Basic HTML Version
learning and progressing more and
more rapidly since.
End·time Prophecies
Now consider sorne end-time bibli–
cal prophecies.
The longest prophecy in the
Bible is Daniel 1l. The 1Oth chap–
ter is the prelude and the 12th the
completion. In Daniel 11:40, the
prophecy comes to the "time of the
end" and continues in chapter 12.
The prophet Daniel did not under–
stand what he was being told to
write. The angel said the words of
the prophecy were closed up and
sealed until the time of the end,
when knowledge would be in–
creased, and people wou ld be trav–
eling "to and fro."
That time has come.
Knowledge has been increased at
a breathtaking rate in the last 150
years. l ndeed, it was claimed, for
example, that the world's fund of
knowledge had doubled during the
1960s- although this increase was
largely in the arcas of medicine,
science and technology. Also, peo–
ple are traveling "to and fro" on
the earth. The mode of travel from
the beginning of civi lization until
150 years ago was indeed very
slow. Few people traveled more
than 50 or 100 miles away from
their homes. Travel for millennia
was by foot, horseback, camelback,
ox cart, rowboat or sailboat.
Construction on the steamboat
was not begun by Robert Fulton
until 1806. Then carne the railroad.
Travel by automobile has all come
within my lifetime. 1 well remem–
ber that when 1 was eleven years
old automobiles were called horse–
less carriages. "Horseless car–
riages" were quite a sight. 1 re–
member, at the time, when 1 was
eleven, my father calling out, "Oh,
come to the front window quick,
there goes a horseless carriage."
We all rushed to the front window
to see the sight. Sure enough it was
a "borseless carriage."
lt
was a car–
riage being pulled by a mute!
When 1 was twenty-three years
old, as assistant secretary of the
Chamber of Commerce of South
Bend, Indiana, 1 was given the
assignment of persuading the farm–
ers in a township south of the city
to sign a petition agreement allow–
ing a new cross-country highway,
6
called the "Dixie Highway," from
the Gulf to Canada, to go through
their township.
lt
was not a paved
highway.
lt
was grave! and dirt.
Paved highways had not yet come.
Today people are traveling to and
fro by automobile, railroad and air–
planes. Modern airports are
jammed with people "going to and
fro."
World-ruling Kingdoms
In the second chapter of Daniel is
a prophecy reaching till the Second
Coming of Christ. Kin g Neb–
uchadnezzar had formed and ruled
the first empire of nations in world
history. He saw in a dream a most
astonishing statue of aman, incred–
ibly high. God revealed the mean–
ing to Daniel. The image's head
Scientists have said the
world's only hope rests in
a single world
government •. . yet they
admit the utter
impossibility of mankind
forming such a super
government.
was of fine gold, breast and arms of
silver, belly and thighs of brass,
legs of iron, and feet and toes of
iron and clay mixed . The head rep–
resented Nebuchadnezzar's
Chaldean Empire. The silver repre–
sented the succeeding world king–
dom, which proved to be the Per–
sian Empire. The brass represented
a third world kingdom, wh ich
proved to be the Greco-Macedo–
nian or Grecian Empire; the
fourth, represented by the legs of
iron, proved to be the Roman Em–
pire with capitals in Constantinople
and Rome.
The feet and toes represented
succeeding smaller empires to fol–
low, leading to the toes represent–
ing ten kingdoms in Eastern and
Western Europe. The prophecy
dates the time in which we are
living now. We await the appear–
ance of those ten-toe nations. I n
the days of these toes, now just
ahead of us, a stone supernaturally
is to come from heaven, smite the
ten-toe nations, replace them, and
rule the whole earth forever after
(Dan. 2:34, 44). This stone repre–
sents Christ's Second Coming to
set up the kingdom of God and
destroy all this world's govern–
ments- setting up the government
of God over all nations. That will
be the end of this world- the end
of this man-made civilization as we
know it.
Full understanding must include
Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 and 17.
These show the Roman Empire,
falling in
A.D.
476, replaced by
three kingdoms that disappeared,
the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, and
the Heru li. They were the first
three horns of Daniel 7 that were
"plucked up by the roots" (verse
8). In other words, these three peo–
ples disappeared from history and
we have no historie record of what
became of them. T here were seven
more of the ten horns on this beast
yet to follow. The first of that
seven was the restoration of the
Empire in the West. This hap–
pened when, at the behest of the
Pope at Rome, Emperor Justinian
at Constantinople r eestablished
Imperial authority th roughout
Italy in
A.D.
554. Historians record
this as the restoration of the Ro–
man Empire. There followed a se–
ries of political valleys and peaks in
Europe.
It
reached its next peak in
A.D.
800 under Charlemagne, the
Frankish head. It reached another
peak about the tenth century with
Otto the Great of Saxon Germany
at the helm. At this time it was
known as the Holy Roman Empire.
The Holy Roman Empire reached
another peak with the Habsburg
dynasty in Austria. This was
followed by another peak under
Napoleon, wbo fled into exile
in
1814.
In 1929 Mussolini arranged a
Concordat with tbe Papacy. Then
about 1935 Mussolini , baving
united Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Ital–
ian Somaliland to l taly, proclaimed
it to be the reestablishment of the
Roman Empire. 1 announced tbe
news of this ninth restoration my–
self on radio at the time.
We are now looking for the
tenth and last resurrection of the
The
PLAIN TRUTH