Bible Warns of Apostasy and Persecution: Birth Pang 6

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

In our continuing series on Apostasy and Persecution, we covered Birth Pang #5 last time, which was a one-world government or globally unified system of governance. We noted that this will come about because it is foretold in God’s Word in numerous places. We also noted that we need always to remember that God will allow these things to happen because He is giving Satan every opportunity to become “like the Most High,” as he promised he would in Isaiah 14. Incidentally, though Satan said these things in the “privacy” of his own heart (Isaiah 14:13), God heard them even there. This of course tells us that nothing we do, think, or say, is ever done in secret even when we are completely alone, separated from all other human beings. God is always present, always hears, and always sees.

So Satan made his promises in his heart of hearts, but God heard. God chose to not only do something about it, but chose to allow it to all become a public spectacle that the entire universe would see. By the time the Tribulation begins and the Antichrist (Satan’s spiritual son) rises to the top as final world dictator, the last phase of Satan’s plan will become visible for the entire world to see. The world will also view Satan’s downfall as well.

What we see (or will see, for those who are living during the time of the Tribulation) in this realm will only be partially observed because a great deal of it will be going on behind the scenes, in the spiritual realm. Nonetheless, Satan, Antichrist, and False Prophet – the Unholy Trinity – will be destroyed by God and that will be a public spectacle that the entire universe will see and verify. Satan will be brought down in defeat. This is what it’s all about.

It’s not that God doesn’t have control or that He somehow has to fight with all His might against Satan and if He did not, we would see worse things. It’s not that at all. It is God allowing Satan to have room to bring his Isaiah 14 promises to fruition. God is giving Satan the opportunity only to destroy his works with the entire universe as the audience.  But let’s move on from Birth Pang #5 to see how we get there.

Birth Pang #6 speaks of ten kings or ten rulers. It is interesting and raises a question as to why the world becomes a unified global system of governance first, only to be divided into ten sections, ruled by ten individuals? Let’s look at the text first, Daniel 7:24.

The ten horns mean that ten kings will arise from that kingdom.
Another king will arise after them, but he will be different from the earlier ones.
He will humiliate three kings.

That of course is from the Old Testament and here is Scripture from the New Testament that speaks of the same thing, Revelation 17:12-13.

11 The beast that was, and is not, is himself an eighth king and yet is one of the seven, and is going to destruction. 12 The ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but will receive ruling authority as kings with the beast for one hour. 13 These kings have a single intent, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. 14 They will make war with the Lamb, but the Lamb will conquer them, because he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those accompanying the Lamb are the called, chosen, and faithful.”

The text from Daniel asserts that ten kings will arise from the final version of the fourth kingdom, first spoken of in Daniel 2. Notice though that “another king” will rise after them, but he’s different, not really like them. He will “humiliate” three of the ten kings. We see an enlarged picture of what all this means in the passage from Revelation quoted above.

Here in Revelation, we are told that the ten kings are waiting to receive their kingdom and will rule for “one hour.” This could very well signify a “short” term of rule, not that it exactly means one specific hour. Writing from John’s perspective, please remember that Revelation was likely written around AD 95, which means he couldn’t have been writing about Roman Emperors since the power of Rome was already somewhat declining, compared to what it had been. Nonetheless, we don’t need to be dogmatic about this. The truth is that the Oligarchy or Elite being used by Satan now to move this world toward a global dictatorship as the final version of a Revised Roman Empire will be broken up into ten sections for easier control. This doesn’t mean that the final world empire will be broken into ten parts, each ruled by a king who does his own thing.

The reality appears to be that once the world becomes a globally unified government, it will simply be divided up into sections with one “king” over each section, but all will be on the same page. That is, until Antichrist comes along and he will come along very shortly after the world becomes one. It will be at this point that he will see his opportunity, step up, “humiliate” three of the “kings” and the rest will be in fear of him and will serve him as supreme leader.

Earlier verses in Daniel 7 explain more of this “humiliation” from Daniel 7:24.

8 “As I was contemplating the horns, another horn—a small one—came up between them, and three of the former horns were torn out by the roots to make room for it. This horn had eyes resembling human eyes and a mouth speaking arrogant things (emphasis added).

Note the part I’ve italicized. Most conservative scholars believe this references the fact that the “small horn” (Antichrist), will kill three of the original ten kings. Because Antichrist comes up among them but is not one of the original ten, he is the eleventh, but after he kills three kings, he becomes the eighth. This is the reference above in Revelation 17:11 where it refers to the “beast that was, and is not, is himself an eighth king and yet is one of the seven.” He only becomes one of the original seven because he eliminates three of the original ten.

Understand then that as our world is currently being moved toward a one-world, final global dictatorship, God is allowing it for His purposes. He has every plan to hold Satan up to public and universal ridicule by proving that Satan has absolutely no power against God.

But the Elite are blind to Satan’s (and certainly God’s) plans! They are working so hard behind the scenes to unify the world that they are not aware that once they bring the world together in its final global empire form (though they fully expect themselves to be the ones to rule; ten of the most important and powerful men of the Elite families), the Antichrist will step up at that point and literally take over, according to Scripture. The Elite will have done all the hard work but at the right time, Antichrist will waltz into the situation and take control. He will use fatal force to win his point.

Because Antichrist will be so imbued with Satan’s full power (and his unflinching murder of three kings), the remaining seven kings will shake before him in abject fear. They will really have no choice because they will clearly understand the power under which Antichrist operates. They will fall in line and do his bidding, even joining with him at the end of the Tribulation in an attempt to keep Jesus from physically returning to this earth.

We’ll talk more about the rise of the Antichrist in our next installment, Birth Pang #7.

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective