Beast of Revelation.pdf - Friends of the Sabbath Australia

The Beast of Revelation
arrived in Italy to drive out the Ostrogoths. The Roman population
“hailed Belisarius as a liberator, the clergy welcomed him as
a Trinitarian” (Durant, p. 109). This began the Gothic Wars,
which ended 18 years later when Justinian’s troops finally
expelled the remaining Ostrogoths from Italy.
Thus ended the “transition age,” as it’s called by historian
Philip Van Ness Myers (Ancient History, 1904, p. 571). The first
three “horns” had been plucked up by Roman Catholic sanction.
So the bishop of Rome and the universal church he heads stand
clearly identified as the little horn with “eyes like the eyes of a
man, and a mouth speaking pompous words” (Dan. 7:8). But
consider what this means. Daniel saw the little horn “making war
against the saints [true Christians], and prevailing against them”
(v. 21). And the prophet was told in his dream, concerning this
horn, “He shall speak pompous words against the Most High,
shall persecute the saints of the Most High, and shall intend to
change times and law” (v. 25).
But how can this be? Isn’t the Roman Catholic Church the
“mother church” of Christianity? Why is the papacy portrayed as
acting against God, His people and His “times and law”? These
questions will be answered in due course. Suffice it to say for
now, the Roman Church has done these things—as we will see.
Now with the three Arian kingdoms uprooted, the stage was
set for the first true revival of the Roman Empire in the West in
554. Unlike the first three of the ten horns, the last seven horns or
Roman revivals would all involve the blessing of the Roman
pope—just as in the Late Roman Empire itself. He would be an
intimate player in the various continuations of the empire of
ancient Rome in the West.
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