IN PART 1 OF THIS MESSAGE WE CONCENTRATED ON THE FIRST HUMAN VESSEL THAT SATAN USED IN FULFILLING, THE ABOMINATION THAT MAKETH DESOLATE SCRIPTURES. THAT, OF COURSE, WAS ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANIES, THE SYRIAN WHO DESECRATED THE HOLY PLACE OF THE JEWS IN THE 2ND CENTURY B.C. WE ALSO ENTERED INTO AN EXAMINATION OF THE 490 YEARS OF PROPHETIC TIME THAT FALLS WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE SEVENTY WEEKS OF DANIEL, THAT PERIOD OF TIME WHICH HAD ITS BEGINNING POINT WHEN NEHEMIAH WAS COMMISSIONED TO RETURN TO JERUSALEM AND REBUILD THE CITY, WHICH HAD BEEN NOTHING MORE THAN A PILE OF RUBBLE EVER SINCE NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S ARMY DESTROYED IT, SOMEWHERE AROUND 600 B.C. YOU CAN READ ABOUT THAT DESTRUCTION IN THE LAST CHAPTER OF 2ND CHRONICLES AND IN THE CLOSING VERSES OF THAT CHAPTER YOU WILL SEE HOW THE LORD STIRRED THE HEART OF CYRUS, THE PERSIAN KING, TO HAVE THE TEMPLE REBUILT. WE COVERED THAT IN PART 1, THEREFORE WE WILL ONLY REMIND YOU THAT THIS DECREE, OR COMMANDMENT TO REBUILD THE TEMPLE, WAS NOT THE COMMANDMENT THAT ACTIVATED THE FULFILLMENT OF THE 70 WEEKS OF DANIEL. YOU WILL FIND THAT THERE WAS MORE THAN 90 YEARS BETWEEN THE DECREE TO REBUILD THE TEMPLE AND THE DECREE TO REBUILD THE CITY, SO DO NOT GET THE TWO DECREES MIXED UP. ZERUBBABEL ACCEPTED THE CYRUS DECREE TO BUILD THE TEMPLE, BUT IT WAS NEHEMIAH WHO RECEIVED THE COMMISSION FROM KING ARTAXERXES TO REBUILD THE CITY. YOU CAN READ THAT IN PART 1 OF THIS ARTICLE.

IN THIS ISSUE (PART2) WE WILL CONTINUE OUR EXAMINATION OF THE EXPIRED YEARS, OR WEEKS, OF DANIEL’S 70 WEEKS, AND WE WILL ALSO SPEAK OF THE 2NDHUMAN VESSEL THAT SATAN USED TO FULFILL, THE ABOMINATION THAT MAKETH DESOLATE, SCRIPTURES, AND PRINT SOME JEWISH HISTORY THAT WILL ALLOW YOU TO SEE EXACTLY WHAT IS RECORDED IN HISTORY CONCERNING THESE INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE BEEN USED BY THE DEVIL IN HIS ATTEMPTS TO RID THE WORLD OF ALL JEWS. BROTHERS AND SISTERS: THIS WILL HELP YOU, IF YOU WILL ALLOW IT TO. I CANNOT GIVE YOU A REVELATION, BUT WITH THE HELP OF GOD, I FEEL THAT I CAN PROVIDE YOU WITH THE NECESSARY INFORMATION THAT GOD CAN USE TO GIVE YOU A REVELATION. JUST TAKE YOUR BIBLE, AND THE INFORMATION THAT YOU WILL FIND IN THIS ARTICLE, AND GO BEFORE THE LORD IN PRAYER, ASKING HIM TO OPEN YOUR UNDERSTANDING, AND YOU WILL FIND THAT HE IS EVER READY TO DO JUST THAT. HE WILL NOT GIVE YOU A REVELATION TO FIT YOUR OWN PATTERN, BUT HE WILL GIVE YOU A NEW PATTERN, IF YOU WILL JUST LEAVE ALL OF YOUR PRECONCEIVED IDEAS OUT OF THE PICTURE. LET US CONTINUE WITH THE MESSAGE NOW.

GOD KEEPS TRACK OF TIME

Alright now, I hope you all understand that it is God who is watching over the time. Malachi did not gather the people together, and say, Seven weeks of Daniel’s prophecy have been fulfilled, so get ready for the next sixty-two weeks. No. He just came on the scene as that first 49 years came to a close, and gave those Jews a stiff rebuke for the apostasy that they had fallen into. They had that great revival under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah in the early years of that 49 year period of time, but by the time Malachi began to prophesy to them, those days of revival were completely out of the picture. They were rebuked for their abominable ways. Through His prophet, God pleaded with them to repent, and warned them of the consequences of their corrupt ways, but to no avail. After the prophecy of Malachi, the Bible is silent for the next 400 years, but this is the 400 years of prophetic time that brings us right down to the birth of Christ. That is why it is necessary to go to your history books to find out what took place during those years between the time Malachi prophesied and the angel’s appearance unto Zecharias, the father of John the baptizer, who was the forerunner of Christ. God was keeping track of the time though, regardless of the fact that there was no writing prophet on the scene, therefore when 400 years more were almost expired, God sent His angel to Zecharias, announcing the fact that his prayer had been answered, and that his wife, Elizabeth, would conceive and bear him a son, and that his name should be called, John. Six months later he appeared to Joseph and Mary, and spoke to them about the conception and birth of a son, and that His name should be called, Jesus. When that little baby was born, 449 years of the 490 years of Daniel’s prophetic years had expired. Naturally you will not find this in your history books, for as we have already pointed out, history was recorded by the solar calendar, which has 365 1/4 days to the year, and our calculations are according to prophetic years which have only 360 days to each year. That is why I say, it is God that watches over time, and every prophecy is fulfilled right on schedule. That is why we know that the 70th week of Daniel will begin at exactly the right time, and will run for exactly 2,520 days, with the first 1260 days given to the two witnesses of Rev. 11:3, and the last 1260 days allotted to the Antichrist, the beast of Rev. 13:4-5, because God Himself is watching over time.

HOW PROPHECY IS FULFILLED

I have been asked many times, Bro. Jackson: Will the Antichrist literally sign a peace covenant for exactly one week (7 years)? I have always said, and will say again, I do not believe there will be any specific stipulation in the agreement, that it is to run for a period of 7 years. I believe God will have put sufficient pressure on the politicians of this old world, so that when Ezekiel 38 & 39 is fulfilled, and dead bodies are piled on top of each other in the land of Israel, those politicians will be more than ready to sign any kind of a peace agreement. They will be so scared, they will be saying, Brethren, we have to do something to prevent a thing like this from happening again. Therefore, just as they formed a Paris peace pact, just as they formed a League of Nations, and a United Nations, so will they sign this peace agreement. All of these measures have been taken in an effort to prevent further wars, and none of them have worked, but they will still try again. They will be pressured into signing up with the Antichrist, but they will not know that he is the beast man of Revelation 13:4, until it is too late. (Remember, this beast has a threefold application. It applies to a spirit, it applies to a man, and it applies to a system). Only the people of God will know what his true identity is from the very beginning; the world as a whole will be thrilled to death with their great peace agreement, and with the world recognized religious leader who is watching over the agreement. Now, brothers and sisters: Listen to me! The Antichrist will not be 3 years ahead of those two prophets. Please understand this, no sooner than that peace agreement is signed, those two prophets that God has been schooling someplace, will be anointed to step on the scene in Israel and begin their 1260 day ministry. Nothing runs ahead nor behind the word of God: everything is precisely, right on schedule. When Caesar Augustus made that taxing decree, he did not know that there was a certain little baby that must be born in Bethlehem, so who do you suppose was really behind that decree? Only God could have timed it so perfectly. Augustus did not know he was an instrument in the hand of God, doing what he did in order to fulfill prophecy. Neither did Joseph and Mary know that this very act would be the cause of prophecy being fulfilled. They went to Bethlehem to pay their taxes, and meant to be back home before the time for the baby to be born. She left all her little baby clothes at home, because she did not expect to need them before they returned. This was all in the plan of God. Why? Because God had determined to give those sheep herders a certain sign to identify that little baby by. We know Joseph was not a pauper; neither was Mary. You can believe she had been knitting, knitting, knitting, getting ready for that blessed event. I imagine she had all kinds of pretty little things made, but they were all back home in the drawers. Therefore the angel of the Lord said to the shepherds (Luke 2:11-12) “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” Brothers and sisters: God did not suddenly get the idea to have all these things work out like that, after He found out that Augustus was going to make that decree. No. He worked circumstances so Augustus would make the decree. I hope you get the point. The word of God must be fulfilled; and God does not depend upon human instruments to keep track of the time for Him; He does that Himself. As the first 449 years of Daniel’s 490 years passed, God made sure that everything was in order for the birth of the Jew’s Messiah, which is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There had to be a right Roman Emperor on the throne, a right man and a woman in Nazareth, a reason for them to go to the right city at the right time, and there had to be many things set in order ahead of time, those little Jews would actually go to pay their taxes. All the governors and administrators had to receive their orders by means of the various carriers that served them, and all the preparations for collecting this extra tax took time, so everything had to be working toward a certain point for a certain time, and only God Himself could have worked it out so perfectly. By the time that little baby was born 449 of those prophetic years had passed. The next 33 ½ years covers the growing up of the Christ child, His baptism at about the age of thirty, His 3 ½ year ministry, and his crucifixion. This brings us into the year 34 A. D. Naturally history always has it that Jesus was crucified in 33 A.D., because they do not deal with the half year, six months, five months, nor anything like that but we are sure that Jesus was born in the period of time that would have been the ending of another 400 years from the time of Malachi’s prophecy. Then His life span covered another 34 prophetic years making a total of 483 years of prophetic time that has elapsed since the Nehemiah decree set that time measurement in motion. After the 62 week period of time the Messiah was cut off, but not for Himself. He was crucified at the end of the 62 week period of time, leaving exactly one more week to be fulfilled. That is the 7 year period of time we want to take to the New Testament. Let me say this, Later in the message we are going to calculate the actual number of days that would have been involved in the 69 prophetic weeks that have expired already, and compare them with solar time measurement.

FOREWARNED AND READY

Some of you, here at Faith Assembly have heard the various points of this message many times; I realize that. But in order for us to get it put into printed form, for the benefit of saints who have never heard it before, I must cover the subject thoroughly. Furthermore when we printed the message back in 1971, dealing mainly with the 70 weeks, our mailing list was not even half what it is now. Therefore with so many more readers who have not read the article at all, and with the knowledge that we are so much closer to fulfillment of the last week of the seventy weeks: there are many more things that we want to include in this article, that we did not put in the other one. Naturally I do not know who among those who will read this article will actually be among those who are raptured before the great tribulation starts. Neither do I know how many foolish virgins will read it, but I will say this, If you study this article, and it turns out that you do not go in the rapture; there are some things in here that can help you face the conditions that will exist at that time. I intend to show you also, how those Jews who believed what Jesus told them, escaped death at the hands of Titus and his Roman army in 70 A.D., and how that it all hinged upon what God had spoken through His prophet Daniel. No. I am not saying that foolish virgins can escape death; they must die in order to seal their testimony, but their psychological condition can be better if they know what is written in the word of God. The history we are going to use in this issue will back up what we want to say about certain fulfillments of prophecy. The little Jewish history book deals strictly with the last 400 and some years of their Old Testament period, from the time of Malachi’s prophecy on down through the first advent of Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Naturally it closes then, because the Jews were taken into captivity. The other source of our information is, Bloss Ancient History, compiled in the light of secular history, but notations are made to show where certain Bible prophecies were fulfilled. For instance, the footnotes will direct you to read Isaiah such and such, or something from Jeremiah, or Daniel and so on. Saints, I am glad there were some men of old who regarded the Bible as being authentic. I have my doubts that you would ever find such footnotes in secular history books written in our day. They would not ever dare to mention anything about Bible prophecy being fulfilled, and they would laugh at you if you did But there is coming a day, and we believe, very soon, when the greatest intellectual brains that have ever lived will have to bow their heads, bend their knees, and confess that Jesus Christ is none other than the Lord. They may have been atheists, agnostics, evolutionists or whatever, but when Jesus Christ splits those clouds and they see Him coming to earth with power and glory, that will put an end to all atheism. It will chill the blood in every evolutionary mind, and all their theories will leave them. Praise God! I thank Him for revealing truth to me; don’t you?

