THE
BOOK OF REVELATION
By:
Bertrand L. Comparet
Lesson
#9 Of A Series Of 14, Transcribed From Audio Tapes
Transcribed
By:
Clifton
A. Emahiser’s
Teaching
Ministries
Phone
(419) 435-2836
[Unless
in brackets, all of the message is by Bertrand L. Comparet.]
At this point, we arrive in our study of the Book of Revelation near the end of
Revelation chapter 11, just after the second woe is past. We will now read
Revelation 11, verses 15 through 19: “And the seventh angel sounded; and there
were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his
Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders,
which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art
to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And
the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that
they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the
prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and
shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. And the
What
you have to remember is – whenever you run into something in the Book of
Revelation, practically none of this is an instantaneous event. It is a process,
and when it says that this occurs at the sounding of the seventh angel’s
trumpet, it takes a couple of centuries or more to complete. Don’t look for it
as just one event, because it isn’t. Thus, we are brought to the point where the
seventh trumpet is sounded, and that merely opens the third and final of these
woes. Then, in the next chapter, which is the 12th, you come to one of those
parenthetical inserts. Remember, several times we’ve come to that same thing in
this book. It would progress on one particular phase of it to a point and stop,
and then go back to something else, beginning at a considerably earlier time and
carrying on through that period. That’s what you have here, one of these
flashback inserts to see what’s been going on a long time before. We’ve been
studying what amounted to a prophesy of the break-up of the Roman Empire – its
division into three parts, and here the northwestern part, amounting to the
European Roman Empire; the African southern part, including Egypt and perhaps
Palestine; and then the northeastern part – Syria, Asia Minor and the Balkan
nations that were still under the rule of the eastern Roman Empire of
Constantinople.
It
has been a study of what’s been happening to the “beast” empires. But, what was
happening to
Remember,
Joseph as a boy became quite unpopular with his eleven brothers because he kept
getting dream visions of his own importance, and he liked to remind the others
of it, with the natural consequences thereof. Hence, in Genesis 37, verses 9 to
11, it tells us that: “And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his
brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun
and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren:
and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed?
Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to
thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the
saying.”
Quite
obviously the symbolism which
This
again confirms the
Revelation
12, verse 6: “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place
prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.” Now you find more
utter rot written about the Book of Revelation than about anything else, because
it does take some study to understand it, and these “one verse” Bible experts
try to explain it all in terms of the one verse they know, especially the people
who want to lay all evil solely at the door of the Catholic “Church.” There’s no
question about it, the Jews infiltrated and corrupted the Catholic “Church”, and
they led it to do a lot of terrible things which it has plenty to answer for,
but when you try to say that the one who tempted Adam and Eve was one of the
Popes, and that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because the Vatican was there,
in order to blame everything on the Catholic “Church”, in doing so they’re just
getting their religion all mixed-up. Hence, you have to guard yourself on the
Book of Revelation, especially so you don’t apply everything to the Catholic
“Church.” [See note #2 at end of
lesson.]
This
twelve hundred and sixty days means, of course, on the prophetic scale, twelve
hundred and sixty years. There is also a twelve hundred and sixty year period in
connection to the rule and fall of the papacy – their loss of power, at least.
But this is a different twelve hundred and sixty prophetic days. We know that
the path taken by
They
reached the Baltic areas much earlier, and the Visigoths’ migration into
Continuing
with Revelation 12, verses 7 to 12: “And there was war in heaven: Michael and
his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And
prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great
dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which
deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were
cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come
salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his
Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before
our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by
the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye
that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the
devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath
but a short time.”
This
can only be a flashback to a still earlier time. The expulsion of Satan from
heaven had occurred prior to the lifetime of Yahshua the Christ, because in Luke
10, verse 18, He stated, “And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning
fall from heaven.” That was something already accomplished. As a matter of fact,
we have pretty good circumstantial evidence that that was accomplished before
the sending of Adam here, because Adam was sent here to kick Satan out and take
over power as the governor of the earth. Considering this reference to “...
rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them”, in Revelation
“heaven” or “the heavens” is used sometimes as symbolic of the
Therefore,
in the
Revelation
12, verses 13 and 14: “And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth,
he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two
wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place,
where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of
the serpent.” I forget for the moment the citation where the verse is, but you
remember Yahweh said to
You
had the Visigoths moving down through north
There
is one thing, though; the terms “dragon” and “serpent” had been used
interchangeably as a representation of Satan and his family, his children.
