Issued: 3/25/23

PLEASE NOTE:  Because Bible versions sometimes differ from each other in crucial ways, the version quoted here will be the one that best clarifies the point being made.  For a quick comparison between versions, please go to: http://www.biblehub.com.

   All bracketed material may be authorial comments, attempts at proper syntax, or minimal rewordings of Scripture for the sake of clarity and continuity.  These emendations will not be italicized.

   The “/” will be used to signify “and/or.”  The symbol “↔” is used to connect verses corroborating each other and so establishing doctrinal truths (Matthew 18:16↔2Corinthians 13:1).

   In differentiating between Yahweh of hosts [later Jesus] and Yahweh the Most High God, lower case letters have been used when discussing the former; upper case letters are reserved for the One and Most High God.  Since Jesus was at pains to differentiate himself from God the Father, we have followed his lead here.

   The term neo-Christians will be used to differentiate between false Christians and Jesus’ true followers.

   For a book announcing a kingdom of peace, the Bible is heavily weighted on the side of war.  One reason is obvious:  Killing is in Satan’s nature; and to kill he needs like-minded men to wage wars [John 8:44].  Since Satan has been given control over nations (Luke 4:6; John 14:30; Ephesians 2:2; 1John 5:19), Scripture holds him ultimately responsible for the mayhem (Isaiah 14:6,16-17,20).  He may not be the de facto shedder of human blood, but he deploys those who do (Ezekiel 21:9-13; Revelation 6:8).  The other reason has to do with allegories and symbols, Scripture’s way of teaching spiritual truths encrypted in past confrontations—specifically Old Testament battles [shadow] providing insights into spiritual warfare [substance (Ephesians 6:11-12)].

   Since God’s ways and men’s do not jibe (Isaiah 55:8-9), He upends their notions of power with claims/displays of unopposable might (Isaiah 46:10; Daniel 4:35; 1Corinthians 1:27-29, 10:22).  Human endeavors are therefore given spiritual connotations:  Men fight wars in name of country, Christians wage spiritual war in name of a heavenly one (Ephesians 6:12; Hebrews 11:10,13-16, 13:14; 2Peter 3:13);  men use weapons maximizing bodily harm, Christians are limited to spiritual ordnance (Ephesians 6:13-17); human wars have immediate repercussions, spiritual outcomes can only be assessed at end-times.  While it is true that Jesus was and is spiritually victorious, that is not readily apparent from the present human condition.  The final victory might be a matter of Biblical record but the war between good and evil still rages on.

   Although one of the most cherished human hopes is the eradication of war, the Bible tells us wars will be with us until the bitter end.  They are part of Jesus’ end-times predictions (Matthew 24:7); Heaven allows them to punish unrighteousness (Jeremiah 24:10; Ezekiel 5:6,12,16-17; Zechariah 6:5↔Revelation 6:4-8, 7:1).  In matters of sin God never lets anybody off the hook [not even His own Son↔Isaiah 53:4-10; John 18:11, 19:11] or gives His worshippers free-passes (Numbers 14:18; Jeremiah 46:28; Hebrews 12:6↔Proverbs 13:24); and if His objectives are forgiveness and reconciliation with men (Isaiah 43:25; Jeremiah 29:11; Revelation 21:4), what better means to nudge recalcitrant humans towards that goal than through the suffering wars cause (Deuteronomy 4:29-31; Proverbs 20:30; Isaiah 48:9-10↔Zechariah 13:9; Jeremiah 29:13; Ezekiel 20:37; Hebrews 12:6,10)?

   Cynics may say that is one end which justifies the means; but men’s suffering is no picnic for God:  He would much rather spare Himself and them their respective ordeals (Psalms 81:13-14; Isaiah 63:9; Lamentations 3:33).   However, men are gluttons not only for punishment, but for rallying behind leaders pied-piping them into periodic warfare.  Which is perhaps the reason why in this order of things lasting peace is counterproductive to God’s agenda (Jeremiah 12:12); for peace is always short-lived, let alone giving politicians the chance to lay the groundwork—unintentionally or wittingly—for further bloodshed.  To end the cancer, one must excise the tumor, oftentimes through searing surgery.  To put an end to evil, all warmongers must be vaporized with heavenly fire during humanity’s last war:  Armageddon (Revelation 20:7-9).

Old Testament Wars

   Fine and dandy, but if God hates wars, why were the Israelites conscripted (Numbers 1:3) to wage them?  Because en route to Canaan, they had to go through lands occupied by peoples intolerant of alien settlers.  Before such incursions, Israel had to offer peace; if accepted, all was honky-dory; but if refused, war was inevitable (Deuteronomy 20:10-12).  We may question the terms of surrender:  “All the people in [the besieged city] shall serve you at forced labor”; but this is no different from what victorious nations have historically imposed on conquered populations.  Once again God relied on men’s imperfect template; but bottom line, whether we agree or not, lies the fact that in His world, His domain, His property, God does as He pleases (Exodus 19:5; Job 41:11; Psalms 24:1; 1Corinthians 10:26)—which then again is the consensus amongst the  powers that be in human affairs.