GOD REVEALS PRESENT TRUTH

It is so thrilling to see how, many times, between two verses of scripture there will be a great span of prophetic time, even hundreds of years, and it is written like that to confuse great, educated minds. They build their theories and argue and fuss about them, and God reveals those hidden keys to His people by the leadership of His Spirit, when they love truth, and they are living in the hour for that truth to be revealed. God is the one that jumbled the scriptures in such a way that natural minds cannot understand them, and He is the only one that can unscramble the revelation that is hidden therein. Daniel 9:26 & 27, is a good example of this, for there is over 1900 years of time between the events of verse 26, and that of verse 27. When someone just reads straight through the two verses they would not realize that, unless they already had some revelation of what is being dealt with there. Like we have already pointed out: the destruction of verse 26, took place in 70 A.D., under Titus, and the covenant of verse 27, is still out in the future, and will be confirmed by the Antichrist, a prince whose authority originates in Rome just like Titus’ authority did, and who will be motivated by that same spirit of Satan that motivated Titus. Naturally these prophecies were concerning God’s dealing with the nation of Israel, and they were given to them, but the nation as a whole failed to prosper by what God spoke through His servant Daniel. They failed to recognize their Messiah when He came, and as a result of their rejection of Him, they had to suffer destruction, death, and dispersion, all over again. Nevertheless, the prophecy still stands, and there are those who will yet benefit from it as individuals. Those who believe the word of God have enough revealed to them to steer their course through these uncertain times we are living in, and we are thankful unto God for the accuracy of Bible prophecy. Just like in verse 25, of Daniel 9, where it talked about the street being built again, and the wall, even in troublous times: if you could see a map of the old world as it was in those days, you would better understand what those troublous times really were. Syria being to the north of the land of Israel, and Egypt being to the south, and west, great armies were constantly traveling through this little narrow strip of land that ran parallel to the Mediterranean Coast. Many battles were fought there as those armies would meet. Therefore the rebuilding of the city through that 62 week period of time was literally done in troublous times.

ISRAEL – A BATTLEGROUND

The reason so many great armies passed through that land was because of the limited water supply and food potential. Any other way they could have gone was across the Jordan river into the country that is called Jordan and all the way down into Saudi Arabia which is nothing but vast desert land. Armies will always avoid lengthy travel through such places. They look for the most vegetative routes that have adequate water supplies. That caused the land of Israel to be known as the bridge between Asia and Africa, between Asia and Europe and so forth. Great caravans constantly moved along these land routes, right on through the land of Israel and into Egypt, Africa and so forth, so that the land was never without a lot of activity and trouble. If they tried to deny access or refuse passage to one of those kings with his army, it was only an invitation for that king’s fury to be turned loose against them. Besides all of this they had a corrupt priesthood to contend with. We mentioned already, how those priests would play politics, how they would buy their office for great sums of money. When the price was right those Gentile governors would take some soldiers, arrest the incumbent priest on false charges and put him to death, making that office available to the priest who had payed to get it. Of course he not only had to pay for the office; he also had to agree with their politics. That is why you read in Daniel, about flatteries and such like. It was political graft. I could read a lot of history to you about such things, but that would take too much time; therefore I pray that you will just believe that I know what I am talking about, when I tell you these things. You will not find these specific accounts written in the Bible, but if you can take my word for these things that I have learned form history, it will help you to see more clearly the things that are written in the Bible. Some of you may even say, I don’t need to know all these things; all I need to know is how to be saved. That is your privilege if you choose to take an attitude like that. I will just say this, The whole Bible is the word of God; it is the bread of eternal life, food for believers to grow on, and at the same time, it will make a tare sick at his stomach, if you know what I mean. If Israel, to whom the 70 weeks of Daniel was given as a yardstick to measure time, had had proper respect for the scriptures, they would not have been caught so spiritually blind when their Messiah came to them. They were sound asleep with their little sanctimonious rituals when Bible prophecy came walking right down the street one day, in the form of a man. He walked right into the temple grounds, threw down the money changers, kicked over chicken coops, pigeon coops, and lamb pens, and with a scourge of small cords, He drove them all out of the temple saying, “Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.” What were they doing there? They were following their carnal religious routines. What was Jesus doing there? He was fulfilling something that was written in the prophecy of Daniel. Their Messiah had to be on the scene in order to be cut off at the end of the 62 week period of time. God had given them a way to know approximately when He would come to them, and they ignored it, just like Gentile religion as a whole is doing right today. The Antichrist will come on the scene, confirm the peace covenant with many nations, and Gentile religious leaders will think it is so wonderful, when if they would have taken heed to the word of God: they would know that 1260 days later, a time of trouble such as the world has never seen would be set in motion. Instead of laying down their rituals now, while there is still time, and crying out to God to allow His word to be a lamp unto their feet, and a light unto their pathway; they will wait until it is too late, and cry for mercy, but death itself will be their only escape. Why? Simply because they have not had an ear to hear what the Spirit of God is saying to true believers in this age. When you go to the 2nd and 3rd chapters of the book of Revelation, and read what John was instructed to write to the 7 churches of Asia, you cannot help but notice how each one of those 7 messages ended, “HE THAT HATH AN EAR, LET HIM HEAR WHAT THE SPIRIT SAITH UNTO THE CHURCHES.” You say, Did they not all have ears? They all had those things sticking out on each side of their head, but they did not all have spiritual ears that would take heed to the word of God.

JESUS INSTRUCTS BELIEVERS

At this time, we are going back into the 24th chapter of Matthew, and read some words that Jesus spoke to His disciples one day when they asked Him some questions concerning what was ahead. In verses 15 and following, we read this, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, SPOKEN OF BY DANIEL THE PROPHET, stand in the holy place, (WHOSO READETH, LET HIM UNDERSTAND:) Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: Neither let him which be in the field return back to take his clothes. An woe unto them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day.” First, I want you to notice that right in your Bible, in verse 15, speaking of something Daniel had spoken, there are 5 words in parenthesis, WHOSO READETH, LET HIM UNDERSTAND. There was a reason for those words being injected into His statement. Also, we want to find out exactly what Jesus had in mind when He said, “WHEN YOU SEE THE ABOMINATION THAT MAKETH DESOLATE STAND IN THE HOLY PLACE.” He certainly wasn’t speaking of a grace age church building; He was speaking of the Jewish temple, on Mt. Zion, in Jerusalem. That is the only place on earth that this scripture can pertain to. Do not try to apply it any place else, geographically. That holy place was desecrated by Antiochus, and again by Titus, and will be again, by the Antichrist, but in every case it applies to the exact same spot, the Jewish temple, on Mt. Zion, in Jerusalem. We are going to show you from the scriptures themselves, and also from the excerpts taken from history books, that Jesus was preparing the people for the time when Titus with his Roman army would set type number 2, of the abomination of desolation that will hit in the last half of the 70th week of Daniel. But first, let us go back to the 9th chapter of Daniel and read that 26th verse again. Like I said before, This is a key verse. “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, (crucified) but not for Himself: (It does not say anything here, about Him raising from the dead, but that was not necessary at this time. The point here is that His crucifixion climaxes the prophetic period of that 62 weeks of years.) And the people (notice now, AND is a conjunction word. Another thought is being picked up right here, 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.” Please pay close attention to the fact that this prince in verse 26, is not the same Prince as you see in verse 25, Jesus the Messiah is the prince of verse 25, but this other prince is a future prince that shall arise on the scene, and this verse lets us know that there are some people who are to be identified with this future prince that shall come. What were the people of that prince going to do? Destroy the city and the sanctuary. Now we know this is referring to something that was to take place after Jesus had been cut off at the end of that 62 week period of time, and we also know that the prince which is to come (the Antichrist) is not going to have a people that will destroy the temple, or sanctuary that he defiles, for the Bible teaches us that Jesus will cleanse that temple and sit in it, in the millennium. Therefore what must we look for? We must apply this to a time when the sanctuary of the Jews was destroyed, after Christ was cut off, and before He comes to rule an reign on earth. There has only been one time that this could apply. That was 70 A.D., when Titus and his army made a total destruction of the city and the temple. Alright, the prince is yet to come. Verse 27, lets us know that, for he is to confirm a peace covenant with many, to set the 70th week of Daniel in motion, but the people of that prince, lived 1900 years ago, for that is when they destroyed the city and the sanctuary. Now we come to the identity of the prince that is yet to comes. Who were the people that destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D.? They were Romans of course; we all know that. Then that means the prince that is yet to come (THE ANTICHRIST) must be identified with Rome. Right? Pay attention to how I say this now. Some of you have heard me say that the Roman Catholic Pope who will fulfill Daniel 9:27 and be known as the Antichrist, does not necessarily have to be an Italian. Their scriptural identities stem from where they get their power and authority. The Roman army that Titus positioned around the walls of Jerusalem, were not all Italians. Some of them were Germans, some French, as well as Spaniards and who knows what else, so it was not their racial identity that made them Roman soldiers; it was where they got their authority from, and that was Rome. Therefore the pope who will fulfill the Antichrist scriptures could very well be Polish, but he will not get his authority from Poland; that will come from Rome, making him a prince of the very people who destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D. I hope you can see the picture clearly now. Just keep the identity of those people who destroyed Jerusalem under the leadership of Titus, tied to the prince that is yet to come, and Daniel 9:26 & 27, will not be a mystery to you.

