Herbert W Armstrong

   But only Bible prophecies can tell you that. Bible prophecies tell you what is going to happen in general from here on out, not the details, but in general, and we can know a great deal about it. The Book of Revelation is the chief book of Prophecy in The New Testament. So, I would like to come now to the 17th chapter of Revelation, and that is one that tells about the final battle and the second coming of Christ Revelation 13 or Revelation 17, I mean, and first, I'll just read two or three verses here, verse three (Revelation 17:3).

   And incidentally, John who wrote the revelation. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him. He sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant, John, and John wrote it. Now, he wrote what he saw in a vision and it was all in symbol. And here is some of the vision that he wrote in the 17th chapter. So, he the angel that was revealing these things to him. And the vision, carried me away and the spirit or invasion into the wilderness. And I saw a woman set upon a scarlet-colored beast. Now that's a peculiar kind of an animal, a scarlet-colored beast.

   And here's a woman riding this beast and the beast is full of the names of blasphemy having seven heads and ten horns. Now, that certainly is a very peculiar type of a beast. But dropping down, I'll come back to some of this later. But I want to drop down now to verse 12 (Revelation 17:12), there were ten horns on this beast. It had seven heads and ten horns, and in verse 12, and the ten horns which thou showest are ten kings, kings or kingdoms, which have received no kingdom as yet.

   That is at the time of the vision. Now, it's not the time that the vision was revealed to the Apostle John, but the time that the vision is taking place and the vision was for the far future. In other words, it's for our day now. The ten horns which thou showest are ten kings or kingdoms which have received no kingdom as yet, but received power as kings one hour with the beast, with this beast, they have one mind and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

   Then they shall make war with the Lamb. Now here the Lamb is a symbol for Christ, Christ at his second coming. Now notice that they're going to make war with Christ and the Lamb shall overcome them for he is Lord of lords and King of kings. Christ has never been Lord of lords and King of kings. He will be the Lord of lords and King of kings at the time of his second coming. And Christ's second coming is not far away now.

   It's within the lifetime of most of us living now, I hope I may live that long, even myself. He is will be Lord of lords and King of kings and they that are with him are called and chosen and faithful. That is speaking there actually of the church. Now, that's a peculiar kind of a beast. But what do they mean by beast? And what is it a symbol of? The Book of Revelation is speaking in symbols and here it speaks of a rather weird beast. Well, that refers us immediately back to the 13th chapter of Revelation.

   So we have to go back there to learn a little more about this beast and what it is, now back then to the 13th chapter. And in verse one of the 13th chapter (Revelation 13:1), and I stood upon the sand of the sea. Now, John is speaking of what he seemed to be in, in the vision, he seemed to be standing on the seashore in his vision and he was speaking really of the Mediterranean Sea. I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea having seven heads and ten horns.

   Now, this seems to be referring to the same or certainly a similar beast of that in the 17th chapter and upon his horns, ten crowns. Now the crowns were not on the heads, the crowns are on the horns and there were ten horns coming out of the seven heads of this beast and upon the heads, the names of blasphemy and the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard. Now that becomes more weird than ever, it was like a leopard.

   It wasn't a leopard, but it had characteristics of a leopard and his feet were as the feet of a bear. He had the feet of a bear, the body of a leopard and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion. You see, he wasn't like a lion, he wasn't like a bear, but he had the feet of a bear. He had the body of a leopard and the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his seat and great authority. Now, you have to turn over to the 12th chapter to find out who, what the dragon represents.

   That is another symbol that represents something. And there, it will tell you the dragon is that old serpent called Satan, the devil, Satan, the devil gave him his power and his seat and great authority. Now, what do these things symbolize just what do they mean?

   Well, now we have to go back still further to understand because the Bible interprets its own symbols. And so, Daniel interprets these symbols. In the seventh chapter of Daniel, we begin to find a lot more about it. So, we turn immediately next back to the seventh chapter of Daniel. And that will describe this beast of the 13th chapter.

   So back in the seventh chapter of Daniel, beginning with the first verse (Daniel 7:1), In the first year of Belshazzar, the king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed. He was asleep in bed. Then he wrote the dream and told the sum of the matters, Daniel Spake and said, I saw in my vision by night and behold the four winds of heaven strove upon the great sea. Again, this is speaking of the Mediterranean sea and the Mediterranean Sea is very stormy in the late fall and the early winter, very, very stormy and four great beasts came up out of the sea.

   Now, he doesn't see one beast. He sees four different beasts you will notice coming up out of the sea diverse one from another, each one was different from the other. Now, the first was like a lion and I behold another beast a second like a bear that's in verse five. Then we skip to verse six. And after this, I beheld and lo and other like a leopard. Now it's beginning to resemble what we saw in the 13th chapter. The first was like a lion. The second like a bear. The third was like a leopard which had upon the back of it, four wings of a fowl. And this beast had also four heads and dominion was given unto it.

   Now, what could this beast be? Had four heads. Well, the lion had one head and the bear had a head, but the leopard had four heads. So now we have six heads so far and dominion was given unto it and that sounds like government or let's go further and see. And after this, I saw in the night visions and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly. And it had great iron teeth signified by iron, stronger than the other and it devoured and break in pieces and stamped the residue with the feet of it. And it was diverse from all of the others different from the others.

   Now, we read that the one beast had different characteristics in the 13th chapter, but we see the same things here that we see the lion and the bear, the leopard. And now we see a fourth beast and it had ten horns. Now, here are ten horns on the fourth beast. Now, the other beast didn't seem to have any horns. So, we see that the ten horns were on the fourth beast and I beheld till the Thrones were cast down. And the ancient of days did sit whose garment was white as snow and the hair of his heads were as pure wool. His throne was like a fiery flame and his wheels as burning fire and so on.

   Now, next, we come down, just skip down to the 17th verse (Daniel 7:17), these great beasts are wild animals which are four are. Now here we begin to see what they represent. What did the beasts of symbols? What do they represent? The 13th chapter didn't tell us the 17th chapter of Revelation didn't tell us. But here in Daniel, it does tell us they are four kings or kingdoms are four kings. And it's as we'll see later synonymous with kingdoms, which shall arise out of the earth.

   They arise out of the earth, the kingdoms or when he saw the animals arise out of the sea. But it says here the Saints in verse 18, the saints of the most high shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever and forever and so on. That was verse 18 (Daniel 7:18). Now verse 23 (Daniel 7:23). Thus, he said, the fourth beast shall be not fourth king but fourth kingdom. The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon the earth, a kingdom or government which shall be diverse from all kingdoms as these beasts were diverse or different.

   That is one from the other and shall devour the whole earth and tread it down and break it in pieces and the ten horns out of the kingdom out of the fourth beast are ten kings or other kingdoms that shall arise and another shall arise after them. And he shall be diverse from the first and shall subdue three kings. I haven't time to explain that right here, but that other beast has been explained. I skipped those verses here as another little horn among them and which is the woman riding on the beast in the 17th chapter of Revelation when you put them all together.

   Now, in verse 27 (Daniel 7:27), it speaks about coming to the end time in verse 26 and the kingdom and the Dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven is not in heaven, it was on the earth and the kingdom shall be given to the people of the saints of the most high will take over the government. But these governments had been ruling on the earth. The saints will take them over and all dominions shall serve and obey him, which is referring to Christ at his second coming. And the saints will be ruling under him as you will read in the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Revelation.

   If we overcome, we will sit with him on his throne. If we are overcomers, we will be given power over the nations and rule them with a rod of iron as you read in other places in the Book of Revelation. Now, then we know something about that these are kings and kingdoms and governments, but what kings, what governments are they? We still don't know, it doesn't reveal it here. We have to go back still further.

   Now, back into the second chapter of Daniel, we go all the way back into the second chapter of Daniel now, and Daniel was called on to reveal a dream to the then reigning king Nebuchadnezzar. Now there had been many ancient city-states. Then they became some ancient nations, the city-states, just cities that were governments in themselves finally became whole nations of which was Egypt, ancient Egypt. And, and there was ancient Greece and other nations of that sort.

   But the first world empire growing into a group of nations as an empire was formed by this Nebuchadnezzar along about 604 B.C. And he was ruling all up until about 580 B.C. And this Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the first world Empire had a dream. And Daniel, the prophet Daniel, one of the Jewish lads in the captivity who had been taken captive when Nebuchadnezzar and his army had overcome the kingdom of Judah in Jerusalem and conquered them and brought them as slaves in to Babylon and Daniel was a very brilliant young Jewish lad and was giving an important part in the government and they learned that somehow God revealed dreams and things to him.

   And so, he was brought in to this king, Nebuchadnezzar who had a great dream. He had called the fortune tellers and all those people in the kingdom in to tell him the dream. Of course, they couldn't tell him what he dreamed and he claimed he had forgotten and he was just testing them. But Daniel said there was a God in heaven that would reveal it to him. And so, he prayed to God for the revelation of the dream that this king had had. Now I come to this second chapter and verse 28 in Daniel where Daniel said before this King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 2:28).

   But there is a God in heaven who reveal secrets and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar. What shall be in the latter days. Getting down to our time now, the last days, you need that book that I mentioned a while ago. Are we in the last days right now? Because here is a prophecy about our time now in the latter days, thy dream and the visions of thy head upon thy bed were these. Now he went on to describe it.

   I will just say that he saw an image that was so great. It was so great. It was terrifying. It was so large and so great. And it had a great head of fine gold. It had a breast and arms of silver, a belly and thigh of brass. And it had the legs of iron, strong of iron and feet and toes, part of iron and part of miry clay, especially the ten toes on the feet. And the king had seen such evasion, but he didn't understand what it was. And Daniel came to tell him.

   So now we drop down to the 37th verse (Daniel 2:37-44). Thou, O king, Daniel said, to Nebuchadnezzar. Thou, O king art a king of kings for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom. He was a king of kings. In other words, a number of nations, there were other nations under him. It was an empire and not just a single nation. And he said, the God of heaven had given you a kingdom and power and strength and glory. Then he continues thou art this head of gold. Now we begin to understand the meaning of these symbols and after thee shall arise another kingdom or another world empire inferior to thee just as silver is inferior to gold, but silver is a little stronger than gold and militarily, it was going to be stronger, but spiritually or morally, it was inferior.

