Waypoints in Prophecy

Thank you again, Mr. Storrs. Once again, good afternoon, everyone.

I remember several years back when I got my very first handheld GPS system.

Do you remember those? Kind of before they had... For those of you with younger people in the audience, there was a time where GPS wasn't embedded in everything. It wasn't in your phones, it wasn't in your watches, it wasn't in your cars, it wasn't in your refrigerators.

I don't know why you need GPS in a refrigerator. Actually, so interesting story. They actually do put GPS trackers on appliances at times. Builders who build large tracks of homes will attach them like a lo-jack because thieves have realized they can come in and clean out the appliances in new homes pretty easily and turn around and sell them in various places. So they have started to put trackers on some of these things that are GPS. Anyway, it's unreal, but why your fridge needs to know where it's at or where it's going is beyond me. But it's ubiquitous today. GPS is everywhere.

But at that point, when I got this little small handheld GPS system, they were new, they were harder to find, frankly, and they enabled a person to do something at that point in time that up to that point you could really only dream of. And that was leave the map and the compass at home, step outside, hit the button, and pinpoint your exact latitude, longitude. You could pinpoint your altitude, you could pinpoint all sorts of vital information with incredible accuracy.

Okay, within about three feet. But that's better than it used to be. Now, it was really incredible if you happened to have one of those models where you could download the map into the GPS unit, where when you dropped and found out exactly where your location was, you could see where you were on this topographical map, which enabled you to really know where you were. My model had a gray screen and a black arrow, which did no good at all for me knowing where I was from a standpoint of pinpoint accuracy. The only thing my model was good for, and what I used it for, and what I loved using it for, was waypoint navigation. And so what that meant was, if I was out hunting, I could enter the woods from a main road. That system, as long as I wasn't in too thick of timber, would ultimately track my latitude and my longitude. Let me drop GPS pins occasionally, and the little line of my walk would connect those GPS pins. Now, I could walk in as far as I wanted into the woods just recklessly.

I didn't have to worry about a map, a compass, or anything else. I could just go straight in and then to get back to my truck. I'd just turn around and point the little point of the arrow on the line and just keep walking. It was perfect! I didn't have to know how to do anything, which is good because I didn't know how to do anything when it came to orienteering. It was perfect! Now, as you've heard my dear story where I got plenty lost, I didn't have my GPS on that trip. So there it is. That's how I managed to get myself completely lost. But previous to this technology and its existence, it required a totally different skill set. It required you to actually be able to read a topographical map, to be able to use a compass, be able to utilize cardinal directions and other things.

But frankly, the release of these devices kind of made those skills somewhat obsolete until the devices go completely down and then nobody knows how to get anywhere.

Because the reality is, too, you look around today and we have a generation or two or three that have become reliant upon GPS technology to the point that they're not sure how to get some place without it. You know, you see it on the phones, you see it on the watches, you see it in various places and it's telling you when to turn left, when to turn right, when to go forward, what the speed limit is, you know, a whole bunch of other things. You know, if they were to go down today, we'd be in real trouble from a standpoint of society today. But what was really cool about using that primitive GPS program is that when I was able to kind of want to navigate my way back to my origin point, all I had to do was follow those waypoints. And I could track myself right along those waypoints and right along that path to the place where I started. Now, you could shortcut it. Like, I could look at it and say, well, I kind of went this way and this way and this way.

I see there's a point right there. I can point my arrow and just take that cut, but you didn't know what was in between because you didn't walk that the first time. It could be a ravine. There could be all kinds of tritering. You had to kind of go around. I had to go up and over Mount Adams.

You know, whatever it might be. But it was just simpler to follow the path that was laid out before you and go waypoint to waypoint. Bible prophecy operates very similar to this. There is a destination in the distance that has been set—a pin that has been dropped, so to speak—that God has placed. And along that path, along that process, there are certain prophetic waypoints that take place that occur along the way to that ultimate destination. Some of the waypoints are quite obvious. Some of them are very obvious, and it's easy to tell when one of them has been achieved.

Other times, some of those are a little more challenging to interpret. And sometimes, only with hindsight, can we really look at them with any degree of certainty. Sometimes, even that is speculative at best. One of these waypoints in prophecy was just fulfilled before our very eyes.

And it positions the geopolitical landscape to move forward to the next waypoint in the line of end-time prophecy in an incredible way. Many of you are probably familiar with what I'm talking about here. On January 31st of 2020, just a couple weeks ago, most of the UK left the EU.

This dramatic exit put a cap on a process that was kickstarted by referendum in June of 2016.

So this has been many years in the making. It has toppled a couple of governments in the process.

It's been a mess. I mean, really, politically, it's been kind of a mess to get this thing done.

During that referendum in June of 2016, the people of Britain voted by a relatively narrow margin.