BELIEVERS TAKE HEED

As we look back to that 26th verse for just a moment, notice the rest of the verse. “And the end thereof shall be with a flood, (flood is symbolic of persecution, and that is exactly what applied to those who were left alive.) And unto the end of the war desolations are determined.” Those desolate conditions, as far as the Jewish temple is concerned, have lasted for more than 1900 years. Many of you have been there; you have seen the Moslem mosque that is built over that sacrificial rock, there on the Jews temple grounds. That word WAR, literally should have been translated, WARS, for it means, unto the end of the wars (plural) that will follow such a period, desolate conditions will prevail. Nevertheless that is what Jesus was having reference to when He spoke to His disciples there in Matthew 24:15-20. Do not go beyond verse 20, with your 70 A.D. application, for this is one of those places where there is a great span of time between two verses that are written together. Verse 21, jumps all the way over into the 70th week of Daniel, and picks up the great tribulation. You really should read Luke 21:20-24, along with Matthew 24:15-20, in order to get a better picture in your mind. Let me read two of those verses before I say what I want to say about them. Luke 21:20, “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the DESOLATION thereof is nigh. (This verse gives a clearer picture than Matthew 24:15, so notice what He told them to do when they see such a condition.) Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains.” That is exactly what Matthew wrote, verse 16. If you will go back and read the first verses of Matthew 24, you will see that Jesus was speaking only to His disciples when He spoke these words, and history reveals that, not one Christian was left in the city when Titus’ army finally broke through. We are going to read some history in a few minutes, that will allow every one of you to see for yourselves, that this is where the words of Jesus which we have just read were fulfilled, (70 A.D.). Let us get the rest of these scriptures here, and compare them with Luke 21. “Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house: (in other words, flee to the mountains immediately, do not take time for trying to save your furniture, or anything like that.) Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.” Now look right over to Luke 21:22, “For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. (Just stay right there in Luke for the next two verses) But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! For there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.” We will read the history, and you will see the sadness that young mothers faced, how that, as the siege continued, little babies were roasted and eaten. That fulfilled Deuteronomy 28:57, which was written many centuries before that and stated, “And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall EAT THEM for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.” None of this pertained to the disciples of Jesus; for every last one of them did exactly what He told them to do; they fled to the mountains. But sad to say, every Jew that failed to take heed to what Jesus told them was caught right there. They stayed in Jerusalem and fell victim to Daniel 9:26, when the city was literally laid in ruins. That is what Luke 21:24, is speaking of. “And they (not the Christians) shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” Earlier in this chapter you find where some of the disciples were admiring the beauty of the temple, and Jesus hearing them said, “As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” Brothers and sisters, I hope you are getting the picture as we point out these prophetic utterances. Jesus spoke these words about 37 years before it actually was fulfilled, but when you are dealing with prophecies of the scriptures it does not matter whether it is 37 years or 3700 years, God is the one who keeps the records and works circumstances that bring about the fulfillment of His word. God showed Daniel the things that we are writing about, in various visions which troubled him greatly. Then He sent an angel to explain the visions to him and from those explanations we have learned much. From our history books we have been able to pinpoint two of the periods of desolations as having passed already. At least the initial fulfillment of the first two are in past history, and the events of them hit exactly as they had been foretold in prophecy; therefore we ought to expect the events of the third period of desolations to be exactly s the scriptures declare it will be. Why do you suppose Jesus quoted the prophet Daniel there in Matt.24:15? For one thing it was a further vindication of the accuracy of that prophecy, and besides that, He wanted to remind them that if the nation of Israel had studied Daniel’s prophecy as they should have, they would have been prepared and expecting their Messiah when He came to them.

EXCESSIVE HATRED

Turn to Luke 19:42, for a few more verses relating directly to this 70 A.D. siege of Jerusalem. Because of the Jews transgressions, and their failure to accept their Messiah, Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem and prophesied about it saying, “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!, but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” Just as I said earlier: Titus did not go there with the intention of destroying Jerusalem. He was a Roman general, the son of Vespasian, and he was commissioned to put down this Jewish revolt. In other words Vespasian, his father, became Emperor, and put him in command when he went to take Nero’s place. It was during the time that those Jews fought so furiously against his army, that Titus was anointed to fulfill all those scriptures that had been written against them. That same spirit that had been exemplified by Antiochus more than 200 years before, was now on Titus and his army. If you will look up that word, ABOMINATION, in your Webster’s dictionary, you will find that it is a word that pertains to excessive hatred. It does not pertain to a dirty piece of pork meat. What we are dealing with here is excessive hatred that maketh desolate. In this setting, to be made desolate, is to be deprived of inhabitants. Jesus could have said, When you see that period of excessive hatred existing against this holy place, then know that your enemies are set to destroy, totally, and flee to the mountains. When we read this history a little later, you will see how those Roman soldiers fought with such fury, and such hatred for those Jews, it literally fulfilled the abomination that maketh desolate, because they destroyed the city and the sanctuary, and more than one million Jews perished. Of those that were left alive, thousands were sold on the Roman slave markets, and scattered into all nations. Just think. All of this happened to them because of their rebelliousness, and their failure to accept their Messiah in His first advent. Remember when they were leading Jesus up to Calvary, how some of the women were crying and feeling sorrow for Him? Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.” Every mother with a small child, and every expectant mother, had the constant fear that her little baby might be roasted and eaten. What an end for any people to come to! Especially a people that had been projected as a light of God to the world. God brought all this upon them simply because they refused to be a light. That ought to make some people shutter, when they stop to realize that the grace age church is also supposed to be a light to the world. Brother, I tell you truthfully, this so called, church has been everything else but a light when you measure it against the overall world condition. I thank God that my faith is not resting on a man made set of religious rules. Praise God! I also thank God for allowing me to know that genuine believers of this age will escape the great tribulation that is somewhere just up ahead. It all hinges upon whether people believe the word of God with a true revelation. Those Jewish women who failed to take heed to the words of Jesus, had to suffer through that terrible siege against Jerusalem, but every person who believed what they heard, kept their eyes open, and fled to the mountains when they saw the conditions that Jesus described. This great destruction, and abomination took place after God had already stopped measuring time to the Jews with Daniel’s 70 weeks yardstick, but when that last week of time is inaugurated, revelated saints of God will know that in just 1260 days another period of abomination will be set in motion against the Jews holy place. You might even wonder how it could possibly be worse than what we are going to read here in a little while, but Daniel 12:1 calls it a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, and I believe what I read here; do you? I rejoice to read the rest of that verse too, for it says, ” And at that time (the great tribulation) thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found WRITTEN IN THE BOOK.” Unbelieving Jews will be slaughtered by that beast system in that hour, but Revelation 12:6, tells us that those Jews which believer(because they have listened to God’s two prophets) will flee into the wilderness, where God has a place prepared to feed them for 3 ½ years. They will not be running from Antiochus; neither will they be running from Titus; they will be running from a man that the world as a whole has been looking to as a great religious leader and man of peace. Who will it be? I will not give you a name, but I will give you a means to identify him. Whoever the Roman Catholic pope is, in that hour, will be the man. He will be the man of sin, the son of perdition, the wicked one, the Antichrist, the little horn of Daniel 7:8, and on and on we could go, but you should have the picture by now. There will be some reason for him to go to Jerusalem in that hour, for Daniel 11:45 says, “And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.” In 2nd Thessalonians 2:8, it tells us how he will come to his end, by the brightness of the coming of the Lord. There will not be a hand laid upon him; he will be destroyed, or consumed, by the word of judgment that issues forth from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ when He comes back to earth with His saints.

Brothers and sisters: There is so much that could be said in a message like this, that it makes it hard to condense it to a size that will not become boring to some. Nevertheless we are trusting God to help us say enough to help every sincere believer see these prophecies in a true light. What we are showing you about Antiochus Epiphanes the Syrian, and Titus, the Roman general, is to enable you to see how accurate the prophecies of the Bible really are. By seeing how perfectly these other prophecies have been fulfilled right to the minutest detail, we ought to be able to look at the prophecies that are before us, (prophecies that will be fulfilled in our generation) and get a picture in our minds as to what is coming. I feel like this portion of history concerning the fall of Jerusalem under Titus, in 70 A.D., can be a real eye opener when you see how terrible the conditions of it were, and then realize that there is yet to be a time that the Bible declares will be worse than it was then. At this time, let us read these portions of history, then we will point out some things that you should pay special attention to.

EXCERPTS FROM JEWISH HISTORY
THE FALL OF JERUSALEM 70 A.D.

Their city was strongly situated by nature, and was surrounded by art with three strong walls and many lofty towers, the most remarkable of which were those of Antonia, Hippicos, Psephinus, Phasaelus, and Mariamne. The first wall was 17 ½ feet thick, formed of stones 38 feet long, and was considered to be almost impregnable. It was guarded by ninety towers built of the same solid masonry. Commencing at the tower of Hippicos, it ran directly north of the tower of Psephinus, then bore by the monument of Helena, to the Fullers monument. It then turned into the valley of Kedron, where it joined the inner wall under the Temple. The second wall began at the Gate of Gennath, on the west, intersected the lower city, then ran towards the north-western corner of the tower of Antonia. This citadel stood alone, on a high and precipitous rock 90 feet high, at the north-western corner of the Temple. The third, or inner wall, was that enclosing Zion. It started from the south-western porticoes of the Temple, ran first south, and then turned westward till it joined the tower of Hippicos. It then ran southward to Bethsur, along the ridge of the valley of Hinnom, to the pool of Siloam, then turned onwards to the Temple, which it rejoined at its eastern portico. But strong as were these wall, impregnable as were those towers, there was one work, which for situation and defense, far exceeded them-the Holy Temple. This stood upon a lofty plateau, the eastern and southern sides of which were precipitous, while the other sides had been walled in to the height of 500 feet, and the space filled in to form a foundation for the structure. On this gigantic base uprose the Temple walls, strong and lofty, enclosing the cloisters and corridors which surrounded the sacred edifice; a mass of masonry uniting strength with beauty, and presenting the aspect of an impregnable citadel. Such was the strength of Jerusalem, against which the Romans encamped on that memorable Passover of the Vulgar year 70, when the siege commenced. Vespasian was now Emperor, and the war was entrusted to his son Titus. The forces of the invader consisted of the three legions which had served under Vespasian, recruited by the five legions so beaten by the Jews in Cestius’s time. He had also twenty regiments of foot and eight of horse, besides vast multitudes of Arabs, altogether about 50,000 men. Titus stopped at Gibeath-Saul, about five miles from Jerusalem; and, taking an escort of 600 horses, proceeded to reconnoitre the city. The gates were closed, all seemed peaceful and quiet, and not a man appeared. But as the squadron turned towards the Tower of Psephinus, a band of the defenders rushed out at the gate, near the tower of the women, and cut off Titus from his men. Advance and retreat were equally impossible, for the enemy surrounded them, but, with great personal intrepidity, Titus dashed in among his assailants and cut his way through. Next day he advanced his troops to Jerusalem. The twelfth and fifteenth legions were encamped in front, the fifth behind them, and the tenth on the Mount of Olives, six furlongs from the city. The besieged, looking down upon this formidable array, wisely resolved to suspend their private feuds, and unite in a vigorous defense against the common enemy. This resolution, however, was but shortlived, for on the eve of the Passover, when Eleazar had opened the avenues of the Temple to the great concourse that came to sacrifice John of Giscala found means to introduce among the worshipers some of his men. These, drawing their concealed weapons, fell upon Eleazar’s party and the assembled multitude indiscriminately and slew in every direction, until the court was filled with blood. Eleazar’s party was thus annihilated. He and the survivors of his band submitted to John, who now saw himself sole master of the Temple and its precincts. He had now only a single enemy within the walls, but that enemy gave him considerable trouble by his activity. Simon’s attacks became more and more vigorous; the civil warfare raged more fiercely than ever, and was only suspended when it became necessary to deal a blow against the common foe. Such a necessity soon presented itself. The tenth legion commenced the siege works at the Mount of Olives, and were engaged at their trenches. Their arms were piled, because they expected no attack from the Jews who were so busy fighting among themselves. Whether or not the Romans were culpably negligent, this fact is historical; they were surprised and thrown in confusion. The attacking Jews rushed forward irresistibly, and the Romans were forced to fall back from the site of their proposed camp. The safety of the whole legion became imperilled, until Titus arrived with reinforcements, and drove the assailants into the valley of Kedron. Later in the day, when the troops returned to their works and resumed their operations, another vigorous assault was made by the Jews. They dashed furiously across the valley, carrying everything before them. The whole legion took to flight, except the guard surrounding Titus, when, perceiving the perilous situation for their general, they rallied and returned to the charge. The Jews contested every foot of ground, but they were at length completely repulsed. The Romans now set about leveling the ground between them and the city, by pulling down all the houses and ridges, cutting down all the trees, and even cleaving the rocks that stood in their way from Scopos to the tomb of Herod and the Serpent’s Pool. In this work so many hands were employed that it was accomplished in four days. While this work was in progress, Titus sent the besieged some offers of peace, which they made a show of accepting only to delude the Romans within their reach. Contrary to orders, many of the soldiers entered the city and escaped with great difficulty. The Jews also practiced a stratagem. They pretended to be driving out of the gates all the advocates for war, and mounting on the walls, clamored loudly for peace. Titus then sent Nicanor and Josephus with new offers, but the ambassadors were attacked, and Nicanor was wounded, while the besieged danced on the ramparts with joy at their success. This decided Titus to begin the assault in earnest. He removed nearer to the city, established himself at the distance of a quarter-of-a-mile from the tower Psephinus. He determined upon attacking near the monument of John, where the first wall was lower and where there was considerable force. Josephus relates that at the siege of Jotopata, he saw a stone ball strike off a man’s head at a distance of 600 yards. When the mound had been driven up to the face of the wall, then the battering ram was introduced. This engine was most powerful; and when well-directed, shook the walls with the force of a large cannon. Against these operations of the besiegers, the business of the besieged was: 1st. To destroy the attacking towers by fire-either by throwing fire balls made of lighted pitch, or by discharging burning arrows and spears; 2ndly. By means of their own catapults and ballista to impede the operations of the enemy; 3rdly. To sally out against the workmen; 4thly. To undermine the embankments and 5thly. To parry the blows of the rams either by putting buffers formed of sacks of sand or wool, or by catching the head of the ram in a rope to arrest its force.

