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The Confederacy of the West
The scriptures seem to indicate that there will also be a Western Confederacy of nations during the end times, and that this will be a
revived Roman Empire of which Daniel spoke:
You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and
glory; in your hands he has placed mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler
over them all. You are that head of gold. After you, another kingdom
will rise, inferior to yours. Next, a
third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron-- for iron breaks and
smashes everything-- and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. Just as you saw that the feet and toes
were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as
you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as
you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay. In the
time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to
another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the
vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands--a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold
to pieces. The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true. Daniel 2:37-45
This passage is usually interpreted as describing the four world empires of Babylon, Media/Persia, Greece, Rome, as well as the fifth
and final world empire which is the millennium. It may well be that something similar to the old Roman Empire will be revived
at the beginning of the tribulation.
After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast--terrifying and
frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was
different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns. While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little
one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like the eyes of a man and a
mouth that spoke boastfully. Daniel 7:7-8
This passage is usually interpreted as describing the final stage of the (revived) Roman Empire, in the form of a ten-nation confederacy.
Since Rome is a part of what we now know as Europe, this will probably be a confederacy of ten European nations. This confederacy
will probably exist at the beginning of the tribulation period. This makes sense in light of the various groupings of European nations today in an
attempt for a united Europe, including the reunification of Germany, the European Economic Market, and NATO, as well as the shift to
Eurocurrency.
Then I wanted to know the true meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the
others and most terrifying, with its iron teeth and bronze claws-- the beast that crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot
whatever was left. I also wanted to know about the ten horns on its head and about the other horn that came up, before which three of them
fell-- the horn that looked more imposing than the others and that had eyes and a mouth that spoke boastfully. As I watched, this horn was
waging war against the saints and defeating them, until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor
of the saints of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom. He gave me this explanation: 'The fourth beast is a fourth
kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and
crushing it. The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier
ones; he will subdue three kings. Daniel 7:19-24
Then, the leader of one of these ten nations (the little horn) will destroy three of the other nations, probably because these three
nations rebelled against the confederacy. Perhaps this rebellion will be caused by disagreement over coming to the aid of
Russia after it suffers a devastating earthquake. The other six nations will then submit to the strong leader as well, and the entire
Western Confederacy will fall under the leadership of this one leader, and Rome would probably be the capital from which he ruled.
(This man is the Antichrist, who will later claim to be the ruler of all of the rest of the world as well.)
He will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.' In the middle of the 'seven' he will put an
end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is
poured out on him." Daniel 9:27
When the Antichrist establishes control of Europe, and Russia is not a threat to him, he makes a seven-year (one 'seven') peace treaty
with Israel. This allows the Jews to rebuild their temple.
Owen Weber 2009 |
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