by Wayne Blank

 Beginning in 1939 at the start of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler, with Germany under his absolute control, took on all of the rest of Europe, and Britain, and Russia, and north Africa, and Canada, and others, and (after 1941) the United States of America - and he came a lot closer to winning than many people realize. All with Germany alone. The next "Hitler" is going to have the many-times-greater-than-Germany-alone European Union at his command - a population of over 350 million people in modern, highly educated, highly industrialized nations, with a conventional and nuclear military on the superpower level - only the United States of America will be a match for their unified economic and military might.

With all due respect to the German official who criticized that British anti-euro campaign ad recently, those who truly know their history are very concerned about what's rising up in Europe, again, as it has numerous times before, not just (relatively recently, on a European historical time scale) during the Second World War. More so, those who correctly know their history, and their prophecy, have all of the alarm bells going off in their minds as they witness the ominous rising up of the EU.

There is in Britain today, a present, or future, Prime Minister, who is going to be making a very similar speech to the nation as was made by Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the darkest days of the Second World War (Churchill's mother was an American; today a U.S. Navy warship, an Aegis guided-missile destroyer is named the USS Winston S. Churchill after him, and the present U.S. President, George W. Bush, who said that Churchill "reminds him of a Texan," has a bust of Churchill in the Oval Office). An excerpt from that historic, or should I say, prophetic, because it's going to happen again, speech:

"Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous states have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all of the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight in the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. And even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all it's power and might steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old."
Winston Churchill to the House of Commons, June 4 1940

How Can We Know That?

In the prophetic book of Daniel and we read of a dream that an ancient Babylonian king had of a great statue which was very awesome and magnificent in appearance. The meaning of the dream was made known by God (Daniel 2:23) through the prophet Daniel. The statue represented the progress of humanity's worldly kingdoms from ancient times right to the future return of Jesus Christ.

What Did King Nebuchadnezzar See?

"You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its breast and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it smote 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, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth." (Daniel 2:31-35 RSV)

God Interprets The Vision

"This was the dream; now we will tell the king its interpretation. You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, and into whose hand He has given, wherever they dwell, the sons of men, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air, making you rule over them all - you are the head of gold."

"After you shall arise another kingdom inferior to you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things; and like iron which crushes, it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw the feet and toes partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom; but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw the iron mixed with miry clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay."

"And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand for ever; just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold."

"A great God has made known to the king what shall be hereafter. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure." (Daniel 2:36-45 RSV)

The Actual Flow Of History

The head of gold is easy to understand - the Bible narrative itself clearly states (Daniel 2:36-38) that it represents the Babylonian kingdom under King Nebuchadnezzar, who conquered Jerusalem and carried the Jews, including the prophet Daniel himself, off into captivity.

 What about the rest of it? This is not difficult - the facts of history are very clear.

After the Babylonian "head of gold" came the Persian empire. The Persians under their various kings, including Cyrus who allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem, swept away the Babylonian empire in 536 B.C. They are the "chest and arms of silver".

After about 2 centuries of dominance, the Persian empire was swallowed up by the Greeks under Alexander the Great. Many consider Alexander to be the greatest military commander of all time, taking vast areas from southern Europe, across the Middle East and deep into southern Asia, all while a relatively young man. He reportedly died in his early thirties after a night of partying. The Greeks became the "belly and thighs of bronze".

After the Greeks came the Romans, the "legs of iron." The Romans took the areas that the Greeks had, plus nearly all of the rest of Europe, including Britain. The Roman empire was of course dominant during the time of the New Testament. History records that the Roman empire "fell" in the fifth century after Christ, but Bible prophecy says that it would experience a number of revivals, which indeed it did as the so-called "Holy Roman Empire," and will one final time in the near future - this time known as the European Union.

The "Holy Roman Empire"
Britain Was Never A Member, Always A Victim

Europe has had a long and fascinating history. A very large part of all that has happened on the continent, over the many centuries, has been the result of the relationship between two very powerful and influential rulers. Sometimes they were steadfast allies, at other times they were bitter enemies, but together the Germanic kings in north-central Europe, and the Roman Catholic Popes at The Vatican in Rome (and elsewhere) eventually formed the "Holy Roman Empire."

 The empire called itself "Roman" because it claimed succession to The Ancient Roman Empire, and "holy" because it held control over mainstream European Christianity. It was as much political as it was religious - the church was the state.

On February 2, 962, Pope John XII crowned Otto I as the Holy Roman Emperor. When Otto succeeded his father Heinrich (Henry) as German king in 936, the people raised their right hand to show approval and shouted "Sieg und heil" ("victory and salvation"). Most historians view 962 as the beginning of what would later officially be known as the Sacrum Romanum Imperium Nationis Germanica ("the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation") - the First Reich.