   And another third kingdom of brass again, still inferior morally or spiritually but stronger materially, and in military power, which shall bear rule over all the earth. Now, we know that's not some magic man coming to bear rule over the earth. This is the ancient kingdom of the Greco-Macedonian Empire and fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron. Now, we know what that was. That was the Roman Empire. There is no doubt about what that was and that was in verse 40. Now we come to verse 44 and in the days of these kings, which was speaking of the feet and the toes and the ten toes at the bottom of the two legs, of course, the two feet and the ten toes.

   And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever, and that my friends is the Kingdom of God and speaking of Christ, coming to set up and to rule the Kingdom of God. And so here we have it all the way through. So, you can see that Daniel saw it in four wild animals. The first was like a lion that was equivalent to the head of Nebuchadnezzar's image.

   And the second was the bear with the strong feet. And that was equivalent to the next kingdom that followed the Persian Empire. And the third beast that Daniel saw in the seventh chapter was like a leopard swift and fight like catlike, very rapid and fast. It was like a leopard and it had four heads. That was the Greco-Macedonian Empire.

   Now, Philip of Macedon died when he was just going to start a war. And his son Alexander, who became known as Alexander the Great took it up and he had the swiftest army that the world had ever known like a leopard. He came down and conquered the whole world. He died in a drunken debauch and he said he died in despair because there were no more worlds to conquer. He conquered all the world and he knew in those days, the whole world centered around the eastern Mediterranean as far as they knew in those days.

   And in his stead came up four divisions each headed by one of his four generals of his army. And that represented the four heads of Daniel's third beast like a leopard. And then the fourth beast that Daniel had strong like iron was the same as the Roman Empire, which followed that with the strength of iron and ruling the whole world at that time, ruling on the West, ruling all of the East on both sides of the Mediterranean Ocean as a matter of fact. And as far East as India.

   And so now we begin to get a little bit of a definition of just who these wild animals represent what they represent and they are representing political governments in this world. I wonder if you know that the gospel of Jesus Christ was suppressed within 21 or 22 years after he preached it, it had been suppressed and was not preached in the world until now. And Jesus Christ himself in the 24th chapter of Matthew was asked for a sign of his second coming as the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

   And he said this gospel of the kingdom, the government of God. It's the family of God, the born again family of God, not born again into human beings, but born again into divine beings. You see that which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the spirit said Jesus Christ is spirit and we are not spirit and nobody who is flesh and blood is born again or has been born again.

   But we have a lot of people, even a few million of them claiming to be born again now. And they are simply deceived that is not scriptural. It's not according to the word of God, flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. And the gospel of Jesus proclaimed was the Kingdom of God about a government. And we Christians and the church is merely the Kingdom of God being trained and having the Holy Spirit of God and learning the way of life of God, of God's way of life to be changed from mortal to immortal, from human to divine and to rule over all nations under Christ when he comes in his second coming to rule.

   That my friends is the gospel of Jesus Christ, which has not been proclaimed for 1950 years and is being proclaimed this minute in your ears and you're listening to it and it's time that we begin to heat it. Now, I want to go on a little further in this and in a little more detail in the Book of Revelation, we'll put that off till later.

   But meantime, that mysterious book of Revelation, it is unveiled now so you can understand it. And here I have a book that I'd like to offer to you. The Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last, I've read to you in previous programs. How in Daniel, the 12th chapter, the prophecy that was given to Daniel, which runs right along with the Book of Revelation was closed and sealed until the time of the end, when many would run rapidly to and fro like we do on automobiles and airplanes and every way of speed today and knowledge would be increased.

   Oh, what a time of increase of knowledge. But here, the Book of Revelation is open to our understanding at last and you can understand it and it tells of the events that are going to open up the way. Now I'm going to show you later that this beast of the 17th chapter of Revelation is a coming United States of Europe that is being formed right now. And that will bring on the great tribulation and that will end in the second coming of Christ, the end of this present civilization of this world and the beginning of the wonderful world tomorrow.

   You need this booklet on revelation. You need that book that I mentioned. You need this booklet, The United States and Britain in Prophecy. Where is the United States and Britain mentioned in Bible Prophecy? And specifically what's going to happen to us in this great tribulation is pending right now in the next few years. The only way you can know what is going to happen to us. Prophecy has been closed. It's unlocked in this book, The United States of Prophecy.

   And I'd like to send you a years subscription to the Plain Truth magazine, I mentioned that time and again, there is no cost, there's no subscription price to the Plain Truth. There's no charge for these booklets we want to give. We're not out to get. There will be no follow-up and request for money. I'd like to give it to you and all you do is send your request for those booklets to me Herbert W Armstrong Pasadena, California. That's all the address you need. Herbert W Armstrong Pasadena, California 91123. So, until next time, Herbert W Armstrong, goodbye friends.