The Beast (URL)
Let's look at John Darby's future "The" "Antichrist" "beast" "that man of sin" and "little horn" hermeneutically, beginning with the term "beast" - that preterists peg to be 1st century Roman ruler Nero. In one of Daniel's prophetic dreams we find the figures of:
Daniel 7:3 And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.
Daniel 7:4 The first [was] like a lion, and had eagle's wings...
Daniel 7:5 And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear...
Daniel 7:6 After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard...
Daniel 7:7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly...
Through the traditional historicist approach, tens of millions of Jews and Christians understand those figures of lion, bear, leopard, and fourth "beast", to have been fulfilled through the succession of the ancient kingdoms of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and the Roman Empire, because Daniel's prophecy offers such detailed descriptions of those kingdoms that were to gradually unfold over hundreds of years in his future. Googling "babylon, medo-persia, greece", even in quotes, nets over a hundred thousand results. Daniel's prophecy also defines the term "beast" when used in the context of the figurative language of a prophetic dream or vision:
Daniel 7:23 Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth.....
Through an adjacent hermeneutic we discover that the only other place those figures are mentioned together in scripture is in Revelation 13, but as a composite "beast", and with the order reversed perhaps because Daniel's prophecy was forward looking toward the fulfillment of those kingdoms while John's prophecy was looking back through time after they were fulfilled.
Revelation 13:1 And 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. 2 And 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. 3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. (Daniel assigns the masculine gender to his kingdom "beasts)
The seven heads being seven successive kingdoms that we will explore, and ten horns perhaps being the ten Islamic Caliphates, as will become more apparent. The dragon, Satan, gives this "beast" his "seat". The false prophet Muhammad's Islamic kingdom occupies the same geographical area, as Daniel's successive kingdom beasts did - lion/Babylon/Iraq, bear/Medo-Persia/Iran, and leopard/Greece/Syria-Lebanon. Which we will also explore further.
Revelation 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who [is] like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
Revelation 13:4 And they worshipped the dragon.....
Followers of the jealous fallen angel, through his "messenger" Muhammad, deny the Son of God and reject His crucifixion and shed blood as articles of faith in the false prophet Muhammad. They prostrate themselves toward the Quraish pagan's black stone idol at the Kaaba in Mecca five times a day, while praying in the "vain repetitions of the heathen" in the names of the Arabian pagan deity "Allah" and his "messenger" Muhammad. Believing the stone to have been sent down from heaven, for them to hold as sacred, just as the Quraish did before Muhammad. They also engage in thinly veneered pagan Arabian moon, sun, star and jinn-devil worship rituals, that Muhammad adopted from his tribe the Quraish and adapted to fit his new religion. Following is a picture of the Quraish pagan's Kaaba, located in the southwest Arabian desert, about 1200 kilometers away from THE Holy Land of the prophets and patriarchs.
.....which gave power unto the beast:.....
Satan gives power to Islam through western wealth transfer in development and purchase of the petroleum lifeblood of western consumption and waste driven economies, that turn a blind eye to greedily financing the enemy of all mankind - Islam - and immorally empower the very beast that has been the persecutor and oppressor of God's people for 1400 years, that is commanded to subjugate all mankind to Muhammad's followers.
.....and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who [is] like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
Just as Muhammad's followers boast, and as the world has witnessed for decades and continue to in Afghanistan, who indeed is able to make war with the Islamic beast? With Islamic blasphemy replacing the Gospel during this "falling away" in "post-Christian" Europe, and Iran on the verge of having the nuke, with the Taliban biding time until the U.S. cuts and runs to take over Pakistan's nukes. Who indeed is able to make war with a beast that wears civilian clothing and launches rockets from among the general population. An ununiformed army that IS the general population, since all Muslims are expected to engage in jihad or die as hypocrites.
Quran Sura 9.111 Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Qur'an: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah. then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme.
Of course patently false regarding the Gospel binding anyone to "fight and slay", since the Gospel commands us to love and bless our enemies, but it is "a promise binding on" all of Muhammad's true followers "in the Quran". Chapter 9 being second to last in order as recited by Muhammad, thus abrogating all prior contradictions, particularly from his early Mecca drivel such as "no compulsion in religion".
"Summarized Sahih Al-Bukhari" footnotes page 580: [1] "Al-Jihad (the holy fighting) in Allah's Cause (with full force of number and weaponry) is given the utmost importance in Islam and is one of its pillars (on which it stands). By Jihad Islam is established, Allah's Word is made superior, [His Word being La ilaha ill-Allah (which means: none has the right to be worshipped by Allah] and His Religion (Islam) is propagated. By abandoning Jihad (may Allah protect us from that) Islam is destroyed and the Muslims fall into an inferior position; there honour is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim, and he who tries to escape from this duty, or does not in his innermost heart wish to fulfill this duty, dies with one of the qualities of a hypocrite."
Middle East nukes may give one pause to contemplate some Old Testament Prophecy:
Zechariah 12:9 And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. 10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for [his] only [son], and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for [his] firstborn.
