The Stages of The final Empire…the West in Prophecy pt 4

Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.  This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,  His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.  Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. ( Daniel 2:31-34)

The Pagan king of Babylon had a dream, granted by the Spirit of the true and Living God, which showed him the future succession of Gentile Powers which would have varying degrees of custody over the chosen people,Israel, until the time of the restoration of Israel at the coming of the Messiah.

Babylon would be the golden age of Gentile power, a short 70 plus year span of time. Medo/Persia would be the second phase of Gentile dominance over the Holy People. The massive Persian Empire (Silver age)would be replaced by the lightning fast Grecian Empire under Alexander the Great. That would be the Brass age of Gentile Dominance.

Eventually the Grecian Empire crumbled and was replaced by the final Iron Empire, the longest lasting one, and one which occurs in distinct phases, the Roman Empire and all that flowed out of it.

The Holy People languished under the rule of Despots, benevolent Persian rulers, the terrible times oppressors such as  in the days of of Antiochus Epiphanes. There would be rebellions , which never totally threw off the yoke of Gentile domination, there would be Pagan appointed Priests and Governors, Rule by Caesars, and Edomite appointees over the Jews such as the Herods.

Eventually , under the Romans, The Temple of God was destroyed in 70 Ad, vast numbers of Jews were slaughtered and the great international diaspora of Jews occurred, in fulfillment of the warning of Moses,

“If you do not keep and observe all the words of this Law…You will be torn from the land which you are entering. God will scatter you among all the peoples,
from one end of the earth to the other.” ( Dt.28:58-64)

This was performed by the Romans, as was the crucifixion of the Messiah. The Jews were scattered across the World, and the Romans held custody of the land God gave to Abraham Isaac and Jacob.

God showed Daniel that the last Empire would be divided, “two Legs” and so Rome was, between the Eastern Empire (Constantinople, i.e. Byzantium) and the Western Roman Empire in Rome.  Western Rome fell to barbarians but the mantle was passed from the Caesars to the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. The former western Roman Empire was succeeded by the Catholic church which heartily involved itself in pograms and persecutions of the Jews from time to time.

The capitol of the Eastern Empire, Constantinople, did not fall for another 1000 years, but its hold over the Levant was wrested bit by bit from the time of the emergence of Islam. The Holy land went from one heir of the Roman Empire(Byzantine) to another, (the Islamic conquest of the Middle East).

As the centuries passed, the legs of the east and western Roman Empire, developed,, side by side, through the Byzantine, Roman, Papal and Islamic centuries, the scattered Jews and the Holy Land remained under custody of Gentile powers as Daniel swain his visions.

Eventually in the years 1914-1919, the Western World entered into its greatest calamity, World War 1. So called “Christendom ” fell in upon itself in wanton slaughter, dragging  colonies and allies into the maelstrom of killing, which took place on an industrial scale. Liberal Theology had long been hollowing out the faith of many in Europe,England and the Western New World, but World War 1 became a watershed for Europe in the sense that much of the continent lost its faith because of it.

One consequence of World War 1 was the transfer of the Holy Land from the Ottoman,(Muslim) Empire, into the custody of Britain. Britain possessed the Palestinian Mandate for almost thirty years, ruling over the Land of Israel, and over the Jews who had begun to trickle back into the Land. This continued through the second , devastating extension of the World War, the defeat of theNazis and their Muslim Allies, and the opening up of the death camps in Europe, and the release of Europe’s surviving Jewry.

Eventually the State of Israel was born, in 1948, but Israel has still remained very much under Western and Gentile rule and influence,  relying on European and then American aid and friendship. The Birth of the State of Israel in fulfillment of the Hebrew prophets, indicated that the end of the time of the Gentiles was nearing. All of the Prophecies of the second coming presuppose that Israel is a nation again.

One of the final stages of Daniel’s vision, are the stage of the feet, which are composed of “iron mixed with clay”, two elements which are unbindable, therefore weakening. The Iron of the strong, wealthy and successful models of the Western Civilization rooted in Greco Roman and Judeo Christian soil , is destined to be fatally weakened, (by an infusion of incompatible peoples,The Immigrant crisis?) such as we see today with the infusion of Muslim hordes.

There will yet be a “ten Toes” phase, composed of “ten Horns”(Powers), and “Ten Kings” out of which will arise a Prince, let ‘the Prince to come’, of the same people who last destroyed the Temple in 70 Ad, spoken of by Daniel the Prophet,

 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.(Daniel 9:26-27)

It will be in the time of the ten Kings, and at the time of the emergence of ‘the little Horn’ (AntiChrist) that the Stone (King Messiah) shall come from heaven and shatter the statue, and establish the Kingdom of God on earth. Maranatha!