Even
earlier still, Isaiah 43, verse 19: “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall
spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way (or a path) in the
wilderness, and rivers in the
desert.”
Isaiah
41, verse 1: “Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength ...” Remember now, when
they got to
Isaiah
42, verse 4 – it’s one of the series of verses speaking of Yahshua the Christ:
“He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth:
and the isles shall wait for his law.” Remember, king Alfred the Great was the
first great law giver in
Then
resuming again with the 12th chapter of Revelation at verses 15-16: “And the
serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might
cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and
the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out
of his mouth.”
Significantly,
in the first place, the people of
Then
when the Medes came in, the Scythians were allies of the Medes. The allied
Scythian-Median armies conquered
Hence,
here were these floods of people. Remember that the terms “sea” or “waters” or
sometimes a “river” are always symbolic, in the Book of Revelation, of these
masses of non-Israel people. They were moving out, crossing over into
Then,
in the late 300s you had the march of the Huns from far eastern
However,
the great bulk of the Ostrogoth migration had gone up the Danube valley and gone
on up and settled on the Baltic shores, and
That
turned out to be the Huns’ high-water mark on their way to the west. They were
turned back by that defeat and went back, yet Attila – who had once been talked
out of capturing Rome (as one of the popes persuaded him to take a big tribute
bribe and spare the city) – Attila went back to (it would be Austria where his
forces were) to plan a new invasion of Italy, and then he
died.
He
had, as his forces, a conglomeration of wild, lower grade savage tribes, and
each tribal leader, while he was willing to subordinate his own authority to
that of the leader of the horde, Attila, but with Attila gone, each tribal
leader said “Well, now you’re not going to put one of these other little tribal
leaders over me; I’m as good as he.” So nobody could re-establish the power of
that horde of the Huns. With their power broken up, most of them drifted back
eastward into
We
comprehend then, “the earth swallowed up this flood of waters that the dragon
poured out trying to carry away the woman,
Moving
over now to chapter 13, verse 1 of Revelation, we come to a completely new
theme: “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.” We see here the dragon had seven heads and ten
crowns; so obviously the beast with seven heads and ten crowns is another phase
of the same thing as the dragon. You can see that they are similar in their
principal and purpose. John goes on to say in verse 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 throne, and great
authority.” You’ll remember it was in Daniel where we had the start of this
business of beasts symbolizing empires.
Daniel
7, verses 3 to 7, he’s telling his vision: “And four great beasts came up from
the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings:
I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the
earth, and made to stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to
it ...” I’ve told you before of the different words having different meanings,
which have all been translated “man.” There is the Hebrew word aw-dawm, from a root meaning of a ruddy, fair complexion, and
therefore the white race. There is the Hebrew word ’iysh, literally a male person and
therefore applicable to a man, whether white or otherwise. There is also the
word enôwsh, whose root meaning is
mortal and which implies weakness, either physical or spiritual. It’s always
used in a rather derogatory sense in the Scripture. In practically all of your
translations, even the good modern ones, these distinctions are lost because all
three of those words are indiscriminately translated “man.” Now, this man’s
heart that was given to the lion, that was the Chaldean word enash, which is from the same root of
the related Hebrew word enôwsh.
Daniel, you will remember, interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the great image
or statue. The head of gold was Nebuchadnezzar’s
By
way of confirmation, Daniel was given his own vision of these four beasts. The
first of these – the lion – is
The
bear was the Medo-Persian Empire, as it raised itself up on one side. You had
the two nations, the Medes and the Persians, but the Persians became dominant,
inasmuch as the one side was raised up more than the other. It had three ribs of
the prey in its mouth – the Medo-Persian Empire conquered and overthrew three
other empires – Assyria,
[Revelation
13:3-4:]
“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. 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?” This is one of these seven heads of the beast –
wounded seemingly of a fatal wound and yet the deadly wound healed. Ironically,
these so-called Bible experts are able to see that the one head of the beast
being talked about here is the
Actually,
it was the western Roman Empire that was destroyed – wounded unto death. They
say, however, the power of the papacy developed after that, so that’s the
healing of the deadly wound of that head. It’s nothing of the sort. It is not a
healing of the wound of the old head because the
As
soon as this composite beast rose out of the sea, it proved to be the whole
world mass of non-Israel people. It showed that they were all essentially the
same in their beastly character – violent, brutal, totally lacking in spiritual
understanding. The western Roman Empire, while it maintained the name Roman –
and remember, that after the capital was moved to Constantinople, that part of
it still called itself the
Essentially,
the
In
800 A.D., Pope Leo the third crowned him emperor of the Romans. Thus, you now
had a military and political western Roman Empire restored. Even the name.
