Posted on 06/22/2007 10:49:14 AM PDT by pacelvi
What Is The Seventh And The Eight Empire?
"This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while. The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction. Revelation 17:9-11"
Before we procede, I wish here to acknowledge someone who has greatly contributed to my understanding of this issue. His name is Walid Shoebat. He is a former Palestinian terrorist and is the author of Why I left Jihad. I highly recommend this book. It may be ordered through his web site at www.shoebat.com
Beyond the above identification of the nations of Ezekiel 38, the Book of Revelation also confirms the notion that indeed the region of Turkey will be the head of the future Antichrist Empire. Let’s examine these passages from the Book of Revelation:
There I saw… a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. Revelation 17:3
Here we see the final “Beast” empire of the Antichrist. The Beast is seen to have seven heads and ten horns. We already know from the Book of Daniel that the ten horns represent the ten nations or kings that will comprise the Antichrist Empire. But the seven heads are seven empires that have existed throughout history that all have been foreshadows of the final empire that is to come. As usual, whenever a prophecy is given in the Bible that may be difficult in its symbolism, the Bible clarifies the symbolism and explains the passage for us:
This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for a little while. The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction. Revelation 17:9-11
Now the seven heads are called seven mountains. The Bible often uses mountains as a symbol representing a kingdom or an empire. But most importantly this passage gives us insight into the fact that before Jesus returns, there will actually have been a total of eight “Beast” empires. The eighth empire will be ruled by the Antichrist. How can this passage help us gain insight into the identification of the final Antichrist Empire? First, we see that at the time that it was written to John, five of the empires had already fallen. This is seen in the phrase, “five have been.” These empires are generally accepted by Bible teachers as being the following:
The Egyptian Empire
The Assyrian Empire
The Babylonian Empire
The Persian Empire
The Greek Empire
After these five, the angel tells John that one empire “is.” At the time that John wrote the Book of Revelation, Rome “was.” It ruled the Middle East, Northern Africa and much of Europe. Thus the sixth empire was the Roman Empire. The next empire, of course, is the seventh, and then the eighth will be the empire of the Antichrist. So the seventh empire is the empire that we need to identify. Because according to the verse above, it is the eighth empire that will be a resurrection or a revived version of the seventh empire:
“The beast who once was, and is not, is an eighth king.”
Let me just paraphrase this portion for clarity:
“The seventh beast (empire) that existed, but then did not exist, will come back as an eighth empire.”
So if we are now waiting for the final eighth empire, then what was the seventh? What empire followed Rome?
Because of the harsh anti-Semitic nature of the German third Reich, some Bible teachers have speculated that Germany was the seventh empire and thus Germany will come back as the eighth. 11
The most common belief however, held almost universally by Bible teachers, is that the Antichrist Empire will be a revived Roman Empire. There are however some glaring problems with this theory: Firstly, Rome was the sixth empire. If Rome was the sixth, and will also be the last, then what happened to the seventh? This theory has a gaping hole. Is Rome the sixth, seventh and the eighth empires? Neither Scripture nor history nor common sense supports this. Secondly, every one of the previous six empires ruled the Middle East, including Jerusalem. This is very important. We must always remember that the Bible is thoroughly Jerusalem centric. It is not America centric, nor is it Western centric. In the biblical view of things, Jerusalem is the center of the earth. This point cannot be underscored enough. Any theory that revolves around a revived Roman Empire based in Europe - for instance on the European Common Market - is a foreign concept to the Bible. Unless the empire rules over or directly affects Jerusalem, it is actually a bit irrelevant to biblical mind-set.
And the third crucial point is that if we look at the first six empires, each succeeding empire either destroyed or absorbed the empire that preceded it. There is a very natural sucession. If we look at each empire, we see that they all fulfill these two characteristics: they ruled over Jerusalem and they defeated or absorbed their predecessor. The Egyptian Empire ruled all of Egypt and Israel as well. But the Assyrian Empire defeated the Egyptian Empire and likewise ruled over a vast portion of the Middle East, including Israel. After this, the Babylonian Empire defeated the Assyrian Empire and became even larger than its predecessor, again, ruling over Israel. Such is the pattern with each successive empire: The Medo/Persian Empire succeeded the Babylonian Empire only to be succeeded by the Greek Empire. The Greek Empire was in turn suceeded by the Roman Empire. Which leads us to the seventh empire. Who overcame the Roman Empire? In order to answer this question, we need to briefly review the fall of the Roman Empire. What exactly happened?
In 395 A.D., The Roman Empire was divided into two portions; the eastern and the western portions. The Eastern portion became known as the Byzantine Empire. In 410 A.D. the western capital city of Rome fell to invading Germanic tribes known as the Visigoths or Barbarians. The western/European half of the Empire including its capital had fallen but the Roman Empire nevertheless continued. How so? It simply shifted its capital and its throne from Rome to Constantinople – a thousand miles east. The western European portion of the Roman Empire fell but the Eastern Byzantine portion of the Roman Empire lived on for nearly another thousand years with Constantinople as its capital. The Roman Empire didn’t actually completely fall until the eastern portion of the Empire finally fell to the Turks in 1453 A.D. Likewise it was the Islamic Caliphate of Umar Ibn al-Khattab that took Jerusalem in 637. Thus we see that it was the various manifestations of Islamic Empire culminating with the Ottoman Empire that suceeded the Roman Empire and ruled over the entire Middle East, beginning with Jerusalem for over thirteen hundred years. 12 The Turkish Empire existed right up until 1909.