   On the doctrinal side, those were the so-called “times of ignorance” [i.e., pre-Jesus (Acts 17:30)], during which God allowed behaviors detestable to Him but instrumental in the evolution of Judeo-Christianity (Galatians 3:19-25).  Let us rephrase this:  The ABCs children are taught provide the rudimentary skills to comprehend literature; the diverse disciplines of math enable us to navigate the complexities of calculus.  It is no coincidence that when Paul chides the Hebrews for their insufficient spiritual wisdom, he differentiates between basic religious tenets [children’s milk] vis-à-vis the “solid food” available to the enlightened “whose minds are trained by practice to know the difference between good and evil” (Hebrews 5:12-14).

   Let us examine the same methodology from a totally different perspective.  As Jesus argued, Jews “were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed [them] to divorce [their] wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8).  Divorce was permitted because of a human failing, not because it was part of God’s original conception:  What He had allowed to be could not be challenged (Mark 10:9)—a precept equally applicable to human institutions (Romans 13:1-2).  God is about unification (Ephesians 1:9-10, 4:1-6); divisiveness, the agar of war, is Satan’s MO. 

   In the beginning Man and Woman were created and addressed not as distinct individuals, but as one entity, the reason why Genesis 5:2 reads, “Male and female created he [Yahweh of hosts] them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.”  Genesis 1:27 and 2:23 differentiate them in terms of se: Male and Female; the name Adam [Heb., earth or ground] was given to the man by virtue of having been formed from the soil (Genesis 2:7); but Eve was given her own personal name after her transgression—in which Adam was willingly complicit­—had created a rift between them and God.

   Using Paul’s terminology, this is all “milk,” basic Judeo-Christian doctrine.  The “solid food” Paul extrapolated from this was that Adam and Eve, viewed as one flesh, symbolized the “marriage” of Jesus and the Church, which required leaving parents [in Jesus’ case, the Father in Heaven] to become one flesh/body with his Judeo-Christian followers (Matthew 9:15; Luke 12:37; 2Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:30-32; Revelation 19:9, 21:2,9-10).

   This is the reason why Yahweh of hosts/Jesus, like Jacob before him, is portrayed in the Old Testament as having two sister-wives (Ezekiel 23):  Samaria, capital of Israel’s northern kingdom [representing Jews]; and Jerusalem , Judah’s [Jesus’ tribe (Hebrews 7:14)] capital and site of God’s dwelling place [Jesus’ body, the Church (Colossians 2:9; Ephesians 5:23)], representing Christians—both daughters of the Heavenly City mother of all (Isaiah 54:5; Jeremiah 3:7-10; Galatians 4:26↔Revelation 12:17).  Only after the Lamb’s wedding, Jews and Christians will no longer be two but one nation sharing Jesus’ immortal flesh (Ezekiel 37:18-22; 1John 3:2; Revelation 19:9, 21:2)—the objective prophesied in Genesis 2:24.

   However, though Yahweh of hosts gave adulterous Israel “a writ of divorce,” he did not disown Jews to prioritize Christians, who in time would become worse adulterers than the former (Jeremiah 3:8-11; Ezekiel 16:51); but came to earth specifically to minister to Jews (Mark 7:27↔John 4:22), while commissioning Apostles to continue addressing the spiritual needs of both (Acts 1:8, 10:34-35; Galatians 2:7).  Thus Jesus remained faithful to his marriage covenants with Jews and Christians despite their adulteries (Isaiah 46:4, 49:14-18, 54:7-8) in obedience to his Father’s will:  “‘For I hate divorce,’ says Yahweh, the God of Israel…Make sure that you do not break your promise to be faithful to your wife”—the behavior expected from and characteristic of everyone infused with the Holy Spirit (Malachi 2:15-16).  There is a message here for whoever has ears to listen (Matthew 11:15).

   These two perspectives illustrate the principle underlying Scripture:  Given men’s cyclical evildoings (Genesis 6:5; Ecclesiastes 1:9, 9:3), spiritual equivalents were encrypted into Old Testament precedents to guide men’s evolution from sinfulness to righteousness.  Once Adam and Eve had sinned, mankind’s transgressions, however distasteful to God, provided the foundation to steer things back onto the right track.  As far as God was concerned, if men were gung ho to wage them, wars would play a role in His counterattack plans. 

   With Satan in the picture [more about him in Part II], creation was bound to go to pot.  If Eden was the embodiment of Paradise, expulsion from Eden meant the world becoming the cemetery Satan has turned it into (Isaiah 14:6,16-20):  It had to be so; because outside the goodness and perfection of divine rule, their opposites would become the norm under human rule.  The strategy Satan employed has become a guiding principle amongst power-lusting men:  Divide and conquer.  He engineered a rift between God and mankind [following Paul’s argument in Hebrews 7:9-10, potentially present in Adam and Eve] to sever connectivity with the Divinity.  If one does the math Adam begot Seth at age 130 (Genesis 5:3) and Seth begot Enosh at age 105 (Genesis 5:6), whereupon men starting invoking Yahweh’s name (Genesis 4:26).  This suggests that 235 years passed during which Satan totally alienated men from God;¹ and although no wars are mentioned, by the time of Genesis 6:1 immorality had reached an all-time high.²

