wound was healed to continue 1,260 years. And then here in Revelation 17 is the first head of the beast, headed, ridden by the scarlet clothed woman. And it talks about the imperial restoration of the empire by Justinian in AD 554. He recognized supremacy of this world's Christianity. So now let's go to the next slide.

And we have the first resurrection of the Roman Empire took place when Emperor Justinian revives and reunites the Roman Empire. I mean, that head was wounded. There was disorganization. States had split up and it was Justinian that went and he conquered, as you can see in the map. He was the one that was able to bring the Roman territories back into the fold of the Roman Empire. He had been the emperor of the Western leg, but now he brings the Eastern leg with his conquest. The Patriarch Piphanius crowning Justinian as the first Holy Roman Emperor. Now we have popes crowning these emperors, giving them power, giving them the reputation to be followed. Then we have the next empire. Let's go forward. Here we have on the chart. This is the equivalent of the fifth horn of Daniel 7. Revelation 13 is the second of the remaining seven horns. This is the second head, ridden by the woman, and it is the Frankish kingdom. It began in 1774. Charlemagne was crowned in AD 800 by the Pope. Let's look at the next slide. You can see there. This is a depiction of Charlemagne being crowned by Pope Leo III. You see the territories. Charlemagne unified because they're always trying to unify Europe. He was able to get France, Germany, and parts of Italy joined together. This would be the second revival of the woman riding the European beast. Let's go forward to the third. This is the sixth horn of Daniel 7, equivalent to Revelation 13, the third of the remaining seven horns. The third head, ridden by the woman, the Holy Roman Empire, with the German head Otto the Great, crowned in 962. Let's go there with the next slide. Again, things were falling apart. These men come and they unite Europe again, temporarily. They're crowned by the Pope, named as the Holy Roman Emperor. You see the woman is riding the beast. Emperors need to be crowned by the Pope to have legitimacy.

Otto the First, we have a depiction of him being crowned by John the 12th in 962. This would be the third head of the beast with the fallen woman riding it.

If you ever want to read a good history of what the papacy was at that time, read Hailey's Bible Handbook, the part about the church. It goes through all of this period. It was actually called the fallen women of Babylon there in Rome. It had fallen in such disgrace at the time. We go to the next horn. This is the seventh horn of Daniel 7, which is the equivalent of the remaining seven horns in Revelation 13. This is the fourth head, written by the woman, the fourth resurrection of the empire. This is the Habsburg dynasty with the Austrian head, Charles V, crowned by the Pope in 1530. Let's go there to the next one.

You see here a depiction of Charles V being crowned by Pope Clement VII in 1530. The Pope crowned Charles V in 1530. This would be the fourth head that the fallen woman would ride into power. Just to show you how they described the Pope at that time, talking about the emperor, it says two days before the emperor received the crown from the Pope. This is what the historians wrote down at the time. His majesty, talking about the king, rose from his chair and went to see our Lord and kissed his foot, talking about the Pope, our Lord, not Jesus Christ, but our Lord. Such blasphemies took place at that time. Then we go here to the eighth horn of Daniel 7, which is equivalent to the fifth of the remaining seven horns of Revelation 13. This is the fifth head written by the woman, the fifth resurrection. Remember that there were three transitory resurrections before, so this is not taking into account before the woman rides the beast for the first three. This is the fifth head written by the woman, which is Napoleon's kingdom, the French head crowned in 1804. Let's go to that slide.

Napoleon also united Europe for a brief time. You can see all his conquests. Of course, the British are in red. They were the ones that resisted Napoleon, along with others at the time, but Napoleon had an enormous amount of territories in Europe. Napoleon would be crowned by Pope Pius VII as the fifth ruler, but to symbolize his arrogance and power, he crowned himself. He took the crown. The Pope was about ready to crown him to show who was in charge, and Napoleon said, no, I'm going to. He took the crown from the Pope and put it on his head. There's always this struggle between the beast and the woman. Who's going to be actually in charge? Yet, Napoleon didn't finish there. He allowed the Pope to continue with the ceremony in 1804. Then we go to the sixth resurrection with the woman in charge. The ninth horn of Daniel 7, with the equivalent of the remaining seven horns in Revelation 13, this is the sixth head of Revelation 17 of that beast. This has to do with Hitler and Mussolini's kingdom. From 1922 to 1945. Only lasted 23 years. 60 million people died, at least, from this empire. And notice in Revelation 1710, it says that one is. We came to understand these things while Mr. Armstrong was alive during that period of time. When World War II had taken place and he saw, God was showing him. And so, in the Bible, it says one is because that's when this prophecy was able to be understood in Mr. Armstrong's day. Because that's when it was taking place. And this was Hitler and Mussolini's kingdom, which ended in 1945. And then, let's look at that. This is Hitler and Mussolini's empire. Also, he conquered most of Europe. Doesn't even show there the rest of Italy. And a lot of the areas of the southern Mediterranean. They had all of this area from Morocco all the way close to Egypt. That was all under Mussolini and Hitler's empire. Of course, Hitler was the most powerful of the two. But Hitler stood by and helped Mussolini to the very end of the war. So, you can read there what happened. The German-Italian alliance called the Pact of Steel. Both Hitler and Mussolini, who remained Catholics all their lives, would make a Pact of Alliance with the Vatican called a Concordent. This would be the sixth head with the beast and the fallen women, allied to it. It would be a different system of government than the previous ones. Napoleon was crowned in this way. But Hitler and Mussolini, it was a modern version now, where a lot more elements were mixed together. They weren't crowned, but they did sign an alliance with the Pope. Of course, it was much more violent. It had modern warfare. It's a different one than the previous ones. And we have the tenth horn, which you can see in your chart. It has to do with the ten toes. This is the seventh and last horn. The beast ascends out of the pit for the last time. The seventh head and the ten horns on it. That's why it says, this one is one yet to come. Because after God revealed this to the Church, then there's a future manifestation. It's not in our days. But Hitler and Mussolini, they were part of the 20th century. Their influence is still with us today. We still have fascism, socialism, and all socialist movements. Napoleon didn't have anything like this. None of the previous ones. Today, we're still mired into this fascist, socialist type of influence in the world.

This would be the revived Roman Empire by ten rulers under one leader. Let's go to the next slide. I'm running out of time. I'm just not going to be able to do the rest today. I've still got a lot to cover. Let's finish up with this slide. But at least we did cover the graph. But I want to show you what... Let's just show the last slide here. I have a book. It's called The Principality and Power of Europe by Adrian Hilton, a prominent British author. He predicted what we see today. It was written 25 years ago, and he was warning at that time what was coming out of this European Union. So tomorrow we'll continue... Well, not tomorrow, but next Sabbath I'd like for it to be tomorrow. I'd like to have a Bible study tomorrow. But then, God willing, we'll give you part two of this interesting subject, the sermon on the Ten Prophetic Kings.