Hence, the deadly wound of the head was healed. That was the first time the Pope
had managed to get any king to accept his crown, and it became the basis for the
claim, later maintained by the papacy, that they had the right to make and
unmake kings at will. Then you’ll remember, at Revelation 13:4 it said: “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?”
In
all this time, the papacy had no army to speak of. But Charlemagne was a very
brilliant general. He overran the Saxon peoples of
Speaking
not simply of
this one head, but of the beast, this whole composite system of empires was in a
process: as one was rising to power, another declined and fell. Revelation 13,
verse 5, says: “And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and
blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.” This is where it is
talking about the rise of the papacy, not the same head that was healed, but a
part of the beast system. Of course, the papacy has unquestionably maintained
blasphemous claims, indeed. They say that the Pope is the successor to and
substitute for Yahshua the Christ. His official title, Vicarius Filii Dei, is “A Substitute for
the Son of God.” Yes, that’s the literal translation of it, one who takes the
place of and acts as a substitute for the Son of God. He claims to be the
successor to Christ, having taken over all the power of Christ and Yahweh. He
could, by his own whim, consign anybody to hell, no matter how good he was, or
to heaven, no matter how evil he was, just as the Pope saw fit. In fact, there
are certain of the official documents of the
The
first real consolidation of the power of the Pope came about 606 A.D. From then
on, the power of the papacy continued to rise. The pope gradually took over a
large part of the
Here
again, this pretty definitely identifies the papacy. All European Christianity
was gradually brought under the domination of the Catholic “Church.” It became,
as far as any organized “church” was concerned, the “church” of all
Then
at Revelation 13, verses 9 and 10: “If any man have an ear, let him hear. He
that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that kills with the
sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the
saints.” The
You
will remember that Napoleon was an outgrowth of the French Revolution. He
started as an officer in the Communists’ army, but he saw what utter chaos and
confusion their silly Communism was. He was a very capable man and he had the
backing of an army. Because of some brilliant military victories, they put him
in military command and gave him high office. With the backing of the army, he
declared himself emperor of the French. For him, Communism was ended and
displaced. Then he started out on a general conquest to extend his empire as far
as he could. Among other places, he took over
Therefore,
he that leads into captivity has to go into captivity. He that killed with the
sword must be killed with the sword. You will note in that period of wars that
started then, beginning with the French Revolution and following, they had
frightful wars in the basically Catholic countries, the Latin countries of
CRITICAL
NOTES ON LESSON #9
Comments
by William Finck initialed W.R.F.
Comments
by Clifton A. Emahiser in brackets in lesson text as “your
transcriber”
or
initialed C.A.E. in critical notes.
Note
#1:
Comparet
speaks at times of the Germanic tribes as if they alone are Israelites. If that
were so, we would have no epistles to Romans or Greeks in our Bibles, and there
were already Israelites in
Note
#2:
It
is here at Revelation 12 that Comparet should have related the “man of sin” of 2 Thes. 2, and the
“antichrists” of John’s epistles also, to the Edomite Jews (i.e. Rom. 9:1-13 and
John 8:30-47) rather than to any pope (see note #7, at Lesson #8). W.R.F.