   Post-Flood it began all over again:  We hear of Nimrod (Genesis 10:8-11), the prototype of empire builders and world conquerors; and of Peleg, during whose time territories were divvied up (Genesis 10:25).  At Babel began the substitution of a spiritual tower (Psalms 61:3; Proverbs 18:10)³ for a man-made bastion challenging heavenly sovereignty (Genesis 11:4); thus Babylon became emblematic of Satan’s domain at end-times, both in terms of nationalism and men’s inability to agree on anything (Genesis 11:6-9↔Matthew 12:25).  That is not to say that towers as symbols of national strength became obsolete; for Scriptures like Isaiah 30:25, Ezekiel 26:9 and Zephaniah 1:15-16 show that God slates them for demolition—as Revelation 16:18-20 further attests.  Note the preceding verse:  “A great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, ‘It is done.’” Whether this voice is the Father’s or the Son’s is not clear, but the intent is the same:  God has had enough and it is payback time.

Commander-in-Chief of God’s Army:  Jesus, the Incarnated Yahweh of hosts

   Finally from Exodus through Daniel, wars foreshadowed the confrontations between God’s people and their enemies in the battle for God’s Kingdom.  In real-time man-made swords had shed human blood; but post-Jesus, whose ministry had superseded the aforementioned “times of ignorance,” it was time to reestablish original parameters.  Jesus’ disabused his Jewish audience of their notion that he had come to bring peace:  “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34)”; and mapped his battlefields from homes (Matthew 10:35-36), to places of authority and power (Luke 12:11-12↔Exodus 4:12), to the world at large (Matthew 24:14; Acts 1:8).  These would be protracted, millenary wars that, albeit fought on spiritual planes (Ephesians 6:13), would mow down enemy forces as surely as their earthly counterparts—all poetically summarized in Revelation 19:11-21.  We say ‘poetically’ because though there will be casualties (19:17-18,21↔Jeremiah 25:33), none will be by bloodshed:  All of them are slain by the sword of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12; Revelation 19:15,21), not human weaponry.  As to the identity of the rider on the white horse, he is that Verb of God—the Most High’s steward and spokesman—who was present with Him before the world was (John 1:1; Revelation 19:13).

   Even before Yahweh of hosts incarnated as Jesus, God had designated the Holy Spirit as His weapon of choice (Zechariah 4:6).  In passing let us note that the speaker in Zechariah is none other than Yahweh of hosts, the pre-existent Jesus; so that even when he calls the Holy Spirit “his,” he meant the Father’s Spirit (John 13:26) channeled through Jesus as the “anointment” Jesus symbolically ‘pours’ over his followers (1John 2:27↔1Samuel 12:13).

   Thus one sword would be wielded by warring Judeo-Christians, that of the Holy Spirit, the word of God (Zechariah 4:6; Ephesians 6:17).  Confrontations would not be held in battlefields but wherever evil stood in the way of righteousness; and if Judeo-Christians chose to ‘stand their ground,’ or kill in defense of self or loved ones, their goose was cooked.  Spiritual battles had to be fought according to God’s rules of engagement:  to forfeit life if needed (Matthew 16:25), to meet evil with good (Proverbs 20:22↔Romans 12:19; Matthew 5:39; James 5:6; 1Peter 3:9) and to preach the Gospel or else (Ezekiel 3:17-21; 1Corinthians 9:16).  These non-negotiable standards will tip the scales in favor of Seth’s progeny [Jesus’ ‘family tree’↔Luke 3:23-38] or against Cain’s on Judgment Day.

The Israelite Precedent

   To keep things in focus, Yahweh chose Israel not on grounds of obedience or moral rectitude, but for its insignificance position as a fledgling nation amidst mighty empires (Deuteronomy 7:7, 9:4-6).  What better way to show that with Himself as backer, Satan’s many local/imperial juggernauts would get a pounding (1Corinthians 1:27-29)?  Although outnumbered, if and when the Israelites followed God’s rules, they were victorious (Joshua 10:11,40-42, 12:2-24).  Along the way they made tactical errors that left behind enemy pockets which later bedeviled them (Joshua 9:14; Judges 1:27-35); until in Judges 2:1-3 Yahweh of hosts brought the bad news:  “I will not drive out these people before you; they will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.”  Inevitable conflicts would continue from then on.

   Within one generation, the Israelites tuned out Yahweh to follow the customs of neighboring nations [Judges 2:11-17, 3:5-6↔a quintessential no-no (Deuteronomy 18:9)].  In typical fashion Yahweh cut them off and assumed full responsibility for whatever would befall them, leaving the field open for Satan to marshal his troops against the defaulting Israelites (Judges 3:1-4; Isaiah 63:10).  All of which led to the usual scenario:  Suffering for His people as well as for God in times of trouble; relapses and ‘see-you-later-All Creator’ when the heat was off (Judges 2:18-19↔Isaiah 63:9; Judges 8:33-34; Nehemiah 9:16; Jeremiah 7:22-26).

Cheat Sheet on Warring Empires

   Let us move on to the big leagues:  Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks and Romans, the empires mentioned in Daniel’s timetable, spanning from Babylon to end times.

   The statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream begins with him as the golden head (Daniel 2:32,38); the rest of the body is sectioned off in different types of materials decreasing in value [imperial splendor?] and malleability [ruling styles?].⁴ From history we know that the Achaemenid Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great and comprised of conquered Medes plus Persians, superseded Babylon; they are symbolized by the torso and arms made of silver.  Medo-Persia was toppled by the Greeks:  The bronze belly and thighs.  Next came the iron legs of the Romans; and finally, the clay feet whose toes correspond with the European nations that emerged from the shambles of Roman Imperialism and eventually shaped the Western World.⁵

   As is their custom (Jeremiah 8:8), Biblical scholars argue that Daniel was not written during the Babylonian exile, but much later when events ostensibly prophesied had already unfolded.  Countermove by God:  He would add new layers of meaning to be revealed by His Holy Spirit (Deuteronomy 29:29; John 16:13; 1Corinthians 2:10-13); hence the “beasts” of Daniel 8 and Revelation 13.

   Now the descriptor “beasts” has a double-meaning:  In its shadow sense, it refers to animals in nature capable of inflicting harm and preying on others; so that they stand as symbols [substance] for men who do likewise—i.e., evil doers = spiders/serpents/scorpions (Isaiah 59:4-5; Ezekiel 2:6); Satan and his minions = devouring lions (Psalms 22:13, 35:17; 2Timothy 4:17; 1Peter 5:8); men’s armies = bulls, buffaloes [wild oxen] (Psalms 22:12,21, 68:30); and so on.  The last group is rather obvious:  “You shall eat the flesh of warriors and drink the blood of the princes of the earth: rams, lambs, and goats, bulls and fatlings from Bashan at the sacrifice I am preparing…You’ll be fully satiated at My table, dining on horse flesh, horsemen, elite soldiers, and every kind of warrior.  And I will set My glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see My judgment that I have executed, and My hand that I have laid upon them” (Ezekiel 39:17-18,20-21↔Revelation 19:17-18).  It is with the help of these human “wild beasts” that Satan is empowered to lay nations to waste (Jeremiah 15:3; Ezekiel 5:17, 14:21; Revelation 6:8).

   Going back to Daniel 8, Scripture explains its symbols:  The ram with two horns, one of which is longer than the other, signifies the Medo-Persian—Achaemenid—Empire (Daniel 8:3,20).  Daniel 8:21 tells us that the male goat is Greece, whose horn symbolizes the empire’s founder:  Alexander the Great.  By this token, the ram’s “shorter” horn must symbolize some Median king⁶ overthrown by Cyrus the Great, the “longer horn,” whose First Persian Empire extended from the Balkans and Egypt in the west to Central Asia and parts of India in the east—the four cardinal points prophesied in Daniel 8:4. 

   Now in Daniel 10:13,20 Yahweh of hosts, who is dialoguing with Daniel, tells the Prophet that though the king of Persia opposed him for 21 days, their conflict was not yet over; after which he would have to battle against the king of Greece.  We know this being to be Yahweh of hosts/Jesus because Daniel calls him “Lord” (10:16); like the one in Revelation 19:10, any lesser angel would have refused the accolade.⁷ When Gabriel is sent to Daniel to explain the vision he has seen, Daniel cowers in fear before him but never does he exalt Gabriel verbally—exactly what Mary did during the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38).  [She must have been gutsy, because she never fainted].  When Mary described herself as the Lord’s servant, she was referring to the Most High God; when addressing Gabriel, she agreed to submit as Gabriel had stipulated.  Not to belabor the obvious, Gabriel went to Mary to relay a timetable revealed to him (Luke 1:26).

   In Daniel we see that at some spiritual level, the pre-existent Jesus was engaged in war-like conflicts with his aide-de-camp, the Archangel Michael (Daniel 10:13,21).  Whom were they battling against?  Human armies led by kings whose rank, if not their names,⁸ Scripture often uses to discourse about their deployer, Satan (Isaiah 14:4; Ezekiel 21:13-14,19, 28:12, 29:3; Luke 4:6↔Isaiah 22:15-19, 42:24-25).  Bottom line: a spiritual conflict was being waged simultaneously with the earthly one.

Christian Ordnance

   With Yahweh of hosts on earth incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth, the “times of ignorance” came to an end; and so did the bloodshed of warfare—at least as far as God’s troops were concerned.  Jesus’ sword (Matthew 10:34), however spiritually lethal (Hebrews 4:12), was his Father’s word (Ephesians 6:17), the reason why symbolic swords issue from his mouth (Revelation 1:16, 19:15-16).  Paul, who was hip to Scriptural symbolism, described the rest of the ordnance:   a helmet of salvation; a breastplate of righteousness; a shield of faith; a belt of truth around the waist; and sandals ready to march into the battle zones the light [flares?] of the Gospel demarcated (Ephesians 6:14-17↔Psalms 119:105).