Titus had divided his army into three battalions, each forming an embankment of its own. Between the embankments he placed his archers, and before these his machines. In the attack the tenth legion most distinguished itself by constructing ballista, which threw stones of half-a-hundred weight to the distance of two furlongs. These balls, however, were visible from their whiteness, and the Jewish watchmen cried out in warning, “The bolt is coming,” thus enabling the besieged to avoid the blow. When the Romans discovered this, they blackened the stone, and thence-forward these missiles, thus rendered invisible, crushed not merely single men, but numbers at a time. The Jews replied to this cannonade, shot for shot. They had the siege-engines which they had captured from Cestius, and these they plied with uncommon fury, but they were so ignorant of their use, that they did but little execution. They harassed the enemy most by frequent sallies. But the Roman missiles made terrible havoc before the rams were brought into play. When all were ready, three of these engines were advanced, and began their battering. The effect was to strike terror into the hearts of the garrison. They gave up their disputes, and hastened to the battlements to defend them. Side by side they worked and fought with emulous valour. They launched fire upon the machines, and missiles against those who worked them-they sallied out and tore away the wicker screens, and slew the men protected beneath them. At last the ram belonging to the fifteenth legion brought down the corner of a tower, when on a sudden the Jews, as if terror stricken, suspended their operations. The Romans, congratulating themselves upon their success, dispersed themselves about the works, when suddenly through an unperceived gate, at the tower Hippicos, the whole united force of the besieged came pouring forth with flaming brands to set the machines on fire. The Romans gathered hastily, but Jewish valour prevailed. The besiegers were put to flight, and a terrible conflict took place around the engines. Some of the soldiers from Alexandria remained to defend these, and they fought desperately. Titus soon arrived with his horse, and he retrieved the fortunes of the day, killing twelve men with his own hand. This sortie thus repulsed, the attack continued, until the wall began to give way before the assault of the largest battering ram to which the Jews had given the name Nico, the victorious. On the 7th Iyar, a fortnight after the commencement of the siege, a breach was made, and the Romans entered. The Jews abandoned its defense, and retired to the second rampart. Titus now removed within the first wall to a position near the so-called camp of the Assyrians, and immediately gave orders for the attack of the second wall. Here the conflict became more terrible. The Jews fought in defense with the most dauntless courage. John ane his adherents fought from the tower of Antonia, and the northern cloisters of the Temple. Simon and his party guarded near John’s monument, and fortified it up to Hippicos. Now were they contented with defense; they made frequent and vigorous sallies. These sallies were repulsed, because the Roman discipline gave their soldiers strength and solidity; but from their ramparts the Jews fought with immense advantage, owing to their fertility of resources, and their personal heroism.

Sufficient of the outer wall having been cleared to enable Titus to advance his engines, the rams were now brought up against the second defense. The point of attack was the central tower of the north wall, which was soon terribly shaken. The men who were in it made a signal of surrender and at the same time sent Simon word to be ready to give the Romans a warm reception. Titus discovered the stratagem, and returned more vigorously to the assault. The Jews set the tower on fire, and flung themselves in the flames. Still the ram continued its sure work of demolition, until the tower fell, and the second enclosure was taken on the fifth day of its attack. This conquest laid open to the Romans that part of the new city where the braziers, woolstaplers, and clothiers’ warehouses were situated. They were now in the streets of the city; and for their own safety, they might have been expected to demolish such portion of the houses as would give them uninterrupted communication with their bases. Titus, however, resolved on lenient measures, and left the streets as he found them, restraining his men from pillage. But the garrison did not permit this opportunity to pass neglected; they fell upon the troops who had entered the city with a furious rage. From the houses and the courts they fought. From every street and gate they poured into the closure, the Roman soldiers fleeing before them, and making vain efforts to escape through the narrow breach. Titus hastened to their aid; but all he could accomplish was to place his archers at the heads of the lanes and streets, and thus gain time for his beaten soldiers to retire outside the wall. Thus, the Romans after capturing the second line, were repulsed; a success which so raised the spirits of the Jews, that they barricaded the breach, and defended it against the enemy for three whole days. On the fourth day, however, they were compelled to retire, and Titus once more entered. He immediately pulled down the northern portion of the wall, and garrisoned and the southern towers. Two walls had now fallen, and a large portion of this city was in possession of the Romans, but still there remained to be taken the most important works. These were, the formidable tower Antonia, the Temple, a very citadel from its position, and the stronghold of Zion. Titus suspended the siege for four days in order to give the Jews time to determine on submission. During the interval, he held a review of his troops, and distributed to them their pay and provisions. The legions marching with glittering shields and gay accoutrements, the cavalry decked out in their gorgeous trappings, formed a magnificent spectacle to the proud Romans, but a sad one to the crowd of Jewish beholders in the doomed city. These assembled upon every eminence; the entire length of the walls was lined with spectators, every roof was crowded with the multitude of gazers. Titus expected that this display would bring the Jews to terms, and probably they would have listened to the new overtures which he now made. But he was, unhappily, indiscreet in his choice of a messenger. He sent Josephus, the historian, the ex-governor of Galilee, the man of Jotapata. To such an emissary that Jews naturally refused a hearing. They received him with bitter invectives, and drove him back with flights of arrows. This effort for peace proving fruitless, Titus resumed the offensive on the fifth day. Assigning one embankment to each of his legions, he directed two against the castle of Antonia, and two against the upper city near the monument of John. As we have seen, the first position was defended by John of Giscala and his Zealots, while the latter was guarded by Simon. These leaders were provided with 300 catapults and 40 ballista, in the use of which the besieged had become more proficient.

The condition of the non combatant inhabitants had become fearful. Famine was rife. Corn was nowhere to be seen, the granaries had long since been destroyed in the civil conflicts, and the search for food now grew severe. Anyone who seemed sleek and hale was concluded to have secret stores. His home was visited; if nothing was found he was tortured to confess his hiding place; if a secret store was discovered he was punished for not producing it on demand. If anyone could purchase for half his property a single measure of wheat or barley, he did so, and ate it in the most secret part of his house-ate it either raw or half-cooked. No one now laid a table for a meal. Wives would steal the last morsel from husbands, children from parents, parents from children. Mothers would rob their pining babes of the milk nature supplied for their sustenance by consuming it themselves. Any kind of food was readily acceptable, and when obtained it was eaten in terror and peril, for robbers were sure to be nigh to seize it with violence. If a house was closed, suspicion was immediately excited that eating was in progress, and the marauders burst in to pluck the crumbs from the mouths of the eaters. Old men were scourged till they surrendered the morsel to which their fingers clung desperately; and women were dragged about by their hair till they gave up what they possessed. Children were seized as they clutched their miserable morsels, and were whirled round and dashed upon the stones. Starving wretches would creep near the Roman posts, heedless of all danger, in order to pick up some miserable refuse, but they were sure to be waylaid and plundered, if not murdered, on their return. These were the afflictions which the lower classes suffered from their defenders. The richer classes were accused of treasonable correspondence with the enemy, of conspiracy, or of intention to desert, when they were sure to be despoiled of their wealth as a punishment. After being plundered by Simon, they fell into the hands of John, or vice versa; so that between the two leaders the victims were thoroughly stripped. As Josephus describes it, “They drank to each other out of the blood of the citizens, and shared their corpses between them.” In respect to the supply of food, it is evident that provisions could not be introduced through the investing force, any more than Paris could be revictualled through her German girdle. To intercept any such attempt, the Roman commander ordered a detachment of cavalry to cut off all who descended into the valley. The starving Jews who had thus sallied out in quest of food were captured and summarily put to death. Five hundred persons a day were crucified, till there was no room for the crosses, and no more crosses for the victims. Titus pretended to pity their fate, but said he had no men to spare for the safe custody of so many prisoners. It was a military necessity. The Jewish soldiery delighted to point out these acts of Roman cruelty to their peace longing citizens, as a foretaste of Roman mercy. Titus sent back some prisoners, with the sword hand lopped off, and charged them with suggestions for submission, but the Jews scorned to submit. From their ramparts they shouted defiance to Titus; told him that they despised death, and deliberately preferred it to slavery; that so long as they had breath they would do all the mischief they could to the Romans; that they would welcome death, as closing their eyes against the miseries of their native city.

After seventeen days’ labour the embankments against the tower of Antonio were complete, and the engines brought to bear. Just as the attack was about to commence, John sprang a mine, which he had constructed under the banks, and down they rolled amid smoke and flame, and half-smothered combustibles. The Romans were thunderstruck, and gave up all attempts to preserve their works. Two days after this, Simon and his party made an attempt to destroy the other embankments. In this case they had not been undermined; but with flaming torches the fierce defenders advanced, and amid showers of blows and thrusts, deliberately set fire to the framework and the engines; nor did they desist from their purpose till the fire had obtained a good hold. As the flames rose the besiegers poured forth from their camp to extinguish them; but the Jews fought desperately to prevent their extinction. They held fast to the machines, clutching the hot iron in their determination not to quit their posts till the fire had done its work. At last, as the destructive element gained ground and seized on the materials of the embankment, the Romans were driven back to their pickets by the victorious Jews, when Titus appeared on the scene and repulsed the assailants by his energy. The Jews returned to the city, but the Roman mounds were destroyed, their labour lost; and they began to despair of capturing Jerusalem by the ordinary means of warfare. Thus thwarted in his operations, Titus held a council, and determined on new measure. Three plans were proposed: one, to storm the town and employ the whole of the troops in the assault; another, to blockade it and starve it into submission; a third, to repair the engines and resume siege operations. Titus opposed the first plan, on the plea that it was imprudent to fight with men driven to desperation. Against the second, the blockade, he alleged that it would weaken their ranks by extending his men along so large a circle as that to be occupied; besides, it seems to him disgraceful that so large a force should sit down inactive before a town, and wait to starve it out. He, however, resolved to combine the second and third plans by drawing a line of circumvallation completely round the city, and so hindering the introduction of provisions, while he would continue to restore the embankments and the engines, and prosecute the siege. In conformity with this plan, he surrounded the city by a rampart of nearly five miles in length, which, by the zeal of the troops, was finished in three days. By this means the Jews were cut off from all egress, and the famine, taking a wider range, devoured whole families. “The houses were full of dying women and children, the streets teemed with dead bodies of the old and infirm. Young men staggered about the market-places to fall dead wherever their last miseries came upon them. As for burying the dead, that became impossible. The sick were incapable of doing it, those that were well could not accomplish it, by reason of the vast numbers unburied, and by the uncertainty of their own fate. Many died upon the very bodies they were interring, and many went to the burial place to wait there for their impending death.” Amid all these horrors there was no wailing or weeping, but, with dry eyes and open mouths, the living saw the dead go to rest. Deep silence and a night of death possessed the city; yet worse than all, were the robbers who roamed the town, breaking into houses, plundering not only the living, but stripping the dead of their clothing. They tried the edges of their swords upon the corpses, and as men lay alive, they mockingly thrust at them to test the temper of their weapons. Dreading the results of leaving so many corpses unburied, it was first ordered that the dead should be interred at the public costs; but the expenses soon became too heavy, and thenceforward they were hurled from off the walls down into the valley, the pauper dead having amounted to 600,000. Titus, as he went his rounds and saw these bodies rotting in gore, is said to have groaned, and stretching his hands towards heaven, to have called God to witness that this was not his work!–hypocrisy that reminds us of events much more recent. Deserters now began to arrive in the Roman camp. These either threw themselves from the walls, or pretending that they were going out to fight, surrendered to the first enemy. They described the state of the city as growing fearful. The houses had now been turned into catacombs. A measure of corn sold for £ 200. The sewers and old dunghills were searched for food, and men ate the most loathsome things. What the filthiest brute would not eat, they eagerly devoured; they ate their belts, their shoes, the leather coverings of their shields. Some lived on scraps of old hay, the least quantity of which was sold for 4 dr. or 2 s. 6 d. But of all, the most lineage, name, and residence are distinctly stated, was found to have roasted her young child and devoured one half of it. The robbers, who roamed like mad dogs, smelt the flesh, and broke into her house to plunder the food, when they found that she had been feeding on her offspring. Even the hardened ruffians turned and fled before this supreme horror, which realized the prophet’s words spoken some thirteen centuries before, as expressed in Deut. xxviii, 57.

Mean while the military operations against the city continued. The neighborhood having been stripped of timber for the early works, now wholly demolished, the Romans brought materials a distance of ninety furlongs, and four embankments were raised against Antonia in twenty-one days. The result of the bombardment was clearly not satisfactory; the work was too strong, and the assailants attempted another plan. They locked their shields together over their heads as a protection, and then dug at the foundations with crowbars until they got out four large stones. The next night the wall fell in, giving way at the mine which had been so destructive to the first mound. In the morning a new wall appeared, built by the foresight of John. Titus addressed his soldiers, urging an escalade. A forlorn hope headed by a Syrian named Sabinus, made the attempt, and failed. Two days afterwards twenty of the picket men, stationed to protect the mounds, with the standard-bearer of the fifty legion, two calvary soldiers, and a trumpeter, ascended through the ruins of the wall, to the tower of Antonia. They surprised and killed the sleeping sentinels, and when they had obtained a footing, made the trumpeter sound a call, which at once terrified the Jews and summoned the Romans. A fierce battle now took place, in which every inch of ground was stoutly contested. The Romans pressed onwards to gain possession of the adjacent Temple, but at length “the violent zeal of the Jews was too much for the Romans’ skill.” After ten hours’ fight, the Romans retreated to take possession of Antonia, which Titus razed to the foundations in order to give greater space for his future operations. The Jews, in order to cut off all communication with the Temple, set fire to the stately galleries of the north cloister, which connected the sacred edifice with Antonia. At this time intelligence reached the Romans that on the 17th Tamuz, the day of the capture of Antonia, the sacrifices had ceased. Titus sent Josephus to harangue the Jews, and persuade them to submit before the Temple should be injured. John’s reply was, that he feared not the taking of the city, for it was God’s own. The Temple was now their fortress, and against this the Romans now operated. An assault was first ordered, which Titus, from the heights of Antonia, directed in person; but, after eight hours’ contest the besiegers had not gained a foot. The legions now commenced four mounds to operate against the Temple, one at the north-west angle, one against a building projecting on the north, and two others in the northern and western cloisters. Two of these being complete, the battering-rams began their work; but in six days the strongest engines of the Romans did not make the slightest impression upon the vast, well-jointed stones of the Temple. They now had recourse to scaling-ladders, but were met by the most furious defense. They were slaughtered on their ladders in scores and hundreds, and driven to flight with the loss of their ensigns and materials. The soldiers, enraged, applied fire to the gates of the porticoes, and, the silver melting, the woodwork was soon in flames. The conflagration extending to the inner court, continued all night, but was extinguished by command of Titus, who was resolved to spare the Temple. He determined upon a general assault to take place the next day; but that night, the infuriated Jews made two desperate sallies, which inflicted great loss upon the Romans, many of whom were engaged in putting out the fire (which still raged in the inner court) in obedience to Titus’s commands. It was at this time, that one of the soldiers, impelled by mad fury, snatched a brand from the burning gallery, and being lifted up by another soldier, set fire to a little golden window, leading to one of the passages of the Holy place. The fire spread with rapidity, and friends and foes were alike filled with consternation. Titus, who had retired to rest, rushed forth to employ all his efforts in arresting the conflagration, without success. His soldiery rejoiced in the calamity, and pretended not to hear his commands. From court to court, the flames were spreading, but still the sanctuary, the most holy, remained unscathed. With words and blows, Titus restrained his soldiers, but their passions were excited; they hated the Jews too much to spare their Temple. A soldier thrust a brand beneath a golden door, and the Temple was burnt.

Simon and John retreated to the upper city Zion, and held out there. Their position was desperate, but they refused to surrender at discretion. This so exasperated Titus, that he plundered and set fire to the lower city, of which he now had possession. His siege works had to be renewed, but in eighteen days the banks were completed, and the assault made. The town was taken by storm, and thousands slaughtered. Those who were kept alive were sold into slavery, or doomed to fight in the arena as gladiators. The leaders, Simon and John, concealed themselves in the subterranean galleries, until they were starved into submission. John was sentenced to death, but had his punishment commuted to imprisonment for life. Simon was sent to Rome, and after gracing the triumph, was decapitated in the Forum.

The work of massacre finished, Titus ordered the demolition of the city, with all its noble structures and fortifications; nothing being left but a piece of the western wall and the three towers of Hippicos, Phasaelis, and Mariamne. Over the site, we are told that Titus carried the plough, a sign of its eternal devastation. But we, whose hopes are bound up with the future of Jerusalem, know that she will rise again in glory, because God has said it. Her sorrows have been great, her ruin terrible; but those sorrows and that ruin were foretold as the consequences of her sins. And it is that same prophecy, which tells us of her regeneration and future glory, when in God’s own good time, He shall comfort Jerusalem.

“For the Lord shall comfort Zion: He will comfort all her waste places; and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.” ISAIAH li. 3

BLOSS’S ANCIENT HISTORY

THE FALL OF JERUSALEM

70 A.D.

This beautiful but guilty city was occupied by three factions. Eleazar, with a party called the zealots, kept possession of the temple; John, who had been driven from Giscala, fortified himself in the lower town; and Simon, with his followers, defended Bezetha, Such was the city, such were its fortifications, and such its defenders when Titus, in the spring of A.D. 70, at the time of the general assembly of the Jews to celebrate the feast of the Passover, approached the devoted place and pitched his camp east of the vale of Cedron, upon the Mount of Olives. The efforts of the Jews to compel the Romans to raise the siege were almost incredible. They burned the engines of the enemy, and attacked the legions with such fury that Titus, quite dispirited, gave up the idea of taking the place by storm, and employed his soldiers in constructing a wall which would prevent all egress from the gates.

No sooner were the operations of the Romans intermitted than the factions in the city raged with tenfold fury; battles were fought within the walls; a company of assassins entered the temple and cut off Eleazar and his party in one general massacre; conflagrations destroyed great quantities of corn; so that when the day had come to Jerusalem that “her enemies cast a trench about her and kept her in on every side,” her own sons were lying like murdered victims upon her altars, and her little ones were perishing in the streets with famine. Portents and prodigies announces the coming doom. Swords flittered in the air; embattled armies seemed hurrying to combat in the sky: the portal of the temple flew open, and a voice from the excellent glory pronounced, in no mortal tones, “Let us depart!” A terrific sound, as of a multitude rushing forth, was heard, and then an appalling silence reigned throughout the holy courts.

The Jews converted these fearful admonitions into omens of speedy deliverance, and disregarding the dreadful ravages of famines and pestilence, obstinately refused the offers of accommodation which Titus repeatedly made by the mouth of Josephus. The Romans, wrought to fury by the desperation of the Jews, made incessant attacks upon the walls, and finally gained possession of Antonia. At length the day approached in the revolution of ages, the tenth of August-the anniversary of that fatal day in which Nebuchadnezzar burned the temple of Solomon. The daily sacrifice had failed for want of men to offer it; and the Romans, having overturned the foundations of Antonia, began to ply their battering-rams upon the sacred walls of the temple. A Roman soldier in the tumult, actuated as by a divine fury, seized a smoking brand, and climbing to the top of the portico, threw it into one of the courts; and soon the whole building was wrapped in flames.

The wail of agony which the despairing Jews sent forth upon seeing the destruction of their temple, could not move the hearts of the infuriated Romans. Titus, unable to make himself heard in the uproar, withdrew to the fort of Antonia, and gazing upon the conflagration, exclaimed, with a sigh,”The God of the Jews has fought against them; to Him we owe our victory.” The numbers who perished amounted to 1,000,000; the captives to 100,000. John and Simon were taken. The former was imprisoned for life; the later was “conveyed to Rome, to clank his chains at the chariot wheels of the conqueror.”