Note
#3:
Comparet’s identification of the 1260 years of Rev. 12:6 here is quite
arbitrary, and several 1260-year periods may be contrived from Israelite history
and our treks into Europe (via various paths) to explain the imagery here
related. I may even state that if the 1260 years isn’t fulfilled before the
invasion of the Huns, then the Huns cannot be – as Comparet would have them –
part of the flood of the serpent of Rev. 12:15. More likely candidates which may
be identified with the flood of the serpent are the Arab invasion into
Yet
another avenue must be investigated here, however, where it must be noticed that
the woman who fled into the wilderness bore her child: He destined to rule all
nations, before she fled, and so here the woman may symbolize not merely the
“lost tribes” themselves, but the true Christian “church”, established in
Ireland circa 37 A.D., which brought the Gospel to Britain and Scotland, and to
many of the Germanic tribes of the Continent, before it was sold out by English
kings and absorbed by the Roman “church” in the 13th century. W.R.F.
Note
#4:
I know not that it is proper to say that Adam was “sent” here, but rather Adam
was created here, of organic material native to this planet, as Genesis attests.
Only Adam’s spirit is not of this world. W.R.F.
Note
#5:
Not all of the Scandinavian countries so quickly or firmly took up the cause of
Protestantism. While today
Note
#6:
The “sea” is certainly not representative of only non-Israel people. “Again, the
kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered
of every kind. Which, when it was full, they drew to the shore, and sat down,
and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away” (Matt. 13:47-48). And
so the “sea” is representative of the mass of people in general – Israelites or
not. Well into the Christian era, most of the people of the “Roman world” were
Israelites or related Japhethites, and it wasn’t until after the first and
second woes – the conquests of the Arabs and Turks – that Adamic people became
the minority – or even disappeared – from most of the Mediterranean regions. W.R.F.
Note
#7:
One other place in the Bible where “eagle’s wings” are used in this symbolic
manner is Ezekiel chapter 17, and many Israel Identity scholars identify the
twigs of the cedar which this “great eagle with great wings” carried off to the
“good soil by great waters”, the “high mountain and eminent” (Ezek. 17:3, 7-8,
22) as the flight to Ireland by Jeremiah, who took the daughters of the king of
Judah with him (Jeremiah 43:1-7) via Tahpanhes in Egypt. This same language
being used to describe both events seems to support the idea that the “woman” of
Rev. 12 may represent the infant “church” and its coming to
Note
#8:
While Comparet does well in explaining that the deported Israelites in their
travels into
Note
#9:
It seems from the accounts of the historians (notably Strabo, 11.13.5, Diodorus
Siculus 2.43, and the chronology of Median kings given by Herodotus) that
Nineveh actually fell during the same 28 year period that the Scythians of
Sacasenê (Strabo’s Armenia) were ruling over the Medes, where Herodotus says
that the Scythians “became masters of Asia” (1.102-104). W.R.F.
Note
#10:
The invasion by Cyrus the Persian into “Scythia” was beyond the Araxes river,
into
Note
#11:
The people called “Scythians”, or by the Persians “Saka”, were rapidly spread,
from their beginnings in Media, into many fragments and over a great deal of
territory, and were never a single unified political entity. There actually were
many Scythians who had settled in the east, such as those of
Note
#12:
The homelands of the Khazars and Turks are certainly the lands known as
“Khazakhstan” and “
Note
#13:
Note that the Huns seem to be among the first four trumpets which mark the fall
of the European Roman empire, and not the last three trumpets, the three “woes”
that come upon Europe after the fall of
Note
#14:
If indeed the Huns were a part of the flood from the mouth of the serpent, as a
mongol people would be, then were the Goths, Israelites, away from the face of
the serpent for 1260 years? On the surface, it seems to me that these two ideas
should not coexist, and must be investigated more thoroughly. W.R.F.
Note
#15:
Sicily and southern Italy, once called Magna Graecia, were settled originally by
Greeks and Phoenicians, and all through the classical, and for most of the Roman
period, were inhabited by fair, Adamic people. The dark races of these areas
came first from the multitudes of slaves imported by the Romans, many of which
were Arabs, Egyptians or from elsewhere in
Note
#16:
It is apparent that Isaiah 43 is a perpetual assurance, mostly applicable to
end-time prophecy, and not speaking specifically of
Note
#17:
While Comparet is correct concerning the meaning of enôwsh, the word is not
“always used in a derogatory sense”, although it often is,
especially when contrasted to adam.
See Strong’s Concordance under “man”
at 1 Sam 5:11; or under “men” at Genesis 43:15-33 for contrary examples. W.R.F.
Note
#18:
Much of Daniel and the Revelation overlap. Daniel 8:9 ff. is a prophecy of
Mohammedanism which correlates with Revelation chapter 9. Daniel chapter 2
discusses the “beast empires” up to the fall of
Note
#19:
The Roman Empire was indeed a religious power, for it operated an approved State
religion by which the Emperor was also “Pontifex Maximus”, the ultimate
religious authority in the State who declared other religions as either to be
tolerated or to be banned and persecuted, and who also designated ‘gods’ (often
himself as ‘god’) and ordered their compulsory worship. Decrees banning
Christianity and Druidism were issued as early as the reign of Claudius I, 41-54
A.D. Surely all of this represents religious authority! Here, I must say that
Comparet’s poor interpretation of the two beasts of Revelation chapter 13 is
tainting his account of history. W.R.F.
Note
#20:
Daniel chapter 2 describes the succession of the “beast empires”, the same
entity discussed in Revelation 13:1-10, and at 2:38 Daniel says that
Nebuchadnezzar’s vision would rule “wheresoever the children of men (Hebrew:
Adam) dwell.” This succession of empires ruled over Adamites, including
Israelites, and not over “the sea ... of non-Israel people”, as it has already
been shown – in the parable of the net –
that there are many “good fish” in the “sea”! W.R.F.
Note
#21:
The government of the Catholic “church”, with its pope (emperor), college of
cardinals (senate), archbishops and bishops (local and regional governors) and
clerics (the Greek word klêrouchos
was originally one who held an allotment
of land and a klêrouchia, the allotment of land to citizens in a
foreign country - Liddle & Scott) is a close duplicate of the Roman
government of the empire, which over time the Catholic “church” certainly did
restore to a great degree and which reached its height when the popes began
crowning the kings of Europe. The “
John,
in Revelation, dates the duration of the succession of beast empires (which
Daniel does not date in chapters 2 or 7), at Revelation 13:5, to 42 months, or
1260 years. This period of time had to begin with the Babylonians and ended with
the fall of Rome in the 5th century A.D., since this beast has – and
as Comparet admits – the same attributes and so must be the same beast as that
described at Daniel 7:1-7. And so the
The
Babylonian empire of Nebuchadnezzar was begun by a predecessor, Nabonassar circa
747 B.C., and 1260 years brings us to about 514 A.D. As is evident, this is 40
years after the accepted date for the fall of
Note
#22:
Elsewhere, such as in his discussion of the seven “churches”, specifically that
of Pergamos and the later “churches”, Comparet illustrates the degree of power
which the popes had achieved over the kingdoms and peoples of
Daniel
describes
Note
#23:
Here, with an understanding of the phrase Vicarius Filii Dei, there should be no
longer any contention over the identity of the second beast, and for the
following reasons:
Ÿ
It
is a title long claimed and used by the popes themselves.
Ÿ
It
is in Latin, the official language of the
Ÿ
The
value of its letters, in Roman (Latin) numerals, is equivalent to the sum given
us to recognize this beast, at Revelation 13:18, or “six hundred and sixty
six.”
While
there have been many attempts to identify the “666” of this passage with men and
kingdoms and entities, none are so plain and profound as this one. The papacy,
each pope in succession, is clearly this second beast.
Upon
calculating the total values of these letters which have a value, in the phrase
Vicarius Filii Dei, one may realize
that the unused letters, those having no value in Latin, are f, a, r, s and e.
It often seems that Yahweh, creator of languages, certainly has a sense of
humor. W.R.F.
Note
#24:
Comparet here admits the 1260-year duration of the papacy, but assigns him the
“42 months” which Revelation allots to the first beast. Comparet fails to
connect Daniel 7:24-25 to Revelation’s second beast. Reconciling Daniel 7 and
Revelation 13, and both with history, we can see that each beast (the succession
of empires and then the papacy) had a duration of 1260 years, and since then the
Anglo-Saxon people have been self-governing, and have also had world military
and trade hegemony. (Daniel 7:27). W.R.F.
Note
#25:
The natural reading of the Greek of Rev. 13:8 is well reflected in the A.V.
rendering of the verse, and the alternative reading offered by Comparet here
violates the structures of grammar in the Greek sentence. The phrase in Greek
which reads here “of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world” is all in
the Genitive case, bracketed by a Greek Article, and therefore is a single idea
which should be represented as a unit, and not broken up into segments in
translation, for the phrase cannot justly be manipulated to suit the whims of
the translator. W.R.F.
