The god of this age (7)

Rev 13 “¹And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. ²And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.”  So far we have seen how the man of sin was introduced into the church, first through false teachings (false prophet),

then he grew as one combating Christ (anti-christ). And when he managed to conquer the full power, he showed his claws and began to devour everything that tried to resist him (the beast). The devil gave this son of perdition his power and his throne and great authority, and no one could dare lift up his little finger against him. From that throne of the dragon, the beast subjugated the whole earth; he reigned as a true ‘MASTER OF THE DOUBLE ABODE’, a ‘MAN-GOD’, a ‘PONTIFEX MAXIMUS’, the ‘MOST HOLY FATHER’, the ‘INFAILLIBLE’ one. The false teaching was already well concreted, Christ who is the Word of Truth was thrown out (of the church), so the man of sin had no need to seduce or caress anyone to join, he could now coerce all children of men willingly or unwillingly .

Thus, already “in the year 380, Theodosius the Great and Gratian set an end to common religious freedom. At the II Ecumenical Council (381) the bishops sanctioned the edict of Caesar Theodosius I decree in February 380 in which all Roman subjects were challenged to receive the Christian trinity belief as it was formulated at Nicaea in 325 ... It became the state-furthered religion.” (E. Frank, Traditional Christianity - Truth or deception, P 28) K.D. Schmidt adds: “Every citizen from henceforth was obligated to be an orthodox Christian. Heathenism and heresy were declared to be a capital crime.” (Quoted by E. Frank, Traditional Christianity - Truth or deception, P 28). By heathenism and heresy we should understand all religious belief opposed to the Trinitarian faith. Jews who believed in one God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were heretics. Christians who kept the apostolic faith in the one God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob revealed among men in his only Son Jesus Christ were heretics. Muslims who were as monotheistic as Jews and Christians were also heathens according to this definition. These three groups were the legal criminals according to the edict of Theodosius.

The beast then had even power over conscience of man as Pharaoh in Egypt, as the Babylonian priest-kings, etc. We remember that three young Hebrew men were thrown into a fiery furnace as they honored their conscience by refusing to worship a statue. In the 6th century Emperor Justinian established priests as "civil servants" who were dignitaries provided with religious and political powers. The Bible was banned either in the church or in the homes of believers. Being caught in possession of the Bible or reading it was heresy. Mass was said in Latin, humans were Catholics in the loins of their fathers, at their conception, at birth and should thus receive their infant baptism, etc.  We can only note that whatever the Pope was pleased to introduce as dogma in the church, there was nothing that could stop him.

Let us try to have a close look on this beast comparing this chapter with other passages of the Bible. First we note that this beast of Revelation 13 unites in itself the marks of the first three beasts of Daniel 7: the lion, the bear and the leopard. In fact, it is the fourth beast that Daniel had seen and could scarcely describe, which is the fourth empire, the Roman Empire in which are combined all forms of paganism and bestiality that preceded to it since Cain, through Nimrod.

Daniel saw the four winds of heaven strive upon the great sea. The waters are explained in the 17th chapter of Revelation as peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues (v. 15). Historically these people concentrated around the Mediterranean Sea which suffered wars all around that involved the major world powers. And it is in the Mediterranean Basin that civilizations have overrun. This Basin covers Asia Minor, Europe and Northern Africa. It was after Rome's victory over Carthage (the success of 'delenda carthago' campaign) which assured him full control over the Mediterranean Sea (Mare Nostru) that Rome now imposed as a universal empire. We can note that from Babylon to Rome, through Egypt, Greece, etc., global hegemonic powers started from the Mediterranean Basin.

We find in the 17th chapter the explanation of the seven heads : “³So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.  ⁹And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. ¹⁸And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” In biblical language 'woman' symbolizes the church. Thus we find that this is a church that is both a city that has authority over all the earth, and this city is built on seven hills. And the Spirit says one needs intelligence which hath wisdom to understand: on earth there are at least four cities built on seven mountains/hills, Amman in Jordan, Bamberg in Germany, Sinati in the United States of America and Vatican in Rome. The first three remain unknown to the common man. Only Vatican fulfills both conditions: a city church, and in the same time a state whose authority is global.

We read about this beast of chapter 13 the following:  “³And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed.” We find the explanation of the seven heads in the 17th chapter “⁹...The seven heads are seven mountains… ¹⁰And there are seven kings…”  The beast is an empire that has within itself kingdoms or states, of which seven are leaders, including Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, etc. Of these seven heads, one is the center of the empire and was honorary styled ‘the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation’. Germany is at the center of Europe with political and geographical borders with the most countries and the east and west, it was the world capital of genius: the world has inherited of the German inventions, such as printing.

When the sword of the Spirit (Eph 6:17) sharper than a two-edged sword (Heb.4:12) was properly used by Martin Luther in the 16th century, Germany was divided into two religious blocks: Catholics and Protestants. The state religion which reigned alone in this leading European country received a mortal injury. After World War II, this country experienced another division, political division that led de facto to the division of Europe into two blocks separated by the Berlin Wall: blocks east and west. The deadly wound of this head was a fatal weakening for the whole beast.

The second part of this verse (Rev. 13: 3) indicates that all the inhabitants of the earth were in admiration for the beast. To see how the papal authority had almost completely been destroyed by Luther's Reformation supported by the German princes, which reform then continued and caused the revolutions of societies, mainly the French Revolution,   peoples releasing their consciousness from the yoke of the papacy, no one would ever have imagined that Europe could once again regain her unity she once had as Roman empire carrying on her back the harlot woman, i.e. the Roman Catholic church. But in June 1987 during his visit to Berlin, the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan before the walled Brandenburg Gate, where, strictly speaking, the division between east and west was represented, uttered these words: "Mister Gorbachev, open this gate, tear down this wall." Two years later it was done.

In the following until the ninth verses we read that the beast was given a mouth speaking arrogant words, he was given the authority to act for forty-two months, exactly three years and a half, and also that he was given to make war with the saints and to overcome them. These things relate to the end times, the last time of beast power wielding before his judgment: it will deliver a fierce war against the Jews for three and a half years. But this beast had received a mortal wound on one of his heads, and the wound was healed, but the scar remains. Hence, he is no longer efficient enough as he had been before his deadly wound to run by himself directly all the plans of the dragon, and another beast is needed to bring him a boost. This is the beast from the earth; it will introduce our next epistle.

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