ALL DOUBT REMOVED

In the past you may have read those words of Jesus in Matt. 24, Luke 19, and Luke 21, and taken them very lightly, but after reading this history, and seeing exactly what fulfilled those words from the verses we have already read, can you ever take them that lightly again? I say, This removes all doubt as to whether every word that was prophesied will be fulfilled before the end of measured time. For instance, Titus had three different plans, or choices of how to deal with this Jewish revolt. If he had settled on either one of the first two plans, then the prophecy of Jesus would not have been fulfilled. Before considering any of these three plans though, Titus tried to make peace with those Jews. There were three factions within the Jewish community. All fighting against each other because of political and religious differences. That is what Titus had been commissioned to get settled, and his first intentions were to settle their disputes by appeasement, but they rejected all such efforts and forced him to take other measures. It was during this time, that all those who had taken heed to the words of Jesus, got out of there and fled to the mountains. They could see that Jerusalem was compassed with armies, and that was their signal to leave, even though those armies were not at that time set to destroy the city. The believers fled, and the others rejected Titus’ efforts to make peace, and fought more furiously. They supposedly joined forces to fight against their common enemy, (the Romans) that is when Titus considered how he might otherwise handle the situation. First he considered an all out assault against the city, but then considered it imprudent to fight with men who were driven to desperation. Secondly he considered a blockade of the city until they were starved into submission, but then considered it disgraceful that so large a force could just sit down and remain inactive for such a period of time. Thus he resolved to combine his second and third plan. He could completely surround the city, making it impossible for supplies to be brought in, and continue efforts to break through their walls of defense. Do you see how it took all of that to fulfill the words of Jesus? He had said (Luke 19:43) “For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side.” That army circled the city, out far enough to be out of bow shot range of the Jews, and began cutting down trees, gathering up rocks, and anything else that they could use to build a great mound in between them and the city. They completely circled the city with this great mound of dirt, trees and rocks, and they just kept building it higher as they would throw it forward toward the city. They just kept moving that thing forward until they had it high enough, and close enough that they could scale the walls of the city. You will read what happened. I just want to be sure you see how perfectly it all fulfilled the words of Jesus. There was the trench about them; they were hemmed in on every side, they laid the city even with the ground, and the starving pitiful conditions brought about the fulfillment of those words about those that were with child, and those that gave suck, and so forth, even as far back as what was written in Deuteronomy 28:57, that a mother would eat her little ones. It is the accuracy of fulfilled prophecy that we are considering as we read these excerpts from history. The fact that one account says 600,000 perished, and another gives the number as being more that a million, is immaterial to our purpose. It is not the number of those who perished that we are concerned with; it is WHAT HAPPENED, that we are looking at, for that is what fulfilled the scriptures.

THE MAN OF FLATTERIES

If there was only one point to be made from all that we have said up to this point: I would want it to be, that those early Christians knew prophecy, and they followed instructions. Let me say also, If that was important to them in their day, it is also just as important to us in our day. We are getting very close to a time when it is going to be very important that every Christian be able to give an account of what they believe, and why they believe it. If what you believe is not by revelation, the enemy of your soul will rob you of what you think you have. Do not get the idea that just because we know the bride of Christ will not have to go through the great tribulation, everything will be a bed of roses for her until the time she is raptured; you will not get by that easy. But you can be prepared for whatever comes, if you will allow the Spirit of God to instruct you, through His word. Naturally our main emphasis is on the Antichrist who is yet to come, but do not forget, the apostle John said that there are many Antichrists in the world. That applies to anyone who speaks contrary to revelated truth. The world is full of such characters, and believe me, they cause trouble wherever they go. Just believing in God, without a true revelation, and without knowing how to apply the word of God, and how to interpret the plan of God, brings about an anti condition. Basically the whole nation of Israel was like that when Jesus came to them in His first advent. They went about boasting that Abraham was their father, and that they believed Moses and the prophets, when in reality they had become so carnal with their interpretation of Moses and the prophets that Jesus was pressed to say to them, ye are of your father the devil. According to their natural lineage they were the rightful heirs of what the law and the prophets pointed to, but without spiritual revelation they missed it completely. Only a few out of all the great multitudes that were touched by the life and ministry of Christ, ever really followed Him because of a genuine revelation. Look at Judas, the man who set the spiritual type of the man of sin who is yet to come. He was a religious person, and he believed in God, but somehow he just never did get a true revelation. Jesus referred to him as the son of perdition (one ordained to lead someone, or something to destruction.) The apostle Paul referred to the man of sin (the Antichrist) as the sone of Perdition (1 Thess.. 2:3) He will be the one that Judas set the type for, a religious man that is ordained to lead something to destruction, (Perdition means destruction.) Judas typed the spiritual side of this man. That is why we can say for certain that the Antichrist will be a man that is identified with Christianity, and Daniel, chapter 11, states that he will come in with flatteries. If you analyze that word, you will realize that it pertains to the ability to accomplish with words. His great speaking ability, and the promises that he will make, will win the confidence of many, enough to fulfill Dan. 9:27. Antiochus and Titus both came on the scene with a sword, but this man will never have to pick up any kind of literal weapon himself. People all over the world will willingly lay their soul in his hands. Through flatteries, and promises of great peace and prosperity people all over the world will literally place themselves at his disposal. Why? Because by then the world will have been shaken to the point where there will be a dreadful fear of annihilation. I will not set any dates, but I will say again, All this turmoil in the Middle East will never cease until it has caused such a war that will put that fear in people of the world. The leaders of Western Europe will gladly give their power unto the beast in that hour, for they will be hysterical. When this man comes to realize just how much power he really does have, that is when Satan will anoint him.

Because of his religious identity, he believes in God, but he will not believe in God by divine revelation. From that 11th chapter of Daniel, we also learn that this same man who comes into power through flatteries will not regard the God of his fathers, but will magnify himself above every god. It goes on to say that in his estate he shall honor the God of forces. I have thought about that many times; here is a man that supposedly believes in God. He is looked upon as the head of the Christian church, yet Daniel 11, lets us know that he will not regard the God of his fathers, but will honor the God of forces. Here is the reason. By the time this age reaches his hour, something will have happened that will have affected his whole psychological and religious thinking. The world will be coming out of a time of severe shaking when he is accepted as their leader. Those political Jews in Israel who do not see God at all in what has just happened will be ready to make peace with anything the world has to offer. That, of course , is to fulfill the words of Jesus in John 5:42-43, where He was speaking to a similar bunch of Jews. He said to them, “But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.” The true Prince of peace who had come in His Father’s name was being rejected by the Jews of His first advent, but the false prince of peace who will offer his services to the world in his own name one day soon, will be anxiously accepted by those political minded Jews of this hour. Therefore because Jesus prophesied it, we know there is an element of Jews that are predestined to receive the man of sin. That is what Daniel 9:27, is referring to where is says, “and he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week.” It will be an economic, political agreement for peace, tranquility, and prosperity, and where it says “with many,” it does not mean many individuals; it means many nations. Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, all of that Moslem world will rush right to the peace table with Israel and others. They will all want to be a part of what looks like the best system for man’s government that could possibly be devised, coming out of such a chaotic condition as they have just witness, (a nuclear warfare). It is easy to see how the pope will be able to move on the scene with such flatteries. He will not need a sword; his smooth tongue will be all that is needed to sway world leaders.

TWO PROPHETS DEMONSTRATING GOD

While the political leaders of many nations are sitting around their peace conference table, making a covenant with the Roman Catholic pope: something else is going to be taking place in that little land of Israel. Two Jewish prophets are going to step on the scene, and a great revival is going to break out. They will be demonstrating God just like Moses and Aaron did in the land of Egypt, and the true spiritual Jews will be having the time of their lives. Saints, do not think for one minute that the old peace loving pope will just ignore all of this. You can believe me; he will be watching the national news on television every night. What those two prophets do in that hour will draw more attention that the hostages in Iran every did. Never have you seen the news media flock around anything, like they will then. They (the two prophets) will be standing in the streets of Jerusalem, warning those Jews not to have anything to do with the Antichrist which they will be revealing, and at the same time they will be revealing the true Prince of Peace to their brethren. They will be vindicating their ministry by calling down the plagues that you read about in the 8th chapter of Revelation. Believers will be receiving the Holy Ghost, and unbelievers will be partaking of the plagues. What a stir that is going to cause! The old pope will manage to bear it for a period of 3 ½ years, but by then it will be more than he can allow to go on any longer. He will be backed into a corner so to speak. Here he is, a man that is looked upon by the world as the great mouthpiece of God, and over there in Israel two men are demonstrating God in such a way that it is holding world attention. Where does that leave him? If he lets this go on it will wreck his whole program. No doubt by then the Arab world will be having political repercussions that will be pulling on him, so what is left for him to do? The old pope will pick up his sword and head for the land of Israel. Naturally his sword is his authority to call in international troops that will be at his complete disposal. They will fulfill Revelation 11:7, by killing those two prophets, and the old pope will fulfill Daniel 11:45, “And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas (between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea) in the glorious holy mountain.” that could be no other place but right on Mt. Zion. Did not the apostle Paul say that he would sit himself in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God? He will demand worship, for by this time he will have been anointed by Satan to fulfill all that is written about him. His first attention will be directed to having those two prophets killed, and from there on out for the duration of his allotted time, he will fulfill all that Antiochus, Titus, and Judas typed. He is the god of gods in his own eyes, and he will serve the god of forces, the god of money, the god of power. He will still have a belief about God, but it will be such a warped belief, such a perverted belief that he will fulfill what Daniel wrote in chapter 11; he will not be serving the same god of his fathers, those who held the office of pope before him. Brothers and sisters, I hope you are seeing how all these various scriptures fit together. None of this Bible was written in vain. It will help you if you will allow it to. But remember above all else, it is only that which you have by revelation that will hold you when the going gets rough. The Antichrist, the son of perdition is ordained to lead the unbelieving world to destruction, but to you who believe, let me say to you what Paul said to the Thessalonicans. Let no man deceive by any means, and do not be troubled in your spirit by all these various dates that certain individuals are pushing, for the day of our gathering together unto Christ will not come until this great falling away has run its course, and the man of sin, who is the son of perdition, the Antichrist has been revealed. When that peace covenant is signed and those two prophets step on the scene, then, and only then can you set dates for certain things to happen. At least we know from the scriptures how many days are allotted both to the two witnesses as well as the Antichrist. Each have 1260 days, and God Himself will keep the time on them.

HORN WITH EYES

We are going to thoroughly cover the seven heads, and the ten horns which Daniel as well as the apostle John saw on a certain beast, but we must work into it in a way that it will be easily understood. I feel that we are entering into a very important part of the message, and I pray that every child of God who reads this, will give serious thought as to why I feel compelled to go at it in the way I do. Let us go back to the 7th chapter of Daniel where we will see that little horn, (the Antichrist) appear to Daniel, and hear how the angel of God explained Daniel’s visions to him. We have been dealing mostly with those who have exemplified types of this little horn who is destined to fulfill the Antichrist scriptures that pertain to the end of the age, and if you have been following the message you should have those types reasonably straight when you come to them. Chapter 7, portrays this Antichrist in his spiritual identity and ties him to Rome. Then chapters 8, 9 and 11, deal with those who will set a type of this little horn, types which definitely proceeded the fulfillment of what was established in chapter 7. The types were placed in the scriptures after the office was established. Then in no less that 4 places in the book of Daniel, reference is made to the “the abomination that maketh desolate.” We have thoroughly covered those conditions that have been fulfilled already by Antiochus and Titus, and I believe you can see already what it will take to fulfill those scriptures that pertain to that condition here at the end of this age, that which Daniel 9:27 pertains to. Ever since Titus completely destroyed the city of Jerusalem, and the temple; that city has gone through periods of desolation and wars, all designed to keep the Jews from ever gaining sovereign control of the city and the temple spot until it is time for their end time role, recorded in the scriptures, to be fulfilled. That Mosque of Omar many times, has been referred to as being the abomination that maketh desolate. In one sense you could say that, because it is something that has been erected there by an anti religious belief that is contrary to what God wanted established there. Not that the Moslems are pagans; they believe in the same God the Jews believe in, but not by the same revelation and authority. Nevertheless that thing is there, and the Jews are deprived of access to that holy spot. That condition of desolation has lasted for over 1900 years, and everything that will fulfill the rest of those prophecies will all be accomplished in one little 7 year period of time.