It was 52% to 48% to leave the EU. And so in walking away from the European Union, they walk away from the economic and the social benefits that are part of being a part of the EU, which there are. There's economic and social benefits. One of those benefits is free trade among member nations, where if you're trading with a member of the EU, there are no tariffs.

And so there is free trade among those particular member nations. And one other really interesting benefit is free movement of people from one EU member nation to the other in order to live, work, generally, wherever they please, among those member nations.

Now, what comes next for the United Kingdom is uncertain. There's talk of Scotland pushing for their independence. In fact, one of the lawmakers in Scotland said, leave a light on for Scotland.

We're coming back. It won't be long that we're going to be gone. We're coming back.

And so we'll see how that ends up going. But the future is really uncertain with what's going to happen politically, what's going to happen economically and socially. But at this time, at this point, as of today, Britain, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales are no longer EU member nations. Now, Ireland remains a member at this point, and there have begun discussions of a unification of Ireland, because they don't want to build a wall across that portion of the border that divides Northern Ireland, as they say from Ireland. So in order for us to understand the prophetic significance of this, to understand why Brexit matters, and ultimately that subsequent exit of the EU, why it matters, we have to look backwards in our waypoints. We have to look in that path, and we have to go waypoint by waypoint backward to be able to understand where we're going forward. Because there are similarities. There are symbolic things that have occurred, that are going to occur again. We have to understand those things to understand the significance of it. So I want to get into just a little bit of the history here of the EU, and kind of how it came to be. On January 1st, 1973, at least England's involvement in the EU, the United Kingdom entered into what was known then as the European Economic Community, the EEC, which was a largely economic alliance among countries in Europe that created generally a European trade bloc. I mean, that was really the initial plan for it. All the member nations could trade with other member nations tariff-free, and all those member nations, and this is where they kind of get you, all those member nations could not trade with anyone outside of that trade bloc without agreed-upon tariffs that were coming out of the EU. And so it made it so that there was a trade... everybody was the same when it came to trade out of that thing. There was no tariffs internally, and there were agreed-upon external tariffs outside. For a number of decades, this was generally the way that the union worked.

It was primarily economic, until about 1992. In 1992, there was a signing of a treaty called the Maastricht Treaty, and that treaty consisted of three primary aspects. First off, all member nations of the EU were to become a part of what was then going to be known as the Economic Community, or the European... I'm sorry... Community. Those member nations would have common foreign and common security policies. So many of those member nations would have similar foreign policy. They would have similar security policy among those member nations. So now, at this point, now you've got some countries that are starting to go, wait a second... wait a minute... you're going to tell me how to operate my foreign policy?

You're going to tell me how to operate my security policy?

Thirdly, they had enhanced cooperation among member nations in domestic affairs and justice-related incidences, kind of inter-Polish type things, where there was ability to go into and out of these other countries to take care of things as needed. Now, when they came together to be a part of this European community, the new union had formal control over policies on development, so they could tell these member nations, essentially, how they could develop as a nation. They had formal control over edges of education. They could tell other member nations how they were to educate their children.

They could tell other member nations how they were to deal with environmental protections, because they had to agree to the environmental protections that the EU itself agreed to.

They had control over public health matters, social economic standards, as well as, and this kind of interesting, established an EU citizenship, which actually allowed member nations to run for European Parliament in whatever country they chose to live, regardless of their nationality.

So, if you're a Swede, and you chose to live in Germany, and you wanted to run as a member of Germany's representation to Parliament, you could, even though you were a Swede. Which is really interesting. Really, really interesting. There were a number of nations that balked at this treaty, as you can imagine. You take a look at this, and you start to consider it, and you look at what's there. A number of nations started going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. Wait a second.

And a few refused to sign the treaty up front, because they were concerned about losing their sovereignty. But, as time went on, as they saw the economic benefits, and as they saw various other benefits, a number of the nations ratified it. 2002, there were strict monetary controls that were enacted. There was a common currency that was ultimately established. That currency being the euro that was introduced in 2002. Now, for the first time in our modern history, a number of biblical prophecies began to come into greater focus. With that Maastricht treaty being signed in the formation of the European Union, you begin to get a fuller picture of some of these end-time prophecies. Let's go over to Daniel 2. We're going to spend a bit of time today in the book of Daniel.

Go ahead and head over to Daniel 2. The title of the message today is Waypoints in Prophecy.

Waypoints in Prophecy.

Daniel 2... pardon me. We're not going to read the entirety of the passage here. I'm going to summarize the upper portion of it, but I will suggest if you haven't read through Daniel 2, Daniel 7, Daniel 11, some of these major prophetic chapters in Daniel in extensive manner in a while, it's worth looking at. It's worth going through if you haven't done so in a bit.