Thus we see that the only empire that fulfills the patterns necessary to be considered the seventh empire is the Turkish/Ottoman Empire. This of course corresponds perfectly with Ezekiel’s list of nations with such a heavy emphasis on Turkey.
In a year holding a three, or seven,
or five, or nine, or maybe not,
Two things, might be people, or armies,
or buildings,
Or anything really, blades of grass,
or stoats, or crapulous charlatans
spouting mimsy,
Might do something nebulous.
Insert made-up-bit here.
—Generic Nostradamus Quatrain from
“The Guardian”
Do I still have to go to work today?
What about the fact that America is Israel's only true ally and does indeed have an integral part in their security? I'm not trying to argue...just trying to understand.
Makes more sense than seeing the Vatican as the Anti Christ, or Mussolini, or JFK, or Gorbachev...they have all had their names floating around in some Bible churches as THE Anti Christ
The British then had control over “Palestine” which included Jerusalem, but consent of the United Nations after WWI. What is the role of the British Empire?
“What about the fact that America is Israel’s only true ally and does indeed have an integral part in their security? I’m not trying to argue...just trying to understand.”
I thought that too.
“The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. “ -— HILLARY!!!!!!
Well IMHO I think the removal of America as a major player in the Middle East (imagine any means of achieving that as you wish... rapture, nuclear war, Hillary disbanding the miitary) and you can see how a desperate Israel finds itself making a treaty with the Anti-Christ.
BTW: The Muslims believe their Messiah, the Imam Mahdi, makes a 7 year treaty with a Jew as a prelude before a war in which the Muslims kill all the Jews:
Hadith Tabarani, as related by Hadrat Abu Umamah, as quoted by Zubair Ali, p. 43 and Abduallah, p. 55 :
Rasulullah [Muhammad] said: “There will be four peace agreements between you and the Romans [Christians]. The fourth agreement will be mediated through a person who will be from the progeny of Hadrat Haroon [Honorable Aaron – Moses’ brother] and will be upheld for seven years
Hadith Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 36, Number 4273, Narrated by Umm Salamah, Ummul Mu’minin :
The Prophet said… He [Mahdi] will divide the property, and will govern the people by the Sunnah of their Prophet and establish Islam on Earth. He will remain seven years, then die, and the Muslims will pray over him.
Hadith Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 36, Number 4272, Narrated by Abu Sa’id al-Khudri
The Prophet said: The Mahdi… will fill the earth with equity and justice as it was filled with oppression and tyranny, and he will rule for seven years.
“This calls for a mind with wisdom.”
That’s about the only thing in this post that I can agree with.
Time spent connecting the writings of Revelation to modern-day events is better spent feeding the poor, preaching the Gospel, or even mowing the lawn.
Signed,
a guy who grew up in a church that always thought that the end was near.
In general, I find such speculation vain and empty.
But I must agree that Islam is a better candidate than the Papacy, especially since the Papacy goes back a long way before the fall of the western Roman Empire.
Although the emperors and the noble families in Constantinople were of Greek extraction, they always thought of themselves as Roman.
Most heresies fail. They lose vitality, they lose membership, while the Church goes on. At one time almost all the bishops in the Church were Arians, yet the Arian heresy failed. The one exception to that rule is Islam. Not, I think, because it is favored by God, but because God for His own mysterious reasons has permitted it to thrive and conquer and oppress. One possibility certainly is that God has given Satan a certain period of time to do his work.
Christians in the middle ages thought that Islam was a Satanic religion, and regretably it’s not that hard an argument to make.
Mohammed was AN antiChrist if not the antiChrist. HE is a deceiver who rewrote the Bible to lead the followers of Jesus Christ astray. He is a warlord. His is a political ideology, not a religion. It offers no free will, but slavery.
His is the only major religion to acknowledge the existence of Jesus while at the same time denying His divinity, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. Jesus is replaced by Mohammed (a “superior” prophet).
You have forgotten the British Empire, the largest of them all.
You have forgotten the British Empire, the largest of them all.
The Vatican and Islam are too small for the AC’s empire. It will probably encompass both. But, ALL THE WORLD will wonder after the Beast. That’s more than institutionalized Islam or Christianity.
Are you trying make the point that the British Empire is one of Satan’s Beast Empires?
Interesting. I’m sure the Brits would take issue with your calling them tools and agents of Satan.
They have become mostly irrelevant due to the large infiltration of Muslims...don't you think?
I guess then we should give them the benefit of the doubt.....
Islam too small? That’s hysterical. Islam is in beginnings of its revival. It controls all of Northern Africa, nearly the entire Middle East, whole swaths of South-East Asia.
It’s replacing the dying Europeans in Europe and has heavy in-roads in Latin America.
Islam is a complete system of Law and Religion and it is extremely violent toward anything that competes with it.
If the AC Empire isn’t Islam , what is?
What is strong enough to do any harm to Islam?
If Iran nukes the US, then indeed the world will say “Who is like the Beast and who can make war against the Beast”.
Very interesting.
I'd always believed this was more of a metaphor meaning a "spirit of Jezebel"... which doesn't necessarily infer a "female".... but an entity of deception and treachery.
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