I would like to acknowledge the research work accomplished by Pastor Steve Bohr of http://www.secretsunsealed.org/ for much of the information in the articles regarding the characteristics of the Little Horn.
Category: Characteristics of the Little Horn power of Daniel 7
“He shall think to change…laws”.
We are not to believe that this power seeks to change human laws. To change human laws is certainly no big deal, for every new government whether voted for or coming to power through revolution changes the laws to suit its own agenda, so no human laws are intended to be meant by this prophecy. It is God’s laws that the little horn power believes it has the power or authority to change. One may immediately enquire, and with some justification, how can any power on earth possibly believe that it has the authority to change the laws of God? The answer of course, is no power on earth does have that authority. But we must be clear as to what the prophecy is actually saying. Note that the prophecy does not say that the little horn does actually change the law, nor does it say that he can actually change the law, but that he thinks to change the laws. View full article »
But now we must take a look at another movement in
Great Britain which was destined to derail the Protestant prophetic
hermeneutic.
In 1825 a small group of men, dissatisfied with the spiritual
condition of the Protestant Church in Ireland, met in Dublin to
spiritually strengthen one another. Soon other groups were formed
in Ireland and in England. The most famous of these was the one in
Plymouth.
This group came to be known as the Plymouth Brethren. Among the notables in these fellowships were Edward Irving, Dr. S. P. Tregelles and John Nelson Darby (who joined in 1827). At some point during this time, Edward Irving heard some mysterious utterances in an unknown tongue telling him that there was going to be a secret rapture of the church before the visible coming of Jesus.
This was a new concept in the incredible journey of futurism. Futurists
themselves will admit that this idea was alien to the Christian church until the 19th century. Dr. S. P. Tregelles, who, as we have noted, for some time belonged to the Plymouth Brethren movement but later abandoned it describes Irving’s experience:
“I am not aware that there was any definite teaching that there would be a secret rapture of the Church at a secret coming, until this was given forth as an utterance in Mr. Irving’s church, from what was there received as being the Voice of the Spirit. But whether anyone ever asserted such a thing or not, it was from that supposed revelation that the modern doctrine and the modern phraseology arose. It came not from Holy Scripture, but from that which falsely pretended to be the Spirit of God.” (S. P. Tregelles, The Hope of Christ’s Second Coming, first published in 1864, and now available at Ambassadors for Christ, Los Angeles, California). View full article »
But we must now turn to the other Jesuit scholar: Francisco Ribera (1537-1591), from Salamanca, Spain. Ribera was a brilliant student who specialized in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. He received a doctorate in theology from the University of Salamanca and joined the Jesuit Order in 1570 when he was just 33 years old.
Before we analyze Ribera’s methods of prophetic interpretation we must underline that the Early Church fathers (not the New Testament writers!!) had certain futuristic elements in their eschatology. They almost unanimously believed that the “restrainer” of II Thessalonians 2 was the Roman Empire. They also believed that as soon as the Empire fell apart, a literal evil individual would arise to rule the world for three and a half literal years. (See, George Eldon Ladd, The Blessed Hope, pp. 28-31 where he presents, for example, the views of Lactantius and Hippolytus).
In all fairness to these Church Fathers, we must remember two things:
1) They did not expect the history of the world to last another 2000 years. They believed that the coming of Christ was in the foreseeable future.
2) Prophecy is usually not understood in its fulness until the times of fulfillment.
Jesus Himself explained to the disciples: “And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe.” (John 14:29).
The Gospels reveal that the disciples of Jesus totally misunderstood and misapplied Bible prophecy before the resurrection. It was not until after the fulfillment of these prophecies that their hearts burned within them as Jesus opened unto them the Scriptures (Luke 24:32). History proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the meaning of the prophecies becomes clearer and clearer as the time of fulfillment draws near (see, II Peter 1:19).
The Early Church Fathers lived in the time of the fourth beast (Rome). The Empire had not yet crumbled into ten kingdoms. The little horn had not yet risen. The best they could do was guess about the identity of the Antichrist.
But the Protestant Reformers did not need to guess. They had the benefit of looking back at over one thousand years of church history and saw, with their own eyes, what the Early Church fathers could not have foreseen. View full article »
“Think to change times and laws”. (Daniel 7:25)
What, then, is the meaning of the word “times”? An examination of the context will make it crystal clear. Let us go back in our minds to Daniel 2. We all remember the story. God gave the king a dream and when he woke up he couldn’t remember it. So the wise men of Babylon were called in, but they were unable to tell the king the dream or its meaning. Finally, through Daniel, God reminded the king of his dream and provided the interpretation. Even before Daniel described the dream and its meaning, the king was informed: “Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all.”(Daniel 2:37-38)
God then proceeded to tell Nebuchadnezzar how history would unfold. Babylon would be succeeded by Medo-Persia, Medo- Persia would be followed by Greece, Greece would be supplanted by Rome, Rome would be divided into ten kingdoms and then God would set up His everlasting and indestructible kingdom. In short, God was telling Nebuchadnezzar: “Human history is under my control. I enthrone rulers and I depose them. I am able to predict precisely how historical events will unfold, and history will develop precisely as I have preestablished.” This is what Daniel meant when he said that God “changes the times and the seasons, removes kings and sets up kings”. It is God who reveals and determines the calendar of prophetic events!! Daniel 3 informs us that Nebuchadnezzar was unhappy with God’s prophetic scenario, so he built an image like the one he had seen in his dream but this one was made of gold from head to foot.