In Daniel 2, just kind of a quick summary here, in the book of Daniel, God provides Nebuchadnezzar with a vision. Now, Nebuchadnezzar is troubled by the vision that God provides him. Very troubled, in fact. So troubled that he goes to his magicians, he goes to his astronomers, he goes to what he refers to as his wise men to basically give him the interpretation. The wise men, you know, they kind of go back and forth a few times, and after a little bit of wrestling about with words, the wise men say, oh, just tell us the dream and we'll tell you what it means. And Nebuchadnezzar goes, you tell me the dream and what it means. And they kind of have a moment of, like, what you're asking us is impossible. They say only the gods can reveal dreams, or only God can reveal dreams.

And yet, Nebuchadnezzar wasn't having that, and so he ordered all of his wise men killed.

Because, you know, that's escalated quickly. But, you know, you're the king, and, you know, you don't like the answer they gave you, and so here you are. His guards dutifully followed their orders. They began killing the wise men, and they came to the point of Daniel and his friends, who were considered to be wise men at that point in time. And Daniel goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, please don't kill me. Listen, let me go and entreat my God, and let me see if I can provide, if God will provide some sort of the dream and the interpretation for Nebuchadnezzar. And so Daniel does just that. He takes the time to entreat God. Later that evening in a night vision, God delivers the dream and its interpretation to Daniel. Verse 31 of Daniel 2 is where we'll pick it up. So verse 31 of Daniel 2 picks up Daniel's description. Daniel 2 and verse 31, he says, You, O king, were watching, and behold, a great image, this great image whose splendor was excellent, stood before you, and its form was awesome. This image's head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron, and partly of clay. You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them into pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, so the whole statue, were crushed together and became like chaff from the summer threshing floor. That chaff's what floats away as you're threshing the wheat. The wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found, and the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. So Nebuchadnezzar saw this great image, head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thigh of bronze, legs of iron, and his feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

But then he sees this stone come down from heaven, crushing this image, shattering this image, allowing that image to kind of blow away in the process, and that that stone then grew into a mountain that filled the entirety of the earth. Now it's important to keep in mind when we're dealing with prophecy, where the Bible is specific on the interpretation of the prophecy, we're able to conclude with great certainty that that's exactly what was predicted, right? Where the Bible is clear on these things, it's easy to conclude with great certainty that which was predicted. Where the Bible's less certain, we are left to interpret to the best of our ability, given historical context, given a number of other aspects of things, and we can put together a pretty decent picture in many ways with the history that has come before. Thankfully, this is one of those interpretations that is directly from Scripture and frankly from the historical record, so we're pretty clear on what it is. Verse 36, he interprets that for Nebuchadnezzar. He says, this is the dream. Now we will tell you the interpretation of it, or tell the interpretation of it before the king. You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory. And we know God puts rulers into place. Wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heaven, he has given them into your hand and has made you rule over them all. You are this head of gold. Imagine Nebuchadnezzar's going, that's right, I am. That's exactly right. I'm sure he loved to hear that. I'm sure he loved to hear that. Of course, he may not have enjoyed what he heard next, but, you know, I mean, for the moment things are good. He goes on, he says, but after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours, then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth, and the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything, and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. So Daniel provides the interpretation. The head of gold is Nebuchadnezzar, but then he went on to describe that there were going to be kingdoms that came after him, and of those kingdoms that came after him, they would be inferior to his kingdom, but still conquerors.

After the kingdom of silver and bronze, the fourth kingdom would come, and as strong as iron, shatter everything, breaking into the pieces and crushing all of the others, really conquering the majority of the known world at that point in time. Now, what does history record with regards to the rise and the fall of these kingdoms? What are the waypoints? What are the places along this prophetic path that we have historical data that supports these prophecies? Well, Nebuchadnezzar's empire of Babylon was situated in the region of what is modern-day Iraq. In fact, there's kind of a couple of interesting pictures. You can see some Babylonian ruins from some of Saddam's old palaces in Iraq. I mean, we're talking... this is a hotbed of warfare and has been for the last, you know, 15 years here with the United States in Iraq. After Nebuchadnezzar's death, there was a series of weaker kings that ruled until about 539 BC when Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon. So the Medo-Persian Empire was centered in what is modern-day Iran. Once again, a major world player on the scene today. With the acquisition of Babylon... so Babylon was kind of the big kid on the block at that point in time. When the Medo-Persians acquired Babylon, they became a true-to-form world empire at that point in time. There really wasn't much competition on the scene anymore after Babylon fell. The Medo-Persian Empire would rule the scene for about 200 years.