Christian Relapse

   Which is not to say Satan’s brood were willing to abandon the old ways:  Despite Paul’s arguments, words did not cut as deep or sever joints as effectively as weapons did in the pursuit of earthly glory—no matter what Heaven wanted, men had other ideas (Isaiah 55:8-9).  While God appealed to men’s better nature, Satan’s approach resonated with his human kin:  Men lusted for power and control as voraciously as he did, and to get both they would do the unthinkable.

   The first order of the day was to nail Jesus to the cross;⁹ in time things would get back to normal:  “The people [Roman armies] of a prince that shall come [future emperor Titus?] will destroy the city and the sanctuary [Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE?]…On the wing of abominations  [more bloodshed and pandemic apostasy] will come one who destroys [the Papacy, “the abomination of desolation” (Daniel 23-25; Matthew 24:15)]; until the decreed end (Zephaniah 2:2↔Revelation 16:17) is poured out on the one who destroys.” In the sense “one” is employed here, Satan [head] and his minions [body] may be implied:  Babylon the Great, Satan’s church (Revelation 2:13, 17:15-18, 18:2) and his angelic/human troops (2Peter 2:4-6; Jude 1:6-7; Revelation 20:7-10,14-15).  If Jesus [head] and his soldiers are members of the same body [i.e., Church (Ephesians 5:23,30)], why should not his enemy be so described?  For proof there is the seven-headed, ten-horned beast of Revelation 13:1 protruding from a common body—horns which symbolize nations beholden to Rome (Revelation 17:15-16).

   Like Revelation, Daniel is in need of serious editing:  Events separated by centuries are presented in verses reading like a stream of consciousness.  However, believing as we do that the Holy Spirit inspired men to write as they did (2Peter 1:20-21), we must assume that what appears like jumbled facts was intended to be so, perhaps with the objective in mind stated in Mark 4:12.  No matter:  “None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand” (Daniel 12:10).  We are called on to preach what is written as it is written (Proverbs 30:6; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Acts 26:22); making men understand is the sole purview of God and His Spirit (John 16:13; 1Corinthians 2:6-10).

   Post-Jesus God’s Plan B sprang into action:  Henceforth until the end of time, no worshipper of His, no soldier of Jesus, would incur in any type of bloodshed:  The Fifth Commandment had come of age.  Those ‘Christians’ history regards as saints and Gospel fighters—Constantine, Crusaders, Joan of Arc, Inquisitors, ‘holy’ Roman nations mowing down non-compliers or  sanctioning the brutal exploitation of “heathen” nations in name of Christianity—none of these had anything to do with God except in the sense that He allowed Satan to lead each and everyone astray.  Why?  Because no matter their zealotry or fathomless hypocrisy, each and everyone had failed to follow the ‘field’ training Jesus himself had undergone leaving an example for his troops to follow (John 13:15).

   The link between the Roman Empire and Catholicism is a matter of historical records; some historians have posited that pagan Rome, in terms of religion and sundry mores/administrative accomplishments, survives not only within Roman Catholicism but in the modern world at large.  No surprise here:  There is nothing new under the sun; the same perspectives/transgression of the past will resurface time and again in human endeavors like some Ouroboros-like loop (Ecclesiastes 1-10).

   In Nebuchadnezzar’s statue, the iron legs of the Roman Empire devolved into feet of clay with ten toes—not coincidentally, the number of horns on the Revelation 13:1, 17:1-3,15-16 beast.  If as in Daniel horns represent the founders of empires/nations, each Revelation horn may represent a conqueror associated with a particular barbarian tribe that colonized parts of Europe as the Roman Empire disintegrated—i.e., Franks, Visigoths, Vandals, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, etc.  From these enclaves grew the nations of modern Europe, which like the composition of Nebuchadnezzar statue’s feet are part iron [imported Roman customs] and brittle clay [symbolizing divisions and instability] held together by human alliances (Daniel 2:41-43).  Readers are left to pick and choose their ‘barbarian’ candidates just as scholars have theirs.  For our part we must always remember that prophecy offers an inkling of future events, never detailed, exact blow-by-blow accounts of things to come.

   Daniel 2:44 is an example of the stream of consciousness approach mentioned above:  This is a reference to God’s Kingdom; so what Scripture is telling us is that European nations existing at end times will be destroyed and superseded by a new order of things—the gist of prophecies like Psalms 102:25-26; Isaiah 65:17; Amos 9:5; Micah 1:3-4; Nahum 1:5; Zephaniah 1:2-3; 2Peter 3:10-13; Revelation 16:19-20↔Psalms 18:15.  Thus from Daniel 2:43 to 2:44 thousands of years have been compressed.