Note
#26:
Each of the two beasts had the power “to make war with the saints” (compare Rev.
13:7, 12 & Daniel 7:21, 25). Remember that only 144,000 of the sons of
Note
#27:
Napoleon fought equally destructive wars against the British and the Prussians,
and in his disastrous invasion of
Critical
note concerning Comparet’s greatest error in this series of
lessons:
THE
JUSTINIAN-POPE CONNECTION
Though
Comparet does quite well in many areas of the prophecy of the Book of
Revelation, he made a major error by not identifying the second beast at
Revelation 13:11 being identical to Daniel 7:24-26. We cannot condemn Comparet
completely, as the history identifying Justinian with the Pope is difficult to
find, even for those who have a good understanding of history. There may be some
who will criticize William Finck’s note #’s 18 through 24 above, but once this
history of the connection of Justinian and the Pope is presented, one will be in
a position to grasp the link. Basically, Justinian was the one who fulfilled the
prophecy at Daniel 7:25 inasmuch as he updated and codified Roman law, and
Justinian also subdued three kings at Daniel 7:24. All one need do is check with
almost any encyclopedia on Justinian. But the encyclopedias do not have the
entire story. I will now present the history surrounding the connection of
Justinian and the Pope. I will take my documentation from Uriah Smith’s book Daniel and the Revelation “entered [copyrighted] according to Act of Congress in the year
1897”, pages 321-329. And because there is not enough space here, I will give an
abbreviated review of the historical facts cited by him, mostly in
paraphrase:
In
the year 508, Arthur, king of
By
508 (same year as Arthur above), paganism and the “church” had merged and became
Catholic gaining strength and began a successful war against the civil authority
of the empire and the “church” of the East which had embraced a Monophysite
doctrine. The extermination of 65,000 so-called heretics was the result. Among
the supporters of paganism was
The
little horn that had eyes like the eyes of man was not slow to see when the way
was open for his advancement and elevation. From 508 on, his progress toward
universal supremacy was without parallel. In 533, Justinian was about to wage a
war of great magnitude and difficulty against the Vandals. In doing so, he
wished to secure the influence of the bishop of
Near
the close of the 6th century, John of Constantinople rejected Roman supremacy,
and assumed for himself the title of universal bishop; whereupon Gregory the
Great indignantly denounced John, declaring him “Antichrist.” In 606, Phocas
took sides with the bishop of
But
the struggle for the Goths was not over. Rallying their forces, they resolved to
retake the city by siege March, 537. Fearing treachery on the part the people,
several senators, along with Pope Sylverius, on suspicion of treason were sent
into exile, and the emperor commanded the clergy to elect a new bishop. After
solemnly invoking the Holy Ghost, says Gibbon, they elected the deacon Vigilius,
who, by a bribe of two hundred pounds of gold, had purchased the
honor.
Assembling
at
Thus,
the Gothic horn (the last of the three) was plucked up before the little horn of
Daniel 7. Nothing now stood in the way of the pope preventing the exercising of
his power conferred upon him by Justinian five years previous. The prophecy of
Daniel 7:24-26 had been fulfilled, setting in motion the 1260 years that the
power of the Pope (666) would continue as sovereign.
THE
FOLLOWING IS TAKEN FROM MY WATCHMAN’S
TEACHING LETTER #53,
Which
In Turn Excerpts Lesson #12:
With this
lesson (#12), we are going to continue the study of
“24 And the
ten horns out of this kingdom are ten
kings that shall arise: and another
shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall
subdue three kings. 25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and
shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws:
and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of
time.”
BEFORE
WE GET DONE WITH THIS LESSON, WE WILL FIND
WHAT
THIS PASSAGE IS, AND WHAT IT IS NOT!
First of
all, we are going to skip the subject of, “And the ten horns out of this kingdom
are ten kings that shall arise”, as it is a subject all in itself. It would take
an entire lesson just to cover it. (As of
lessons #49, #50 and the present lesson #53, that “subject” is now being
addressed.) The part we are going to concentrate on is: “... and another shall rise after them;
and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he
shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of
the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into
his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.”