In 331 BC, they were conquered by Alexander the Great and the Greco-Macedonian Empire, the Hellenists, the Greeks. Now, it blows me away about this. Many of you knew that or know already that Alexander was a young man when he was a general and conquered the vast majority of the world. He was 22 years old when he started his war against Persia. 22 years old, leading massive armies against Persia. Three years later, he defeated Darius III at the Battle of Guatemala, which ensured Persia's defeat. Alexander would die about eight years later at the age of 32, and for the next 50 years, his generals fought over the remains of that empire, carving it up in what is known as the Diadochi Wars, which resulted in the kingdom being carved more or less into, by the time it was said and done, four basic regions. Those four regions, two of them we are extremely concerned about with Bible prophecy, the other two not as much.

The southern part of that kingdom, the southern part of that empire, was ruled by Ptolemy, and his headquarters was in Egypt, okay, and roughly the area around Egypt toward the south, while the northern kingdom was ruled by Seleucus, also known as Antiochus, more well known by the name Antiochus.

She might recognize Antiochus IV, also known as Antiochus Epiphanes, who was a descendant of his, who defiled the temple at that time. So there was Cassander and Lysimachus as well, that ruled tracts of the empire, but prophetically, really, it's Ptolemy and it's Antiochus that really demanded our attention. Let's go ahead and leave a bookmark here in Daniel 2. We're going to turn over to Daniel 11. Daniel 11 largely talks about the back and forth between Antiochus and Ptolemy, the king of the north and the king of the south, but in the first part of this, it's kind of an interesting little passage that I want to take a look at. Daniel 11, beginning in verse 1, says, also in the first year of Darius the Mede, I, even I, stood up to confirm and to strengthen him. And now I will tell you the truth, and he's talking to Darius here. He says, Behold, three more kings will arise in Persia, and the fourth shall be far richer than them all. By his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Greece. Then a mighty king shall arise who shall rule with great dominion and do according to his will, and when he's arisen, his kingdom shall be broken up and divided toward the four winds of heaven, but not among his posterity nor according to his dominion with which he ruled, for his kingdom shall be uprooted even for others besides these. Daniel was given this prophecy, and it was written down during the sixth century BC. Sixth century BC, and almost two centuries later, it would be fulfilled by Alexander. Two hundred years later, it would be fulfilled by Alexander. In fact, there's a cool story. Josephus, in his book Antiquities of the Jews, records that the high priest in the 330s BC, his name was Judea, actually met with Alexander outside of Jerusalem. He brought a group of priests out to meet Alexander, and Alexander came alone. And he came alone because Alexander claimed, at least according to the story that Josephus writes, that he saw a vision of Judea in his high priest's raiment at one point in time, and when he saw him he knew that he had to come.

And so he came, and as the story goes, as Josephus writes, as the story goes, Judea took him to the temple complex, not into the temple itself, but to the temple complex, and showed him a scroll, essentially, of Daniel, and told Alexander, this is you. It's just the words we just read, right there. Chapter 11, verses 1 through, you know, I can't read it, prints too small, 4, 1 through 4.

So this is you. So Judea recognized that this was prophecy that had been fulfilled at that time.

The rest of chapter 11 goes back and forth between the machinations and political kind of intrigue of Ptolemy and of his descendants, and then Antiochus and his descendants, and it reads like a soap opera.

I mean, you read through the rest of Daniel 11, and it's the daughter of this person and that person, and they've gone up against this person and that and everything else. And right around chapter, or chapter, verse 35, right around verse 35 in Daniel 11, it shifts in tone. It's mostly historical from a standpoint of the first few passages here, up to about chapter or verse 35.

And then that tone shifts to become duality, that it's talking about something that was soon to occur, but also something that was to occur at the time of the end, talking of of Antiochus IV's defilement of the temple in Jerusalem in 167 BC. But it also looked forward to a future abomination of desolation that would be set up that began the Great Tribulation, as described in Matthew 24. But it was these men. It was these men. It was Alexander and his four generals that essentially made up the belly and thighs of bronze of this statue. There's another prophecy in Daniel 7 that describes them as well as a four-headed leopard. And so, this is another kind of backup to what what this particular passage in Daniel 2 discusses. Now Rome came on the scene, conquered the Greek peninsula in 146 BC. A little over 100 years later, in 31 BC, the Egyptian regions of the Greco-Macedonian Empire were conquered as well. 27 BC, Julius Caesar declares himself the emperor of Rome. The Roman Empire officially began. We recognize that these legs of iron that followed the Greco-Macedonian Empire is the Roman Empire. It's these folks that conquered much of the known world, really expanding Alexander's empire up into northern Europe, into some of those barbarian regions, some of the Germanic tribes and things that were up there at that time. And they subjugated people through military might. They subjugated them through economic reforms. And a lot of times, they subjugated them through capital investment.