The octagonal imperial crown of the Holy Roman Empire, made especially for the coronation of Otto, became the very symbol of European unity for centuries to come. In recent years, Otto von Hapsburg (whose ancestors were some of the Holy Roman emperors, and whose oldest son, Karl, is the now the potential heir to that heritage) called attention to the possible role of that crown of the Holy Roman Empire in the European Union - which will actually be an extremely powerful reawakening of the old Europe.

Popes and Emperors Always Together

Over the centuries, there has been a see-saw struggle between the German, or Austrian, Holy Roman emperor and the Pope as to who was the actual ruler of the empire. To summarize their respective claims of superiority:

• The Popes claimed leadership by saying that the empire was merely the political arm of the church, established and maintained by "God and the Papacy." Under this arrangement, the emperor was answerable to the Pope who could dispose of the king at will - a situation that actually occurred a number of times.

 

• The Imperial Frankish theory claimed that the emperor had the leadership (which fits exactly with the prophecy of end-time events) because the "divine" emperor (some of the emperors actually claimed to be God - absolute blasphemy) had a direct responsibility to God, and that the Pope was merely the emperor's "prophet" between God and the empire. The emperors claimed the right to appoint or dispose of popes at will - a situation that also actually occurred a number of times.

Although the popes and emperors often were in competition for control, they were always allied. Their individual power was based upon, and greatly enhanced by, the other e.g. when Britain rejected the papacy during the time of King Henry VIII, it was "Europe" that sent the Spanish Armada against Britain for the pope.

"Emperor"

Emperor is derived from the Latin word Imperator, who was a supreme "imperial" ruler over an "empire." Emperors were not merely the rulers of their own country, but also ruled over the rulers of other countries (a human "king of kings"), a political situation known as "imperialism." The kings of the ancient Roman empire were the first to be designated as emperors.

Imperator was originally used in Republican Rome (up to 27 B.C.) as a title for a conquering military leader, however it was adopted by the Roman monarchy, beginning with Octavian (who defeated Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C.). Octavian is better known to Christians as Caesar Augustus - the Roman emperor who called that famous census that resulted in Jesus Christ being born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:1). The term Caesar came to mean the same as emperor.

After the apparent "fall" of the Roman empire in 476 A.D. (it fell, but it didn't die - it was just wounded), the title of Imperator, or Emperor, was resurrected on Christmas Day in 800 A.D. when Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish/German ruler Charlemagne emperor of the western leg of the Roman empire. Two days earlier, Charlemagne had Leo restored to the papacy, after Leo had been deposed for adultery, perjury and simony, among other things. In effect, Charlemagne and Leo crowned each other.

The German title Kaiser is derived directly from the Roman title Caesar. Germans have played a major role in the history of Europe, and the cyclical "rise" and "fall" of the Roman empire. It was the Germanic warlord Odoacer that "wounded" the Roman political empire in 476; it was the Germanic Charlemagne that brought about the temporary revival of the title of emperor in 800; it was the German king Otto I who is regarded as the founder of the so-called "Holy Roman Empire" (which was actually officially called the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation") after Pope John XII crowned him in 962 (Otto's was the "First Reich," Otto von Bismarck's was the "Second Reich," and Adolf Hitler's was the "Third Reich"); and it was the German Roman Catholic priest Martin Luther that "wounded" the Roman church, and its version of Christianity, after 1517.

Although emperor has been used to designate other great political/military rulers in the world throughout history (e.g. in China, Japan, Ethiopia), the Roman and Germanic emperors are the ones that are directly referred to in Biblical prophecy, and of them, most particularly one end-time emperor is going to be the most wicked and powerful dictator of all time. The prophetic beast refers variously to either, or both, that emperor and his empire.

The thirteenth chapter of the book of Revelation is the account of two end-time world leaders, one a great political and military emperor, the other a great religious leader, who, while allied together, will conquer, or deceive into surrendering to them, most nations on earth. In the end, they will both be cast alive into the lake of fire by Jesus Christ when He returns.

The Satan-Empowered "Beast"

"And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems upon its horns and a blasphemous name upon its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth followed the beast with wonder. Men worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?"

"And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months; it opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming His Name and His dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven."

Persecution Of True Christians

"Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and tongue and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, every one whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain."

"If any one has an ear, let him hear: If any one is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if any one slays with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints."

A Great Religious Leader Who Will Deceive The World
With Satan-Empowered Signs And "Miracles"

"Then I saw another beast which rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. It works great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of men; and by the signs which it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast, it deceives those who dwell on earth, bidding them make an image for the beast which was wounded by the sword and yet lived; and it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast should even speak, and to cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name."

"This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six." (Revelation 13:1-18 RSV)

The Fate Of The "Beast" And His "Great False Prophet"
After They Attempt To Fight The Returning Jesus Christ

"And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against Him who sits upon the horse and against His army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had worked the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur. And the rest were slain by the sword of Him who sits upon the horse, the sword that issues from His mouth; and all the birds were gorged with their flesh." (Revelation 19:19-21 RSV)

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