To start
this discussion on this passage, I am going to quote from William V. Fowler’s
book, End Time Revelation, page
127:
“To identify
the ten horns of the fourth beast which was the Roman Empire, one has but to examine history which
records that ten kingdoms arose after A.D. 476 in the western half of the
“And he
shall speak great words against the Most High,
and shall
wear out the saints of the Most High, and
think to change times and laws (verse 25). Justinian’s best known work
was as a codifier and legislator. He greatly stimulated legal studies, and set
up a commission under Tribonian which issued the codex, the digest, and the
institutes. (Originally introduced in Dec. 534 A.D., and completed in 538 A.D.).
The second edition of the codex contained Justinian’s own laws known as the
Novels (Novellae Constitutions). One need only read the utterances of Pope
Innocent III in the thirteenth century and his immediate successors to recognize
the fulfillment of speaking ‘great words against the Most High.’ Study the
history of the Inquisition with its massacres, martyrdoms and every kind of
persecution to substantiate this interpretation. (See Halley’s Bible Handbook, chapter on
Church History.)”
This is one
of the key passages “futurists” use to prove a future so-called
Antichrist and a three and one half year period of tribulation, along
with the so-called mark of the beast. If our people understood history,
they wouldn’t be falling for such nonsense. All that futurist bunk was dreamed up by a
Spanish Jesuit by the name of Ribera about 1580 A.D., and no one before that
time ever heard of such a doctrine.
The
important thing to notice with this passage, is that we are looking for a king
of a kingdom who subdued three other kingdoms of our people during his reign.
You will also notice we are looking for a king, who, during his reign had a very
strong impact upon writing and managing laws. You will notice Justinian fits
both of these qualifications. As we go along, the picture of the fulfillment of
this passage will start to come into focus. I will now quote from The World Book Encyclopedia, volume 11,
page 168 to get further insight on this subject:
“JUSTINIAN
I, jus TIN ih
un (A.D.
482-565), was the Byzantine (East
Roman) emperor from A.D. 527 until his death. He collected Roman laws under one
code, the Corpus Juris Civilis (Body
of Civil Law). This code, also known as the Justinian Code, is the basis of the
legal systems in many nations today ... Justinian was called The Great. He recaptured from
barbarians many parts of what had been the
“Justinian
was born in a part of
“In the
early 530’s, Justinian began a series of wars against the Vandals, Ostrogoths, and Visigoths, who had conquered
most of the
“JUSTINIAN
CODE. Justinian I,
ruler of the eastern
“The
scholars who compiled the Justinian Code divided it into four parts. The Institutes served as a textbook in law
for students and lawyers. The Digest
was a casebook covering many trials and decisions. The Codex was a collection of statutes and
principles. The Novels contained
proposed new laws.”
You will
notice in both of these quotes, three kingdoms were taken by Justinian.
William V. Fowler records them the same as The World Book Encyclopedia, except for
the Alemanian which The World Book
Encyclopedia calls the Visigoths.
The Alemanni and Visigoths are different tribes of the same people, so there
is no problem here. Justinian was corrupting the church and the state with his
law code, so we will not completely understand this passage unless we look
further. To see how all of this happened, I will quote from the book, Study in Daniel, by Howard B. Rand,
pages 182 and 183:
“Having
discovered the identity of the four beasts; let us now note the meaning of the
little horn which Daniel saw arise from among the ten horns on the fourth beast.
The ten horns represent subdivisions in
the
“The little
horn that arose among the ten, which was diversified from them, pulling up
three, is none other than Justinian at the head of the Eastern [Roman] Empire at Constantinople. History reveals that
he subdued three of the ten kingdoms which were established in the Roman Empire
after the fall of Imperial
Again, I
will take you to Watchman’s Teaching
Letter #12 of April, 1999 to show you the connection between Justinian and
the popes of the Roman Catholic Church. This is an interesting perception, for
the popes gained their state-political authority by Justinian’s Law
Code.