Most Bible scholars have totally missed the main point of Nebuchadnezzar’s rebellious act. The central issue is not worship or even obedience. The critical issue is, who controls human history. View full article »
Persecution by the church of Rome wasn’t just a few incidental instances over a period of a couple of years by a few misguided zealots. It was a matter of established policy.
Let us look for example at the Holy Office of the Inquisition. An office by the way that still exists today albeit, unsurprisingly, under a different name. The current pope being the former head of that esteemed office.
The origins of this organism can be clearly traced to 1227-1233 A. D., during the pontificate of Gregory IX. In 1229 the church council of Tolouse condemned the Albigenses in France and gave orders to exterminate them. In 1231 Gregory IX in his bull, Excommunicamus, condemned all heretics and proclaimed specific laws on how to deal with them. Among the provisions were the following:
1. Delivery of heretics to the civil power.
2. Excommunication of all heretics as well as their defenders, followers, friends, and even those who failed to turn them in.
3. Life imprisonment for all impenitent heretics.
4. Heretics were denied the right to appeal their sentence.
5. Those suspected of heresy had no right to be defended by counsel.
6. Children of heretics were disqualified from holding a church office until the second generation.
7. Heretics who had died without being punished were to be exhumed and their bodies burned.
8. The homes of convicted heretics were to be demolished. (See, G. Barraclough, The Medieval Papacy, London, 1968, edited by Thames and Hudson, p. 128; and R. I Moore,
“The Origins of Medieval Heresy”, in History, vol. 55 (1970), pp. 21-36). View full article »
Characteristic 5:
The little horn was to speak great words against the Most High (Daniel 7:21, 25). Revelation 13:5 explains what these words would be, namely, blasphemy. And, what is blasphemy according to the Bible? It is when a merely human power claims to be God on earth and when it thinks it can exercise the prerogatives and functions of God (see, John 10:30-33; Mark 2:7).
This post is not about my understanding of Catholicism, but rather what the RCC thinks of itself. View full article »
Characteristic 3
The little horn rises after the ten horns (7:24). According to historians, the ten horns were complete in the year 476 A. D., so this must mean that the little horn was to arise to power sometime after 476 A. D.
The Roman Catholic Papacy did arise to supremacy after the year 476 A. D. The Papal power could not exercise absolute sovereignty until the ten kingdoms were subjected to its control. When Odoacer, king of the Heruli, deposed Romulus Agustulus in 476 A. D., the fragmentation of the Roman Empire was complete. Yet even though the ten divisions of the Roman Empire were complete by 476 A. D., there were three who were rebellious and refused to submit to the Bishop of Rome (the Vandals, the Heruli and the Ostrogoths).
Characteristic 4
The little horn was to pluck up three of the first [ten] horns by the roots (7:8). This means that these three nations would be uprooted from history. Daniel 7:20-21 explains that three of the first horns would fall before the little horn, and Daniel 7:24 tells us that the little horn would subdue three horns. In other words, three of the first ten nations would disappear from history!! View full article »
Characteristic 2.
The little horn arises among the ten horns. The ten horns are the divisions of western Europe, so the little horn must arise in western Europe (Daniel 7:8). Notice that these first two characteristics restrict the geographical location of the little horn to western Europe.
That the little horn was to rise up among ten future kings was understood by the early church fathers. They saw and understood that what Paul meant when he said….
2 Thessalonians 2:7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
….Was the Roman power. They understood that when the Roman power was taken out of the way, the antichrist would appear among the ten kings, and would subdue 3 of them.
First, let us read what the well known Catholic historian Cardinal Manning had to say:
“Now the abandonment of Rome was the liberation of the pontiffs. Whatsoever claims to obedience the emperors may have made, and whatsoever compliance the Pontiff may have yielded, the whole previous relation, anomalous, and annulled again and again by the vices and outrages of the emperors, was finally dissolved by a higher power. The providence of God permitted a succession of irruptions, Gothic, Lombard, and Hungarian, to desolate Italy, and to efface from it every remnant of the empire The pontiffs found themselves alone, the sole fountains of order, peace, law, and safety. And from the hour of this providential liberation, when, by a divine intervention, the chains fell off from the hands of the successor of St. Peter, as once before from his own, no sovereign has ever reigned in Rome except the Vicar of Jesus Christ.”
(Henry Edward Manning, The Temporal Power of The Vicar of Jesus Christ, Preface, pp. xxviii, xxix. London: Burns and Lambert, 1862).
According to Manning, there was a restraint that inhibited the Bishops of Rome from exercising full authority as the temporal and spiritual leaders they believed was their destiny.That restraint was the pagan Roman power. View full article »
The first characteristic is
1) The little horn arises from the fourth beast (Daniel 7:8). The fourth beast represents Rome, so the little horn must be a Roman power.
Remember the image of Daniel 2? The legs were of iron, but the feet were of iron and clay. What does the clay represent? We know the iron represents pagan Rome. In fact, throughout history Rome has been recognised as the ‘Iron Kingdom’ or Empire. But what of the clay that is in union with the iron, but unable to cleave to one another?
The Bible is its own best expositor, so we shall go to the word of God to find our answer.
Isa 45:9 Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?
Isa 64:8 But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
Jer 18:6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.
So according to the above evidence, we see that clay represents God’s people, or His church. Therefore we can justifiably conclude that the feet of the image in Daniel 2, made of iron and clay, is a union of church and state. We see also in the text of Daniel 2 that the clay is miry clay. Miry clay is unworkable. It cannot be shaped by the potter into anything useful; it is fit only to be discarded. It may have begun its life as suitable clay for the fashioning of the potter, but became miry. This is therefore signifying the apostasy Paul spoke of that would take place after he had gone and before Christ comes. Thus it is an apostate church in union with the Roman power. View full article »