Zechariah 14:12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
Joel 2:30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Strong's:
and pillars
Old Testament Hebrew Definition:
08490 tiymarah {tee-maw-raw'} or timarah {tee-maw-raw'}
from the same as 08558; TWOT - 2523d; n f
AV - pillar 2; 2
1) pillar, column
1a) palm-like spreading at top
The ruler of Iran, Achmed Ahmadinejad, who is about to have nuclear weapons in his possession, believes it's his responsibility to create a period of murder, mayhem and misery unprecedented in human history, to usher in the 12th Imam or Mahdi, with absolutely no interest in the casualties to be numbered among his own people in such a suicidal effort.
Now remembering John's assignment:
Revelation 1:19 Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;
So we are to consider the "world" from the point in time of John's 1st century. Employing this ethnographic hermeneutic, we recognize that bible prophecy isn't about New York City, but about the Holy Land and God's people. In Revelation 17 John details a history of the succession of all kingdoms - the seven "heads" of the "beast" - from the beginning of mankind to this present day, from the perspective of John's 1st century "world":
Revelation 17:10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, [and] the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
As we'll discover later the term "beast" and "king" are interchangeable in this passage, and we can easily assign individual kings, as representative of each kingdom "beast". Tens of Millions of Christians identify the first six of these "kings" as:
"And there are seven kings: five are fallen,.....
Lion
Bear
Leopard
.....and one is,.....
Daniel's 4th "dreadful" kingdom "beast", the Roman Empire, that ruled in John's day as the "one" that "is" to John.
While millions of Christians agree with the identities of those first six "kings", they then go on to throw out hermeneutics and the historical record, because it doesn't fit in with John Darby's end-time boogeyman. Willy-nilly switching from kingdoms to a man. But what does history tell us about the next king, through a consistent hermeneutic, within the traditional historicist approach?
.....[and] the other is not yet come.....
The historical fact of the matter is that the Roman empire of John's day, was later conquered by the Islamic First Jihad, which took Jerusalem in 639 AD. Thus Islam is this seventh "king" and the seventh "head" of the leopard-bear-lion beast.
.....; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
The Islamic First Jihad lasted a relatively short 152 years (five prophetic "months" in day-year language as suggested in Revelation 9) during which it conquered and subjugated nearly the whole known world, before being turned back by the Battle of Tours France, as date pinned mathematically by Daniel's "1335".
Revelation 17:8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
Characteristic of the "beast" that "was" to John's "whole world" before the Roman Empire (Greece/Medo-Persia/Babylon - the leopard-bear-lion composite), were pagan empires that persecuted and oppressed God's people while guided by Satan, and thus were of the "bottomless pit". The Roman Empire began as a pagan empire and in John's day did it's share of persecuting Jews and Christians, however it eventually embraced and even advanced Christianity (though unfortunately to a lesser extent the "ecclesia"), and the persecution of God's people subsided.
.....shall ascend out of the bottomless pit,.....
The Roman Empire was eventually conquered by the false prophet Muhammad's Islamic empire that was and still is guided by Satan, and thus ascended out of the bottomless pit, and just as those pagan empires before the Roman Empire - the false prophet Muhammad's kingdom beast has persecuted and oppressed God's people since the 7th century. The "dar al Salaam" VS the "dar al Harb". The "house of peace" VS the "house of war". If you are a non-Muslim you are in the "house of war", and while you may not be at war against Islam, Islam has been at war against you for 1400 years!
Muhammad's followers commanded to subjugate the world, to prostrating toward the Quraish pagan's black stone idol in the southwest Arabian desert five times a day, and engage in thinly veneered pagan Arabian worship rituals.
AP - December 06, 2006 MOGADISHU, Somalia - "Residents of a southern Somalia town who do not pray five times a day will be beheaded, an Islamic courts official said Wednesday, adding the edict will be implemented in three days."
How's that for tribulation? It might help some western Lazy-Boy chair reclined John Darby styled futurists, overcome suggestion that great tribulation is reserved for the future, if they booked a vacation to anywhere in John's "whole world" outside of that protected by the democracy of the Jewish State of Israel.
.....and go into perdition:
Revelation 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet [are], and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Muhammad's Islamic Empire as the seventh "head" of the leopard-bear-lion beast, the Islamic First Jihad being "wounded to death" in the Battle of Tours, but "his deadly wound was healed" by western wealth transfer in oil purchase. Western nations financing the Islamic Second Jihad in the image of the Islamic First Jihad. Jihad is the pinnacle of worship in Islam.
Would Isaac Newton would have missed this if he were here today?
"….. the Beast that was and is not, being wounded to death with a sword, he is the eighth, and of the seven: he was therefore a collateral part of the seventh." - Isaac Newton
Whether you agree or disagree with this exegesis does not change the matter of fact, that the succession of kingdoms detailed here is not idle speculation or guesswork theology, but rather concrete matters of historical record.
The "two horned beast" of the Crusades and British Mandate held power for brief spells, but always "before" or "in the presence of" the Islamic LBL beast. Please visit BeholdTheBeast.com for a verse by verse exegesis of Revelation 13.