   Now nations act as their masters compel (Luke 4:6); and followers of Jesus ought to follow their Master’s instructions.  But this has never been the case because Satan put a bug in Jesus’ program:  He set shop in Babylon the Great (Revelation 2:13, 18:2) and with her assistance set out to war against the saints and kill them (Daniel 7:21; Revelation 13:7, 17:6), which brings us back to Daniel 8:24-25:  The insolent king skilled in intrigue who wielded great power not by personal might, yet still powerful enough to cause widespread destruction and to prosper by guile and wile. ¹⁰

   This ‘unlike-any-other-king’ horn corresponds to the horn on the beast that uprooted the three others [ostensibly of his kind—i.e., religious (Daniel 7:20-21,24-25)]; and the fact that it has eyes and a mouth to speak is very telling.  None of the horns symbolizing conqueror warriors were so portrayed because they predated Jesus, who by preaching the Gospel—in a symbolic way—made the blind see, the deaf hear, and the mute speak (Matthew 11:5; Mark 9:25).  Thus Daniel is telling us that the horn with eyes and mouth knew of Jesus’ Gospel, emerged after him, knew what Jesus stood for, taught in his name; but blasphemed against Heaven by corrupting said Gospel and changing God’s law and holy days [most particularly, the Sabbath of the Commandment]—not to mention claims of representing the Son on earth in issues of sovereignty and doctrinal infallibility.

   Which then bring us to the matter of the blasphemous names on crowns atop the horns of his cohorts:  Holy Roman emperors; rulers by ‘divine right’ [not according to Jesus’ instructions (Matthew 20:25-26)]; or whatever accolades Rome bestowed upon them as long as her agendas were upheld and furthered.  The much misunderstood and misapplied Romans 13:1-4 has another layer of meaning:  God allows the existence of powers that be because some form of moral control over the masses is better than none; and in principle—if not always in practice—such powers are relied upon to dispense Christian justice and righteousness.  However, between God and men there is Satan, who as the steward of this world (Luke 4:6; John 14:30; 2Corinthians 4:4; 1John 5:19) plans and executes the emergence of governing institutions—none of which past or present, on the evidence of their performance, can be called exemplars of Christian zeal.

   We are told that it was given unto those horned-heads to “make war with the saints and to overcome them” as well as “authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation (Revelation 13:7),” the bloody history of religion in the so-called Age of Faith—whether in Europe, Africa, the New World, wherever and over whomever Rome held sway.

   Now comes the bitter pill to swallow:  When Revelation 13:7↔Daniel 7:21 say that power was given unto this horn to war against and kill the saints, who gave that power?  Jesus told us:  Heaven did (John 19:11), or more specifically, God Himself (Daniel 4:35↔Revelation 17:12).  To reiterate the necessity to suffer for Jesus’ cause just as he did for our sake would take us to far afield; but readers are reminded that no matter how honky-dory they may think their relationship with God is, He will subject all of us to the harsh discipline every one of His children has endured in order to test faith; and if the ordeal of real war be part of that discipline, our only choice is to grin and bear it.  Which will not whitewashing the truth:  While fighting on His side, He allows the enemy to walk all over us until He sees fit (Isaiah 51:22-23; Micah 7:9↔Psalm 51:4; Matthew 10:28; Hebrews 12:6-8; James 5:6; 1Peter 2:21-24, 3:17, 5:6).

   There is yet another beast to emerge at end times, this one a two-horned lamb that speaks like the dragon (Revelation 13:11), a dead giveaway of who commands it, for that dragon is Satan (Revelation 20:2↔Ezekiel 29:3).  If this beast is patterned after Daniel’s Medo-Persian Empire, it follows that each horn must represent some superpower at end times; and because of Scripture’s focus on the Western Hemisphere, the United States and Russia spring to mind—though this is mere speculation and will not be definitively established until the prophecy comes to pass.  However, as these horns rise from a common body [heritage/ethnic background?], ‘lamb’ and the ability to ‘speak’ may be Scriptural buzzwords suggesting Christian influences albeit corrupted in some fashion.

   There is an inkling of high-tech weaponry here:  These horns are capable of zapping people on earth who will not bow to Rome’s authority (Revelation 13:12-15).  Scripture does not go into details and we will not discuss possible scenarios; but we ask readers to pay attention to Revelation 13:16-17 and decide for themselves if what is being described therein could be achieved without the help of computerized technology.

   The war to end all warswill be Armageddon, not some nuclear conflict in the Middle East as is presumed, or an adjunct to the current conflict in Ukraine.  Armageddon will be the one and only war waged on a battlefield and with rules of engagement quite supernatural—for lack of a better word—in nature.  We will return to this in Part II when we discuss Satan, the author and perfecter of war.

   Rest assured that the nuclear conflagration Hollywood and fear mongers obsess over will never come to pass.  God, Who is in control of everything, has reserved for Himself the privilege of incinerating evildoers at Armageddon, whether Satan and all his demonic host, along with every human being from Cain to every unrighteous person resurrected after the Millennium (Deuteronomy 32:35; Revelation 20:5-10).  Human fingers may be itching to deploy weapons of mass destruction; but whether God lets them is another matter.

    It is a safe bet that there will be wars resulting from climate change—i.e., over diminishing natural resources, most notably drinking water; territorial incursions and disputes due to rising seas; food shortages due to environmental pollution, bee colony collapse, droughts, desertification, etc.; depletion of sea life due to blooms of toxic algae, loss of oxygen in warming oceans, disrupted sea currents contributing to severe weather patterns.  We made our bed by being complicit and/or enabling our leaders’ policies; now we must lie on it. 