They built roads. They built aqueducts. They built other things that would bring comfort to the people that lived in those areas. And when you're comfortable, you don't want to rebel. That's generally the way life works. And so, they did it through a variety of means. If the comfort didn't work, yeah, they'd crush them militarily. But, you know, they'd start with trying to kind of build things and trying to make things work in that way. So, that empire was in control at the time of Jesus Christ. That was the Roman Empire. And that empire would later split about 300 AD into an Eastern and a Western component. Constantinople became the seat of the Eastern Empire. Rome would continue as the seat of the Western Empire until its fall, about 100 years later, at the hands of the same Germanic barbarians that they set out to subjugate. Kind of ironic. Now, you take a look at the image that you have in Daniel 2. There's two legs. You know, we can speculate that there's two legs because of the division of the Roman Empire. That there's the East and the West. And what that's led to is that's led to a prediction that it's possible that those final ten nations, five of them will be Western, five of them will be Eastern. We can't conclude that for certain. It's speculation. But it stands to reason. I mean, it does stand to reason based on the symbology that is there.

Let's go back to Daniel 2. Let's jump back over to Daniel 2 here real quick. And we'll see Daniel's interpretation of the remainder of the statue because it's really these feet that we're mostly concerned with in the modern era today. Now, there's more to it than that, and we'll get there, too, and we'll talk about that. But when we get down to these feet, it's important to recognize these are what are in place and present at the time of Christ's return.

These things are present right up to the point when that stone comes down and smashes those toes of iron and clay. Daniel 2 and verse 41. Daniel 2 and verse 41 says, 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.

And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men, but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron did not mix or does not mix with clay. And in the days of these kings, so in the time when these ten are ruling, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people.

It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. You know, it's interesting when we look at this, you know, there's no more succession after that point. There is no more kingdom succession. It is officially over at that point.

The kingdom of God is there, and it lasts forever. Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it had broken pieces, the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. He says the dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure. You know, you take a look at something like this, you know, this image and what it represents.

Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar, this is what's going to happen, and history records that's exactly what happened. From Babylon to Persia to Greece to Rome, waypoint after waypoint, history followed that prophetic path. Now, what's really interesting to consider is that we are somewhere along the lower legs of that image right now. If you consider where we are in prophecy, we're somewhere along the lower legs, ankle-ish regions of that statue at this time, if we consider it a timeline, so to speak. Now, we're certainly nearer to the feet, but we're generally along that path.

Those legs of iron continued on down through history, and they would continue on down through history in various forms until the time when God brought the kingdom of God to this earth. Again, that stone that comes and breaks apart, those feet and those toes, partially strong and partially fragile, would grow into a mountain and fulfill the entire earth. That didn't happen during Christ's first coming. It means it's reserved for His second, which means the toes of clay and iron and outgrowth of those legs of iron must be present until that time, which means the toes of clay and iron are today and are coming.

Let's go ahead and turn over Revelation 17. Revelation 17, they are in the process of arriving if they are not already here. Revelation 17, and I'll get to why I'm saying if they're not already here. Revelation 17. As a young man, the book of Revelation was one of my favorites growing up. It held my attention, probably like no other book of the Bible, just from a standpoint of everything that was going on in it and all the descriptions and all these, you know, very fantastic things and, and I say fantastic in that they seemed outside of reality sort of things, right?

But it's fascinating to consider these things. It's fascinating, and I think it helped that the church's literature was particularly visual on some of these aspects of things with the four horsemen and with the different beasts of Revelation, etc. And so I think it makes it a little bit easier as a young person to be able to really dig into that.

But in Revelation 17, we're going to pick up the story prophetically of what happens in the meantime between those legs of iron and the coming stone of God's kingdom.

Revelation 17, and we'll pick it up in verse 1. Revelation 17 in verse 1 says, Then one of the seven angels who had seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication. 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. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations, and the filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead a name was written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and of the abominations of the earth.

Verse 6. I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement. John was given an opportunity to see this vision, and not only that, to have an explanation provided that gives some context to the vision. This was to be a vision of the judgment of Babylon. This was to be something that he would see in this process. So he sees a beast with seven heads and ten horns on its back, a woman riding it, who was drunk on the blood of the saints, and on the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. This woman was connected intimately, really interwoven, with kingdoms, with governments, and was full of many abominations. See, the writer has the word Babylon written on her forehead.

And who could this be? Who could this be? You know, the end time identity of the writer scripturally is not necessarily provided aside from Babylon, but when you take a look at historical clues, I think a strong case can be made for one geopolitical player. Who was responsible for the greatest persecution of God's people historically?

Think about who was responsible for the greatest persecutions of God's people historically.

Who destroyed the temple not once, but twice? Who leveled Jerusalem?

Who put to death Christians by the thousands in gladiatorial rings, impaled them on stakes, turned them into torches in their garden? Who took early Christianity and polluted it with pagan practices? And lastly, who's been involved in kingdoms and in empires cyclically for millennia?