DANIEL’S FOURTH BEAST

Now we are ready to read from chapter 7, of Daniel. In night visions, Daniel has seen 4 great beasts come up from the sea, each one different from the other, but let us go to the verse 7, and catch that fourth one, for it is the one that comes right down to the hour in which we live. “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had TEN HORNS. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things. I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like the pure wool: His throne was like the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire.” We will stop reading there, for it is that 10 horned beast that we wanted to get into the picture, and that little horn that came up among them. We want to take this chapter 7, and show how it links right up with chapter 12. As we continue, let us drop down to verse 19, where Daniel is inquiring of the angel of God about this fourth beast. “Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, (The other three were the Babylonian beast system, the Medo-Persian beast system, and the Grecian beast system) exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet; And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the SAME HORN made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; (HOW LONG?) Until the Ancient of days came, (JESUS AT THE END OF THE GREAT TRIBULATION) and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.” In other words Daniel watched that vision until it had gone all the way through the great tribulation and reached a millennium setting. Naturally the saints that the beast prevailed against in Daniel’s vision will be foolish virgins and orthodox Jews that will be martyred during the great tribulation, for it continued until the Ancient of days came. We have to go over to Revelation, chapter 19, and then back to Matthew 25:31-46, to show scripturally what is covered in verse 22 of what we have just read. That is too much scripture to read right now, so you read them later. When Jesus is seen in Rev. 19, coming to earth with His armies, that is when He comes in the authority of the ancient God of the ages. Of course that ancient Spirit has always been present; we all know that. But this speaks of an hour when time has progressed to a point where the millennium must be set up, or set in motion, and therefore must be ruled and exercised by that ancient authority, expressed through a king, and Jesus is the King that will rule. And He is that Ancient of days that Daniel saw. The judgment that Daniel spoke of in verse 22, is that judgment of the nations that you read in Matthew 25. Do not think the saints of the most High will not judge them. They surely will. The apostle Paul said they would (1Cor 6:2-3). Then if you want to see who makes up the ranks of the armies that come to earth with Jesus at that time; you will find the key in verses 7, 8 and 14, of that 19th chapter of Revelation. Notice what they are clothed in (FINE LINEN).

ROME REVEALED

Let us return to that 4th beast in Daniel 7:23. “Thus he said, (The angel speaking to Daniel) The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon the earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.” Saints of God, if you ever went very far in school, you know what the fourth kingdom that ruled the world was; it was Rome. However at the time Daniel saw these prophetic visions, the Roman Empire had not even become such, and as far as ruling the world goes; Naturally it is speaking of the old world, what we know as the prophetic world. Nevertheless this was God’s way of saying that Rome would one day become a great power. Daniel did not know it would be Rome; but we know from our secular history books that it was. What Daniel learned was that this fourth world kingdom would be much different than the other three, more powerful, and more vicious. The Babylonian empire was an evil, pagan thing. It was the first beast. Then as time passed the world was ruled by the Persian empire, the second beast. It was a combination of Medes & Persians, for they had united their empires and become known as the Medo-Persian empire. Geographically, the old Persian empire took in the areas of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, as we know them today. If you would check it on an old map you would see that the Persian empire boundaries touched India and even as far in as what we call, Turkey, today. It too, was pagan, and basically a political and military system. It had its day, it ruled, it stamped its influence upon the world, and had its affect upon the nation of Israel, and then it passed on out of the picture. The Grecian empire was another pagan, political, military beast system, but none of these three ever resembled anything that the fourth one was destined to be. Also, according to the prophecy the fourth beast system was to be the last one that would ever rule the world. The stone that was cut out of the mountain without hands, (JESUS CHRIST) is to smite that kingdom along with whatever might be left in it of the other three, and break it to pieces, (Daniel, chapter 2) and then the millennium will start.

WHO ARE THE TEN HORNS?

Now the question that must be answered is, in what way would that fourth beast be different from the other three? This one was pagan also, just like the other three. Over their vast territory, many forms of pagan worship was practiced, even devil worship. But as this great empire moved through time exercising its power and authority over the then known world, and Satan knowing that this was his last chance ever to be embodied in such a system, as his influence politically, began to fade out from the imperial rulership of the old Caesars, he began to do a magician’s trick. He (SATAN) began slowly, to lay off the robe of the old Caesars, and to put on the robe of a religious front. As his power decreased on the old political imperial chair of ancient Rome, he slowly began to come up on another chair right in the same city. That is what made this fourth beast different than the other three, for Satan did not do that in any of them. It was only in this Roman empire that Satan moved from the political throne to a religious throne, and he did not do that in a day’s time; it actually took centuries, but he did make the transition. Modern religious does not like to hear it, and I do not like to have to say it, but I must; when he left that old Caesar’s chair, and came up on another chair in the same city, that other chair was occupied by the bishop of Rome. You now know him as, “the Pope” of the Roman Catholic church. Naturally these symbols that God used in these visions were to conceal the true meaning until the time arrived when these symbols would actually begin to coincide with the events of the world. Then the living generation gets a revelation of what the symbols pertain to. Let us look a little further at these symbols. The angel has told Daniel that this fourth kingdom (beast) would devour the whole earth, tread it down, and break it in pieces. Then he goes on to describe and explain more about it saying, verse 24, Daniel 7, “And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise.” This literally points to ten kingdoms of political government that would spring up from within the geographical area of what was once the Roman empire, and all ten were ruled by kings. They did not all sprout at the same time, but in time, as that great imperial head of Rome began to weaken, people of certain areas began slowly to break away by establishing their own political identity. This accounts for the ten horns on that beast, for every one of them were within the area that once was ruled by the one head, imperial Roman rule. They are all nations of Western Europe right today. For years now we have been watching the formation of the European Common Market, as those nations bind themselves together in trade agreements, and we know that this is a reviving of that 10 horned beast, getting ready to fulfill some more prophecies of the scriptures. They do not know that they are moving right in the stream of God’s plan, but we know it. Right? I have people ask me, Bro. Jackson: Exactly which ten nations is it that make up the original ten horns of that beast? They ask this because it is obvious that the Common Market will have more than ten members before it is all over with. There could be 12 to 15 members of the European Common Market, for what basically was divided into ten kingdoms that made up the 10 horns of that beast, has had fragments split off of some of them until by now, that same geographical area could be divided into as many as 15 instead of the original ten. But keep this in mind, they carry their identity (as far as prophecy goes) according to what sprang there from the beginning of the Dark Ages, as these different areas began to break away from that old imperial authority of Rome. The ancient Austrian empire has been broken into certain fragments since then, so has the Dutch areas. Therefore when the European Common Market comes up with 12 to 15 members, do not get excited and start screaming. There is something wrong, there are too many members in that thing. NO. There is nothing wrong. It has to encompass all of the area of that ancient 10, no matter how many they wind up with as members. You can confirm that with Ezekiel 38, which speaks of how Persia will align itself with what we know is Russia, against Israel, some day in the near future. But that area is not even called Persia any more; it is now call Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. However, that area will still have to fulfill its scriptural role that was delegated to Persia. Do you understand? Keep that in mind as we continue reading here in Daniel 7, where we read that the ten horns were ten kings that would arise out of this fourth beast kingdom. It goes on to say, “And another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.” Some people read that, and immediately they proclaim that the beast has 11 horns instead of ten. No. You must realize that the little horn which came up from the midst of the ten, was not a political horn of any territory. He is a horn that carries more of a mystical identity than the other ten. He is different from them, and it says that he shall subdue 3 of the ten kings. Please bear in mind, the word, subdue, does not mean, destroy. That simply means that this little horn would bring these three kings under his control. Then notice what else verse 25 says this little horn will do. “And he shall speak great words against the most high.” Brothers and sisters, that does not mean that the man is literally going to step out somewhere, look up toward heaven, and say anything directly against God. It simply boils down to the fact that because he is a man without spiritual revelation, yet looked upon as a great spiritual leader, one who stands in the place of Christ for the benefit of people, everything he speaks from his carnal reasoning is contrary to God’s true plan for His people. The Catholic church has always done that. They speak great pious words that sound so holy and perfect, but they are contrary to what God has already said. That is speaking against God. We will read some examples of this from actual history a little later. It does not mean that the pope is actually against God in his mental attitude, but for lack of revelation, he speaks contrary to God. But Bro. Jackson, there have been many popes down through the ages of time. Yes. But one day there will be one that will literally fulfill all that is written. All other popes up to that hour have been minor Antichrists. It took all those little fellows to get that office established for what it will represent in the hour when the literal Antichrist will set on that throne. Saints you can believer me: that office is well established. If I had not known it already; his visit to New York would have been enough to let me know. Thousands upon thousand of teenagers filled the streets and Madison Square Gardens to see him, and gave him blue jeans, T-shirts and who knows what else. I tell you Saints: we are looking at something that is very deceptive in this hour of time.

Let us now look at the next portion of this 25th verse, where we read how this little horn would come up, and speak great words against the most High, “And shall wear out the saints of the most High, (That will be Jewish saints. We will see that in chapter 12, when we get to it.) And think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand (notice the time factor here) until a time (ONE YEAR) and times (TWO MORE YEARS) and the dividing of time,”(THAT IS ONE HALF YEAR) The length of time allotted to this Antichrist is reconfirmed over and over again. You have it in chapter 12, then in Revelation 12, and in Revelation 12, it is also referred to as a thousand two hundred and threescore days, and in Revelation 13, it is called 42 months. Any way you look at it his allotted time is exactly 3 ½ prophetic years; not more, and no less. Verse 26, “But the judgment shall sit, (the millennium judgment) and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, (that is the bride of Christ) whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him.” That is definitely in the millennium. But now, after reading these scriptures we want to read a little portion of early European history that will allow you to know exactly how that little horn (not the same man every time, but the same authority) actually did subdue three of those ten kings. I do not believe you will find history like this in your schools today. This was printed in 1917, and 1924, before that brainwashing spirit took over the schools. This history is dealing with the Dark Ages of Europe, and you can see how this little horn came up in the midst of the ten, as Europe eventually got its political freedom from that old imperial rulership of Rome. You understand I am sure that I am referring to that ancient rulership of the Caesars, Augustus, Tiberius, Nero, Claudia, Anthony and those characters. They ruled the Roman Empire and all of its territories with an iron fist. You read in history, how those caesars would get in their imperial chariot and go out to visit their territories, and how their subjects would fall prostrate, face down, just before the chariot approached, because they believed that office was established by the gods. Furthermore those old caesars demanded that kind of worship. Further still, you can see people doing the same thing in principle, when the pope approaches them. Whenever a person bows to kiss the ring, or the feet of that man, they are following the same pagan practice as those who bowed to the caesars of old. The same spirit of the devil that was on the old caesars, is now on the popes of Rome, anyone who fills that office. The only difference is, they do not sit there as the emperor of Rome; they sit there as the pope of Rome. Now we will read the history.

HISTORY-THE POWER OF THE PAPACY

This chapter is titled, The Power of the Papacy, and saints, if you cannot see the scriptures fulfilled in here; there is something wrong with you. Here is how it begins; “The pope was the supreme lawgiver of the church. His decrees might not be set aside by any other person, and he made new laws in the form of what they called bulls. And by his dispensations could, in particular cases, set aside old laws, such as those forbidding cousins to marry, and monks to obtain release from their vows. The pope was also the supreme judge of the church, for all appeals from the lower ecclesiastical court came before him for the decision. Finally the pope was the supreme administrator of the church. He confirmed the election of both bishops and arch bishops. The pope also exercised control over the monastic orders, and called general councils of the church.” These are things written about the papacy up through about the 9th century. It lets us see how they were expressing themselves. These are the men who supposedly succeeded the apostle Peter, so I want you to do something right now. Just let your mind drift back to the book of Acts where Peter went to the home of Cornelius. What did Peter do when Cornelius bowed t him? I believe it says Cornelius fell at his feet, and worshiped him, but what I want you to get is that Peter took him up, and told him to stand up, that he also was a man. If these Roman popes succeeded Peter, then tell me, why do they not have the same revelation that Peter had? God back and read the four gospels, and you will see quite a different type of person in this man Peter, than what you see in these popes.