   Whatever comes, it will be super bad, unprecedented (Matthew 24:21↔Isaiah 13:13; Revelation 16:18) and unavoidable.  It behooves all of us then to prepare for the worst and hope for the better, drawing “near with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace for help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

¹ To happen again during end-times (Psalms 2:1-3, 74:8; Revelation 17:13-17).

²  Of all the egregious behaviors men are capable of, one wonders why the issue of multiple sex partners is singled out for condemnation, unless to flag for us its resurgence prior to end-times (Genesis 19:4-8↔2Peter 2:6).

   While men have gotten the rap for inveterate skirt chasing, let us not forget that women have chased after pants just as lustfully; so that the specific meaning of Genesis 5:2 applies equally to Genesis 6:1:  Adam/men, as de facto creations of Yahweh of hosts, are called “sons of God”; whereas Eve/women, taken from men, are called “daughters of men,” which leads us to conclude that end-times promiscuity will rage through both genders.

³ The parable in Isaiah 5:1-7 refers to Yahweh of hosts/Jesus as the planter of the vineyard; God’s nation as the plants; and the tower/stronghold in their midst as the Most High Himself.

⁴ Persians were merciful rather than cruel; tolerant of others’ religions practices; and progressive.  Cyrus, for example, allowed the Jews to live and worship as was their custom; and judging from Isaiah 45:1-4, though acknowledging Cyrus did not know Him, Yahweh compelled (Isaiah 45:5-7; Daniel 5:21) Cyrus to facilitate the return of Jews to Jerusalem (Ezra 1:1-4).  Alexander, who admired Cyrus’ accomplishments, displayed similar administrative sensibilities; perhaps this is why they are symbolized on Nebuchadnezzar’s statues by metals pliable to molding and reshaping.  When it came to Rome, it was their way or the highway; hence the legs of unyielding iron.

⁵ Far eastern empires were left out of the Biblical discourse—because of their pre-Islamic, polytheistic religions?  No one can tell, but it is significant that in the early stages of Christian evangelization, the Holy Spirit declared Asia out of bounds (Acts 16:6)—perhaps to leave room for Islam, as promised in Genesis 21:18?  As road-mapped in Daniel, it would be from European tribes coalescing into distinct nations that Christianity would spread throughout the globe.

⁶ Unable to move beyond Greek fondness for hearing new arguments (Acts 17:21), scholars doubt that Darius the Mede, who Scripture intercalates between Belshazzar and Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 5:30-31, 6:28), ever existed.  They also believe Daniel never lived; and that some unknown writer of the book that bears his name tried to pull a fast one by equating him with the Daniel whose exemplary righteousness Yahweh had exalted in Ezekiel 14:14,20—in other words, calling God a liar (Jeremiah 8:8).  In doing so they have called Jesus a liar as well (Matthew 24:15), not to mention the Holy Spirit, inspirer of all Biblical writers (2Peter 1:20-21)—according to Jesus, an unforgivable offense (Matthew 12:31-32).  Let us move on.

   Herodotus’ candidate for founder of the Median Empire was one Deioces son of Phraortes; and since no one can definitively prove him wrong unless time-machining back to the past, he is entitled to his opinion.  Ezra mentions a Darius king of Persia (Ezra 4:5); Daniel confirms his existence (Daniel 12:1); but here we stop because Scripture enjoins us not get mired in fruitless discussions (2Timothy 2:3-4,14).

   While the Bible does not give us the name of the “shorter” horn, the ram’s horns grow out of the same body—i.e., Mesopotamians sharing the same ethnic/cultural background; as does the [Macedonian/Greek] horn representing Alexander, whose exploits fit Daniel 8:6-8 to a tee:  He was deemed ‘god-like’ [magnified himself exceedingly] and died suddenly; so that after much intrigue, murders, executions, and battles his disintegrating empire was divided amongst four of his generals [horn was broken and gave rise to four notable horns extending toward the four winds of the sky]: Ptolemy [Egypt, Cyprus and nearby Asia Minor]; Cassander [Greece and Macedonia], Lysimachus [Thrace and upper Asia Minor], and Seleucus [most of the Middle East to the Indus River].  Out of Cassander’s horn grew the little horn [when Rome conquered Greece] that in time became a great empire extending to the holy land (Daniel 8:9). 

⁷ Why?  Because exempting Jesus every angel, while worthy of respect, is a servant of God sent to minister human co-servants (Hebrews 1:14; Revelation 19:10).

⁸ When the human counterpart is meant, Scripture names him (1Chronicles 6:15; Esther 2:6; Jeremiah 28:14; Ezekiel 29:18-20; Daniel 11:1).

⁹ Jesus’ baptism, crucifixion, and resurrection until his ascension to Heaven are covered in Daniel 9:24-27 respectively.  The ceasing of the sacrifices and offerings refer to rites and rituals under the Mosaic Covenant which Jesus’ invalidated with his death on the cross.  See Paul’s arguments in Galatians 3:13; Hebrews 9:8-22.