There's only one geopolitical player that fits the bill. That's Rome. That's Rome.

The woman riding this beast represents Babylon, and metaphorically in Scripture, Babylon is represented by anything that is against God. That which represents sin, that represents worship, that represents pride. Often in Scripture, women are used symbolically to describe a church, such as, for example, Revelation 12. The woman in Revelation 12 describes the Church of God. Is it possible that this vision in Revelation 17 is describing a powerful end time, ongoing Roman political and religious influence, particularly one that is of great impact to those who remain? Again, we are between the iron legs and the toes of clay and iron, right? Prophetically. We're in that region. Those are outgrowths of a Roman Empire. It stands to reason that the beast and the woman riding it represents an ongoing Roman political and religious influence on the world. Let's go to verse 7 of Revelation 17. It says, but the angel said to me, why did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. The beast that you saw was and is not, and will send out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was and is not and yet is. It goes on. It says in verse 9 here, here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.

There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. The beast that was and is not is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition. Again, allowing Scripture to explain itself, the beast in Revelation 17 that the woman rides has five heads that were, one that is, and one that will be. Satan would be involved in these things. These seven heads represent seven kings and seven kingdoms, five of which have fallen, one that is, and one that will be. And again, all of these occur during this time of the legs of iron, during the reign of the Roman Empire.

Verse 8 states that this beast with seven heads and ten horns was and is not, and yet is. And so, it seems to imply kind of a coming and a going, so to speak, as history has gone on, where it's apparent and it's there, and then it's gone again for a while, and then it's back, and then it's gone again for a while. So the question that we have to ask ourselves is, does history record a pattern of a coming and going of a Roman Empire after the fall of Rome in the fifth century BC?

Does history record that? Do we see a coming and a going of that Roman Empire as time goes on? Well, it does. It does. History certainly does. During and immediately after the fall of Rome in 476 AD, there were attempts to conquer and ultimately unify Rome under a series of Germanic tribes and their warlords.

These were the Vandals, the Haruli, and the Ostrogoths. And all of these guys went after unification of the western side of Rome, essentially with permission from the Pope that was on the eastern side of things. But when those on the western side said, wait a minute, these guys are a bunch of Arians. They don't believe in Jesus Christ.

They don't believe in the Trinity. They said, help us get these guys out of here. The eastern Roman emperors came and cleaned house and ran them off. There were three of those that were run off, ultimately the Vandals, the Haruli, and the Ostrogoths. But not before there was a deadly wound given. The western empire fell. The western empire fell. Now it's likely in Daniel 7 there's a reference that discusses a small horn that uproots three of the first horns. It's a good possibility that those three first horns are those Vandals, those Haruli, and those Ostrogoths.

Because after that, the rest of these rises of the Roman empire had a papal authority that came with their ascension to power. First of these was Genstinian about 50 years after the fall of the western empire, and he committed himself to really restoring the empire in the west. He wanted to bring back this universal Christian Roman empire that was like it was before. You know, just wide encompassing and huge. And so through a decree, the way that he felt that he could do this, was through a decree.

He said, from here on out, local government officials, people that are satraps and people that are governors of these various regions, can only be chosen by the Roman bishops in those areas. So essentially, the Roman bishops chose who was in charge, which for a time established a golden era, so to speak, of the Roman empire, and a resurgence of the Roman empire that most historians generally say this is the first real revival of the Roman empire was under Justinian, especially that that had real papal authority in that regard. Now, as time went on, his efforts fizzled out, things went back into disorganization, and for a few hundred years, they kind of were disorganized until another man came along.

In 800 AD, Charles the Great was crowned by Pope Leo III, and so this situation now this man was directly crowned by the Pope, and he became what was known as the Holy Roman Emperor. We know him better as Charlemagne, as he's known to history, but he held incredible power and influence with the backing that he had from the church, and for 14 years, the empire was unified under his theocracy. And so it was a complete theocracy at that point in time, but he stimulated economic growth. You know, he stimulated a number of other things, strengthened the empire as a whole, but at his death in 814 AD, the empire fizzled out again as time went on.

Because again, people start to scrabble over the scraps, and as time goes on, it became more and more disorganized, and it never really was as great as it was, so to speak, under Charlemagne. Otto I is the third of those Roman revivals that came along in 962 AD. He was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by John XII, and his coronation by the Pope marked a revival yet again of the Roman Empire. Now, what's interesting is, Otto I is credited with really consolidating what was known as the First Reich. Some of you might know that term because of the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler, but Otto I really consolidated that First Reich, united those Germanic tribes, and really strengthened the empire pretty significantly, because after his death, that empire continued for another 300 years after he died.

You know, it had been that strengthened and that consolidated from a standpoint of power. But again, as time went on after that time was up, it dissolved back again into kind of scrabbling for for bits and scraps.

The Habsburg dynasty came next. You know, throughout time the Habsburgs had titles that shifted from King of the Romans to elected Emperor of the Romans to eventually, with Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor yet again, when the empire had risen now to the point where it had both the church and it had the government and the power, and they were united again. We had a resurgence, once again, of that empire. That was 1530 when that happened. Now, it was interesting. Charles V was one of the first to have a description put on him that the son never set on his empire, because he had holdings as a result of his marriage to Ferdinand and Isabella's daughter, the king and queen of Spain. He had holdings in the Americas, and so he had some holdings in the Americas as well as in Western Europe, and was a very strong power at that point in time. But again, time went on, it slips, and it's gone again for a while. Napoleon Bonaparte led the Fifth Attempt to consolidate that power, and he dreamed of a unified power and a unified Europe that was even greater than that of Charlemagne. Napoleon wanted it all. I mean, he wanted it all. He wanted India, he wanted Constantinople, I mean, he wanted it all.

And so in 1804, he was crowned Emperor by Pope Pius II. He ruled as the Holy Roman Emperor for 10 years before ultimately being exiled in 1814. Following Napoleon, 1870, Otto von Bismarck united all the small German states, of which Austria and Prussia were the two big ones, creating what history is known as the Second Reich, and he named himself Kaiser because it was a transliteration of the word Caesar. He saw himself as another of these emperors that were in charge of this massive territory.

Germany's dreams of imperialism and their greater holdings led to the First World War.

Four years later, the German nation was in serious economic trouble.

Young men ran them out of that trouble in 1930s. His name was Adolf Hitler. Led them out of their economic woes, increased their military might through German production, and they united with Mussolini in Italy, and both Mussolini and Hitler dreamed of uniting Europe and expanding their empire even further. They called it the Third Reich. Germany and Italy signed a handful of treaties that expanded the power of the church. They actually established Vatican City at that point in time.

So they established Vatican City, and they actually strengthened the power of the Catholic Church in Germany with a series of treaties, and as a result of that, their connection with the Catholic Church provided them some legitimacy, at least early on in the war. As time went on and they realized really what was going on, they lost much of that legitimacy, but the world was plunged again into war at that point in time. Let's go to Revelation 17, verse 10. Revelation 17, verse 10, says, There are also seven kings. Five have fallen. One is, and the other has not yet come, and when he comes, he must continue a short time. Five are fallen. History records five primary resurrections, so to speak, of the Holy Roman Empire. Big ones. I mean, not counting the three of the of the Vandals and the Horullian and the Ostrogoth, but five big ones with papal authority and that's Justinian, Charlemagne, Otto the First, Charles the Fifth, and Napoleon. Five are fallen.

One is. Right? One is. So we have waypoints, again, that are pointing the path towards this destination. From Babylon to Persia, to Greece to Rome, to Justinian to Charlemagne, to Otto the First, Charles the Fifth, Napoleon to the Third Reich. And where Germany's dream and Italy's dream in the 1930s and 40s was driven by military might. A unified Europe that was crushed and that was subjected by military might. What came out of that was a unified Europe that was unified in a very different way. What came out of that was a unified Europe that was kept alive by economic policies that came from World War II. From the article European Union on the online Encyclopedia Britannica, the EU represents one in a series of efforts to integrate Europe since World War II.

At the end of the war, several Western European countries sought closer economic, social, and political ties to achieve economic growth, and military security to promote a lasting reconciliation between France and Germany. To this end, in 1951, the leaders of six countries, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany, signed the Treaty of Paris.

Thereby, when it took effect in 1952, founded the European Coal and Steel Community, ECSC.

The ECSC became the EEC that Britain joined in 1973. It became the EU in 1992 with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. From the ashes of Germany and Italy's plans for European domination came a unified Europe, just not in the way that Hitler and Mussolini saw it becoming unified.

It was unified through economic policy, not through military might. And brethren, this is the place where we find ourselves now. This is where we find ourselves now in biblical prophecy.

We are either in the midst of a continuation of the sixth revival of the Roman Empire, or if you consider that that sixth one ended with Hitler and Mussolini being defeated, and the new policies that came out are the seventh, we could be in the seventh as well.

Revelation 17, if you turn there, I'm gonna let you decide which one you're in, whether it's the sixth or whether it's the seventh. Revelation 17 and verse 12.

The ten horns which you saw are ten kings, similar again to the ten toes, ten kings, ten toes, right?

Who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and their authority to the beast.

These will make war with the lamb, and the lamb will overcome them, for he is lord of lords and king of kings, and those who are with him are called, chosen, and faithful.