What we are
talking about here is an ecclesiastical-political power with the combination of
Justinian and the Pope. That is why this new ecclesiastic-political beast is diverse from all the beasts that were before
it, Daniel 7:7. I will now quote
from Howard B. Rand’s book, Study In
Revelation, page 44:
“Upon the
ruins of the ancient Roman Empire there arose, gradually, a new and different
type of Empire, which became all the more powerful because it claimed
control over the souls of men as well as their bodies, and extended its dominion
beyond this life into the grave. History has amply verified these facts and that
the Popes claimed the right to temporal power, taking the place of the Caesars,
while the
Then quoting
on page 49 from this same book: “
538 A.D. TO
1798 A.D. = 1,260 YEARS, NOT 3½ YEARS
Let’s go
back to our original Scripture of Daniel 7:24-25 and pick up the sentence
concerning this period of time: “and they shall be given into his hand until a
time and times and the dividing of time.”
This
sentence is used by futurists as a basis for their postulation of a future three
and one half year tribulation period, when a so-called Antichrist will set up
his kingdom after a so-called rapture. Some futurists call for a seven year
tribulation period. As I told you before, the futurist theory was dreamed up by
a Spanish Jesuit priest by the name of Ribera, about 1580 A.D., and the teaching
had never been heard of before that time. It has a long and sordid history, and
I don’t have space here to go into much detail on the subject. But this portion
of Scripture quoted immediately above is one of the basic passages they use, out
of context, to support their theory. By showing you the true historical meaning
of this passage, I hope to drive a nail into the coffin of this doctrine so it
will stay dead forever. What could be more of a tribulation than 1,260 years and
100,000,000 violent deaths, mostly of our people? Some estimate as low as 60
million, but it is still a lot of people. This is the legacy of Justinian and
his law code, along with the
EXAMPLE OF
LACK OF INSIGHT ON DANIEL 7:20-26
Now that we
have covered this prophecy of Daniel 7, let’s take a look at some comments from
The Bible Knowledge Commentary on
this passage found in vol. 1, page 1355. While there are some positive remarks
by this source, other statements are deficient, lacking any understanding. As I
quote an example here, compare it with the evidence:
“The
amillenarian view that the ‘little horn’ has already appeared sometime in the
past (but since Christ’s First Advent) is wrong because: (a) no such ruler has
attained worldwide status (7:23), (b) no such ruler has subdued 3 of 10 kings
who were ruling at once (v. 24), (c) no such ruler has persecuted Israel (v. 21)
for three and one-half years (v. 25), and (d) no such ruler has been destroyed
forever (v. 26) by Christ’s return. Nor could this ‘little horn’ be the Roman
Catholic papacy because: (a) the ‘little horn’ is a king, not a pope, (b) the
papacy’s power has not been limited to three and one-half years, (c) the papacy
has not concentrated on persecuting the nation Israel, and (d) the papacy has
not been destroyed by the return of Christ to the earth.”
My answers
to these blatantly false statements by The Bible Knowledge Commentary, edited
by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck of the Dallas Seminary Faculty are: Yes, the “little horn” of Daniel 7:8
did appear in the past, represented by Justinian, and continued through the
Roman Catholic papal system! Yes,
the “little horn” did attain worldwide status in the prophesied Roman world! Yes, Justinian did subdue 3 out of 10
kings! Yes, the Roman Catholic papal
system did persecute Israelites of Anglo-Saxon and European descent! Yes, that prophecy was for a
prophetic-3½-years, or 1260 actual years! Yes, that papal ruler lost his power in
1798 A.D., and will be totally destroyed at the Second Advent! Yes, the papacy represents the “little
horn” of Daniel 7:8! Yes, the
papacy’s power did continue for a prophetic 3½ years or 1260 actual years! Yes, the papacy did concentrate on
persecuting European, Anglo-Saxon and related “Israelites” during that period!
And, Yes, while the papacy did lose
its ruling power, it will finally be totally destroyed at Messiah’s Second
Advent!
How true is Matthew 15:14 and Luke 6:39, that if the blind lead the blind, both will fall in the proverbial ditch. Not only are there blind leaders of the blind in the Jew-deo-unchristian churches, but there are blind leaders of the blind in the Israel Identity movement. A good example of blind leaders leading the blind in Israel Identity are those who deny the Two Seedline message of Genesis 3:15. That puts the responsibility for the truth squarely upon ourselves, for Scripture implores us to “... study to show thyself approved ...”, 2 Timothy 2:15. This concludes the excerpt of WTL Lesson #53 Clifton A. Emahiser.