¹⁰ The clincher, as we have discussed elsewhere, lies in the institution’s longevity:  The 42 months it was given to blaspheme God (Daniel 7:25↔Revelation 13:6) and to eliminate His troops.  Follow the math:  Forty-two months = 1,260 days in the Hebrew, lunar calendar; which using the prophetic conversion factor of 1 day = 1 year given in Ezekiel 4:6↔Numbers 14:34 gives us a total of 1,260 years.  Consult your history to determine what institution in the Common Era [AD] has lived that long and continues to exist to this day.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Facts:

   In 313 AD Constantine legalized Christianity; in 323 it became the official religion of the empire; in 380, Emperor Theodosius I issued a decreed reconfirming that status; and in 476 the Western Roman Empire officially fell to the barbarians.  In 800 AD Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as emperor of the so-called holy Roman Empire, an artificial construct that lasted until Napoleon dissolved it in 1806.

Conjectures:

   Daniel 12:11-12 gives us two other prophetic time spans:  1,290 years and 1,335 years.  If they are in Scripture, they must mean something; but there is nothing in the Bible that definitively establishes exact dates from the onset of either time span to its conclusion.

   Let us first take the 1,290 years.  Since we have been taking about wars against Jews and Christians, let us assume that 1,260 years out of the 1,290 refers to the 1,260 [42 months] the beast was empowered to persecute and kill the saints.  Since this time span is given after the emergence of the European nations that were part of the unholy Roman Empire [the beast of Revelation 13:1], it follows that these 1,260 years were wars against Christians—the time when the abomination that caused desolation was active (Daniel 8:24-25, 12:11).

    That leaves 30 years unaccounted for.  However Daniel 12:11 talks about the time when the daily sacrifice was taken away, meaning the animal sacrifices offered at the Jerusalem Temple for the remission of sins.  Though with his crucifixion Jesus put an end to these expiatory rituals (Ephesians 1:7; Hebrews 9:12-15,22; 1Peter 1:18-19) on a spiritual level, Daniel 9:26-27 in part refers to the human warrior who brought about the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD and put an end to sacrificial practices thereat:  Titus.

*** For those readers wishing to brush up on history, there are several good videos in YouTube on the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans, during which conflict Jewish priests continued to actively sacrifice animals at the Temple in hopes Yahweh would come to their rescue.  Their cause was hopeless because not only had Yahweh the Most High God never inhabited the Holy of Holies (Acts 7:47-50, 17:24), but they had rejected the Yahweh of hosts who had by crucifying Jesus, his human manifestation.  Be that as it may, with Jesus walking all over Judea, there was no longer a divine presence inside the Jerusalem Temple***

   Now, Jesus was 30 when he started his ministry [Joseph’s age when he became Pharaoh’s steward (Luke 3:23; Genesis 41:46)]; and preached for about 3 years­—or so it is believed on John’s testimony that Jesus observed three Passovers.  Nobody knows for certain when Jesus was born; but assuming he died in the 30s AD, adding 30 years to that brings us relatively close to the beginning of the Jewish revolts—66 AD—that culminated with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.  Viewed like this, 30 years out of Daniel’s 1,290 time span comprise the end tail of times allotted to Jews to reconcile with God, ending in wars that destroyed the Jewish nation; and 1,260 years of persecution during the times allotted to Gentiles (Luke 21:24).

   Let us now focus on the 1,335 time span.  Again no beginning date, but Daniel is clearly telling us that those who reach that benchmark will be “blessed” (Daniel 12:12). Blessed in what way?  Lucky to have made it that long?  Lucky to be alive after some terrible period has passed?

   Coming back to the beast of Revelation 13:1, we are told one of its heads suffered a mortal wound, but that it recovered and the whole world followed it in wonder.  Now let us assume that Napoleon inflicted this wound in 1806 by marching on the Vatican and ending the unholy Roman Empire.  This would certainly be a time of joy for those liberated from the clutches of that genocidal consortium; so that if we deduct Daniel’s 1,335 years from 1806 AD, we have 1806 – 1335 = 471 AD, the decade when the old Roman Empire was at war with barbarian tribes until it came to an end in 476 AD.

   Historians like to argue that the empire continued on in some fashion or another, but not with the might of the past.  The Roman Church, which had absorbed Rome’s pagan cults and mores, continued its grip on the minds of followers; and in 800 AD evolved into the army-less destroyer of Daniel 8:23-25.  Though Napoleon brought her down a peg or two in 1806, it rose from the ashes like the proverbial Phoenix after Napoleon’s defeat to fulfill the prophecy of Revelation 13:3-4.  Yet again Revelation’s overall, editing problem:  Revelation 13:5-7 prophesy times prior to 13:3-4 [1806 AD], when the Roman Church was busy mowing down the saints.

   Please note that these are all ballpark estimates, the way Scripture chooses to deal with prophecies. These explanations are offered not as definitive proofs but as conjectures for further reflection; and most importantly, to encourage readers of the Bible to ever dig deeper into the written text. We are dealing with God’s mind, so expect layers of meaning and subtleties that unenlightened unbelievers can neither perceive nor understand (Mark 4:12; 1Corinthians 2:14).

Nevertheless two definitive facts still remain in place:  An end to animal sacrifices as expiation for sins at the Jerusalem Temple following Jesus’ crucifixion; and the 1,260 years during which Christian saints were persecuted and killed.