The ten horns are ten kings that have not yet received power. They are of one mind, and they will receive their authority for a short time. It seems to indicate that these kingdoms don't necessarily have power at this time, but will receive power and authority from the beast, which again has been a part of this. Satan's been a part of this whole thing for so long, been a part of all seven, and is himself the eighth. But these will be kingdoms that are unified at the time of the return of Jesus Christ, that will make war upon the lamb. It's these kings who are among those that are begging for mercy when the wind hiding in the rocks, you know, asking for their lives to be ended, as we see there in scripture. Does this mean that there's going to be another revival of the Holy Roman Empire after this current incarnation of the EU, kind of a unification of church and state in Europe, where the member nations will be reduced to ten?

Or does that mean that the multiple nations that are there today will somehow be coalesced into ten regions, you know, regional powers that now have a degree of authority that weren't there before? It's hard to tell for certain. It's really difficult to tell for certain at this point with what we have to work with, but prophetically, all eyes are on Europe and on the Middle East, because it is in these places where these things are going to occur. Currently, the EU consists of 27 member nations, 27 member nations that are from both the east and the west side of the European continent, some that aren't even really European, technically North Africa, you know, some of them.

But these current member nations, they have power now. They have authority now. They've been raised now. Those ten final kings haven't yet received their power. You know, some of these nations are weak economically and militarily. You might remember the Greece debacle of a few years back, where Greece's economy just melted down, and the EU was going, do we just kind of get rid of these guys? Because this is kind of cramping our style. It's created a degree of friction among the member nations. There have been calls recently, within the last year, for a European Union standing military that would be made up of military members from all of the different European Union countries that would have a single standing army for the entire continent of Europe.

Interestingly, Europe is very secular today. What would it be that might drive them back to a relationship, in a closer relationship, with the Vatican? What would happen? What would have to happen for that to occur? You know, we know the king of the south pushes against the king of the north, and there's these machinations that occur. We know that that's going to come. Is that going to have an effect? Most certainly it will. Most certainly it will. Regardless, the United Kingdom's exit from the EU has shown other countries who have contemplated it as well that it can be done. And so, other countries that have been watching, kind of with bated breath, what happens in England, going, well, we might want to give this a shot ourselves. You know, some of them may go ahead and make their own push to get out as well here in the next few years.

We may see more exit. We don't know. Is it possible that the rest of the Israelite nations that are a part of the EU exit themselves? Certainly. Yeah, we don't know for sure, but certainly. We see from Jeremiah 30 and verse 7 that there's a time of trouble for the descendants of Jacob that has ultimately been prophesied. And we know that this time is going to be a time unlike any other time in history, as it talks about in Matthew 24. You know, it's difficult for the European Union to punish its own member while they're a part of the EU. It's not impossible, but Britain leaving the EU enables the time of Jacob's trouble to happen easier and simpler.

For the first time since 1973, three brothers are sovereign nations again. They're not part of the current incarnation of the Roman Empire. We have the two brothers that obtained the birthright blessing Ephraim and Manasseh. We also have Judah, who received the right of rulership that are in some ways on their own together against the might of the European continent.

And we don't know what's going to happen with regards to repercussions on England for leaving.

You know, will they be allowed to trade with the EU without exorbitant tariffs and other things?

Or will they? Will those in the United Kingdom have to turn to the United States as a trade partner back to their brother and forge that bond and that alliance even stronger? Again, we don't know.

But seeing all of this transpire before our very eyes, it's exciting. It's exciting. How will it all go from here? It's hard to say for sure. It's hard to say with absolute certainty. But I will tell you one thing we do know with absolute certainty is that if our spiritual preparation for this coming time is not where it needs to be, it will not matter one iota if we can identify all these players on the world stage. It won't matter. If we're not right with God, it won't matter.

We have to ensure that we're preparing spiritually. We have to ensure that we're repenting, that we're changing to become more like Jesus Christ with each passing day. But one of the one of the beautiful things of fulfilled prophecy is that it is an incredibly strong proof of God's existence, of his, you know, interest and his influence in mankind. He is fulfilling and has been fulfilling these things before our very eyes for quite some time. Thousands of years these prophecies have been fulfilled. Following the points forward from history as we go backward and see where these prophecies were and when they've been fulfilled, following it forward enables us to make a prediction that is more accurate in the future because it follows similar patterns.

It follows similar patterns. But it's really important for us to keep in mind the end destination of this journey is not a unified Europe. That's not the end destination.

Let's turn over to Daniel 2 to finish today, to close. Daniel 2.

Daniel 2 will pick it up in verse 34.

The end destination that God put in place is not a unified Europe. Daniel 2, verse 34, 2 says, you watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces.

Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, were crushed together and became like chaff from the summer threshing floor. The wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

Brethren, that's the goal. That's the end point of these waypoints. That's the destination of this journey, the kingdom of God. Let us all prepare accordingly in these momentous times and make our calling and our election sure.