POPE SUBDUES THREE KINGS

Now let us skip a couple of centuries in our history, and try to pick up where this little horn really began to express himself. This little horn did not sprout over night, he came to power gradually. As the power of Satan began to decrease on the old imperial chair, he just moved right over to the bishop of Rome and began to work through him. Therefore what we are dealing with is the same old spirit of Satan, but he is working through a different office. You have read a little of what the pope is, to what they call, the church. Now we want to watch him expand his scope. We are in a period between 1073 to 1085, and we will read how history backs up the scriptures. Now, “At this time, there was great conflict between the power of the church in Rome and the emperor, as to which one had the most authority. But in process of time, it seemed as though the pope, seizing upon political opportunities became more influential and more powerful. In 1073 to 1085, a remarkable man became pope. This was the monk Hilderbrand, who, on elevation to the papacy, took the name of Gregory the 7th. Gregory devoted all his talents to the advancement of the papacy.” In other words, he saw to it, that the office of the papacy got recognition in every possible way. He was out to establish an authority from that office. Therefore what we are going to read is a contemporary document, which may very well have been of his own composition. At any rate it expressed his ideas, and contains the following statements. Listen to that little horn that had eyes like a man, and a mouth speaking great things. “He alone (The Pope) may remove bishops, and restore them to office, He is the only person whose feet are kissed by all princes. He may dethrone emperors.” Can you imagine Paul or Peter going to Rome and saying, Nero: Get off of that chair; I am taking over? That is when a head would have been cut off, and it would not have been Nero’s head. Yet this office has been held, down through the centuries of time by men who have had the audacity to say that they are standing in the place of Christ to the universal church, and that they alone may depose, or dethrone emperors. That is saying a mouthful. Would you not agree? Listen to this next statement. “He may be judged of no one. He may absolve from their allegiance, the subjects of the wicked. The Roman church never has erred, and never can err.” If that be true, then why did God call that Roman church system, a harlot, or a whore? It just goes to show that they did not know how to read the scriptures. Gregory did not originate these doctrines, but he was the first pope to take an open stand declaring them, or to make a practical application of them. “Gregory soon issued a decree against lay investiture. It declared that no emperor, king, duke, marquess, count nor any other lay person should presume to grant investiture, under pain of excommunication. This decree was a general one, applying to all states of Western Europe. But circumstances were such as it mainly affected Germany.” Now right here is where we will see that little horn subdue the first of the three kings that Daniel 7:24, spoke of. We will just let the history tell what he did. “Henry the 4th, the ruler of Germany at this time, did not refuse the papal challenge. He wrote a famous letter to Gregory, calling him, no pope, but a false monk, telling him that Christ had never called him to the priesthood, and bidding him come down; come down from St. Peter’s throne. Gregory in reply deposed him (meaning he dethroned him) as emperor in Germany, excommunicated him from the church, and freed his subjects from their oaths to him. This severe sentence made a profound impression in Germany. Henry’s adherents fell away, and it seemed probable that the German nobles would elect another man in his place. Henry then decided on abject submission. He hastened across the Alps and found the pope at the castle of Canossa. It was January, and the snow lay deep on the ground. The emperor stood for 3 days, shivering outside the castle gate, barefoot and clad in a coarse woolen shirt, the garb of a tenant. At last, upon the entreaties of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany, Gregory admitted Henry and granted absolution, (meaning repentance.)” What happened? It goes t show, that a king, a political ruler of the country, which is one of the horns, which is signified as one of the ten, tried to exercise political freedom apart from obedience to what the pope said, and got his crown taken away from him until he literally repented to the pope of Rome. Brother and sister, can you see, even there, that this is quite contrary to what true Christianity was to be in this world of darkness, to mankind? Alright, you could read this today, in the nominal, modernistic churches, and they’d either boo you out of the pulpit, or say, don’t read that stuff, that took place a long time ago; we’ve learned better today. We believe that God will forgive sin, if we just repent and live right. That is the way of covering up the whole scheme. But now then, we are going to read about the 2nd horn, that he plucked up. This was not in the country of Germany, it was in the country of Italy, right in the very country geographically, where Rome itself sits. He did this right against the very emperor, the political man of Rome. It goes to show, the emperors who did sit on the ancient throne of Rome, no longer were like Caesar Augustus . They were just figureheads. It was the pope who did the cracking of the whip. “Thirty years after the signing of the concordant of Worms, the Emperor Frederick the 1st, called Barbarossa, because of his red beard, succeeded to the throne.

Frederick the 1st, of the Hohenstaufen dynasty was capable, imaginative, and ambitious. He took Charlemagne and Otto the Great as his models and purposed, like them, to rule Christian Europe, and the church. His reign is the story of many attempts, ending at length in failure, to unite all Italy into a single state under German sway. Frederick’s Italian policy brought him at once into conflict with the papacy. The popes gave their support to a large league of 3 cities of northern Italy, which were also threatened by Frederick’s soaring ambitions. The haughty emperor, having suffered a severe defeat, sought reconciliation with the pope, Alexander III, in the presence of a vast throng assembled before St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. Frederick knelt before the pope, and humbly kissed his feet. ” Just a century had passed, since the humiliation of Henry the 4th, at Canossa. Because the pope had said, you can’t do that, another emperor, which was one of the horns, and this one was of Italy, could not do militarily, or politically, what he thought he would like to do, in uniting certain areas of Europe. Now, at that point, if you will take that point right there, that I just mentioned, take it right over to Revelation 17, where, you don’t have to turn to it, just listen to me, where the angel is describing the ten horns, on that beast seen in the 17th chapter of Revelation, and the angel tells John, These ten horns, will one day hate the whore. He says, They have received no kingdom as yet, which means, never has there ever been one of those political powers of Europe, once it became a breakup out of the old imperial system of Rome, ever been allowed to establish an empire that was to rule all Europe, under either German government or French government, or Italian government or Spanish government, and if you study the history, they all fought like cats and dogs. But not one time in history was it ever allowed to any one of those nations to say, Now, I own all this. You cannot show it anywhere. God did not allow it. But what does Revelation 17 say? But they received authority, or a kingdom, one hour with the beast. Then it says, And God will put it into their hearts, to five their power or authority unto the beast power. This means that all that vast area and territory is united back again under Catholic control, under the pope. Now then, we want to read there again, about what took place here, at another time. This took place in France.

“The papacy reached the height of its power under Innocent the 3rd. The 18 years of his pontificate were one long effort, for the most part, successful, to make the pope the arbitrator of Europe. Innocent announced the claims of the papacy in the most uncompromising manner. As the moon, he declared, receives its light from the sun, and is inferior to the sun, so do kings receive all their glory and dignity from the Holy See.” This meant, according to Innocent, that the pope has the right to interfere, in all secular matters, and in the quarrels of rulers. “God has set the prince of the apostles over kings, and kingdoms with a mission to tear up, plant, destroy, scatter and rebuild.” Do not think he didn’t do it. At least he tried it. Now, let me say this, Only God has the right to do that. It is God who says, I will lift up whom I will, and I will put down whom I will. Then let a mortal creature, who has to depend on Him for the breath he breathes, come along and say such a thing, do you not think he is speaking against the most High? He is trying. When Satan, in the 14th chapter of Isaiah said, I will exalt myself above the stars of God: (I will!) What do you think he was doing? He was speaking against God. Only God sits up that high. “Innocent’s claims were not idle boasts. When Phillip Augustus, king of France, divorced his wife, (Now the moral picture, we must realize, we would not justify it, what the king did. But it is the fact that the pope had such power to do what he did against the country.) And made another marriage. Innocent declared the divorce void, and ordered him to take back his discarded queen. Phillip refused, and Innocent put France under an interdict. From that hour all religious rites ceased. Church doors were barred; the church bells were silent. The sick died untended to. The dead lay unburied. Phillip, deserted by his retainers, was compelled to submit.” All three major kings, in different centuries of time, being brought under subjection to the authority of the pope, and each pope, who was the instrument in that time, was different in relationship to each one of the kings. So it goes to show, the horn was not the individual man, but rather, the office, that had been established by the man. How many can see that? I have other parts marked right here, how that in that very hour, the Catholic church, through the power of the papacy, through the different orders of the Jesuits, and such like, they went all over Europe, and anybody who did not purpose voluntarily to join the Catholic church, many times, they were just taken out and done away with. This was a means by how the Catholic church brought all Europe under subjection to the power of the papacy, in Rome. That is why they could hold such power over people. There was nobody to rise, to speak against it, for everyone was afraid. Now, if he could politically control the old world, Europe, mainly, then remember, it is always deep down inside, the motive of that system, that one day, they will rule and control the world. That is the underneath motive. Now then, when we go to the book of Revelation, and we see in the 13th chapter, you have read it, I know, many times. In the 13th chapter, John was then living under the Roman Empire, in 96 A.D. But he lived in time, when the prophetic picture, time wise was still in the great head. How many realize that? But in 96 A.D. something was going on within this head, that would set forth an evolutionary thing. So in the spirit, then, he was taken and projected into our day and hour. This is something you must understand. Though physically he lived in 96A.D., he was projected into the future tense, and he saw the whole thing as a finished picture. Therefore, he wrote of it as though it had already happened, bringing it right up to the present tense. Now, if he had been taken up, and shown these things as something for the future, he would have said, It will be, thus and so. How many get my illustration? Alright, here is another thing we want to express to you. The horn is symbolic of power, but it is not political power. It is ecclesiastical power. How many know what I mean, when I say ecclesiastical? It means spiritual, religious power. The ten horns is political power, all derived from different political governments, established over these ten geographical territories of the breakup of the old Roman empire. When you go to the 13th chapter of Revelation, you see this same beast coming up for the end time, as John the Revelator saw it coming up out of the sea. He saw the entire body of it; he saw the body like a leopard. That goes to show, incorporated into the picture of it, for these last days, was all the area, and territory of people, of the ancient Greeks, because the Grecian empire was the leopard empire. How many realize that? That does not mean the Greeks are going to rule the world again. But it means the area that was once Greek, will be incorporated into this thing, and the feet like a bear. How many get that picture? That goes to show, it is the same area that was once Persia, but in actuality, when the Greeks ruled the world, not only was it their own geographical area, they ruled Persia also. Keep in mind now, those different territories will all blend into this last day picture. Also notice, it had a mouth like a lion. That is signifying the same spirit of people and territories will all be given back, into this last day beast system. But this great head itself, had been changed into 7 heads. Now when the angel, in the 17th chapter of the book of Revelation, gave to John the Revelator, the meaning of those 7 heads, John was standing like he was standing in 1980. Physically he lied in 96 A.D. But in the spirit he was taken up and was actually like standing in 1980, because he saw the whole thing coming up for its end time role.

We are going to deal with the seven heads of the beast, and give you some more history to back it up, but we must hold that for the next issue. Look for it in Part 3, which will be our September issue.

May God be with you all. Amen