Sunday Evening, April 28, 2002 Bel Aire Baptist Church
Series: “The End” [#5]
A UNIFIED WORLD
Daniel 2:31-45
Introduction:
1. As we have studied over the last several weeks, it is apparent that God is making preparations for the tribulation.
2. I want to spend one more week on these events before we begin to study the tribulation.
Prophecy
Daniel
1. Daniel was the first prophet to write about the Antichrist’s one-world government. This prophecy was given in a dream to King Nebuchadnezzar (whom historians consider the most absolute dictator in world history).
2. In this dream, King Nebuchadnezzar saw a beautiful statue with four distinct parts, each part inferior to the section above it. The King demanded that his astrologers and soothsayers tell him about the dream and interpret it, but they could not. However, God revealed to Daniel the dream and interpretation.
3. Daniel told the King that there would be four successive world governments, and in the last days just before the Messiah came to establish His Kingdom, ten kings would form one final world government.
Daniel 2:31-45
4. The Bible said there would be four world governments, and history shows there have only been four. Many, such as Hitler have tried to be the fifth, but it never happened.
5. Babylon, the first kingdom in the Prophesy, was the most tyrannical empire that ever existed. The second empire was the Medo – Persians, then the Greeks under Alexander the Great. When Alexander died, his generals divided the world into four Kingdoms, which Rome eventually took over. Rome, the fourth Kingdom, was the last. Today, even though Rome is no longer an empire, virtually all-western nations have taken their basic principles of government from Rome.
Democracies
1. Most scholars believe that the ten-toed image of Daniel’s vision was a prediction of democracy in the end times. Iron and clay do not mix well, and they provide a picture of weaker government. China is a dictatorship and in many ways has a stronger government than the United States has. China’s leaders do what they want where as United States government changes depending on voters and “political games”. United States may have several years of liberal leadership and then years of conservative leadership. This changing can create less stable and weaker government.
2. In Revelation 13:1-4 John described these ten kings as “horns” on the seven heads of a ”beast”. Notice that the future governments of man that Nebuchadnezzer saw were beautiful, while God sees them as beasts. This just shows us that while man finds the things of the world beautiful and worships them, God sees them as beasts.
3. The seven heads John describes in Revelation probably refer to the seven stages of the Roman Empire. Revelation 17:9 say’s they refer to “seven hills” (possibly a reference to the seven hill on which Rome is said to be built), but then verse 10 says they also refer to seven kings of whom “five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come.” I believe the five fallen kings were the five Roman emperors before John’s time, the sixth was Domitian who was the emperor at the time John wrote; and the seventh will be the Antichrist.
4. Daniel tells us that the ten kings will not always obey the Antichrist and therefore, three of them will be eliminated.
Daniel 7:8
Daniel 7:19-20
Daniel 7:24
5. Daniel makes it plain that these ten kings will arise before the Antichrist makes his own rise to power. Three of the kings will not like his rapid assent and will try to resist him, but they will be quickly defeated.
Preparations
One World Government
1. I believe we are getting close to the time when the ten kings will appear. We can look back all the way to World War I and see things happening. Right after World War I, President Woodrow Wilson tried to set up the League of Nations, but conservative U.S. Senators would not allow U.S. involvement. Although this did not work, Colonel Mandell House (a supporter of the League of Nations) founded the Council on Foreign Relations, which promoted a one-world government.
2. The Council was instrumental in the establishment of the United Nations in 1945. Although the United Nations wanted to create a world without wars they have been very unsuccessful.
3. Since then the Club of Rome Conference, featuring the elite leaders of the world, announced that a one-world government was the only hope for our world. These leaders believe that over population needs to be dealt with and that third-world countries need to be built up in order that all countries are equal.
4. One idea from the Club of Rome suggest a good start to a world government might be to divided the world into ten regions with a “head” appointed to lead each area, with representation at the United Nations. There will also be one leader that is over the ten.
5. In the mid-nineties the world planners started talking about a “world tax”, a “world count,” a “world police force,” a “world standard for nations,” a “world economy,” and even a “world religion”. I’m sure many of you have heard about the Euro-dollar, which is simply a common currency for Europe. Even more interesting is what happened April 11th this year. Let me read to you part of an article from www.worldnetdaily.com.
“World court now a reality”
“Will supersede national sovereignty, even of countries refusing to ratify”
NEW YORK – The international Criminal court was officially instituted today at the United Nations headquarters.
The court, a permanent tribunal to prosecute “crimes against humanity,” strides onto the world stage without the ratification of the United States. Deemed by some as a grave threat to national sovereignty, the United States has lodged strenuous objections to the ICC. As late as Monday there were reports that President Bush had sought means to retract the signature of former president Clinton, who sighed the treaty on his last day in office. A signature indicates a nation’s intent to seek ratification.
However, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee would not bring the treaty to the Senate for a vote.
The Rome Statute, a treaty calling for the establishment of a world court to prosecute gross human rights abuse, was launched in 1998. The U.S., China, Iraq, and Israel voted against the Statute that year, while nations that favored the court first signed, then ratified the treaty. The final four of the 60 ratifications necessary for the court to become operative were received today as the ninth preparatory committee session (‘prepcom”) of the International Criminal Court opened at the U.N.
Objections to the court by Americans are based largely on fears that such a court could bring politically motivated charges against U.S. presidents and military personnel. Crimes of “aggression” have not as yet been defined, leaving open to future interpretation any number of military operations. When one nation defends itself, is that aggression against another? So-called crimes against humanity include vague phrases such as injury to a population’s “mental health.” Who is to determine when such a crime has been perpetrated?
Any U.S. citizen prosecuted by the International Criminal Court will be denied the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution. As of yet, the process for electing and rotating ICC judges is incomplete. Opponents of the court suggest that world events in the near future could find the U.S. and its citizens at the mercy of a panel of judges from non-Western nations, or of nations that seek to extort favorable trade agreements from the U.S. Critics ask: What is to prevent the court from prosecuting a U.S. President that topples Saddam Hussein without first seeking assurance from the U.N. that such military activity would not be categorized as a war crime?
Key European allies have accused the Bush administration’s refusal to support the court as an example of U.S. “unilateralism” in an interdependent world. During important U.N. negotiations on issues from children’s rights to trade disputes, European delegates have been increasingly hostile to what they characterize as the United States’ “Lone Ranger” attitude. One U.S. delegate to the United Nations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, noted that Europeans were restless with American dominance since the fall of communist Russia: “They see the ICC as one means to curb U.S. power on this Planet.”
The mechanism for changing citizens without the cooperation of their government – including those nations, such as the United States, that have refused to ratify the treaty – requires that charge be brought by the United Nations itself on behalf of another nation, ethnic group or non-governmental organization. Critics of the International Criminal Court fear that granting such powers to the United Nations sends a message that the U.N. is the definitive world organization that supersedes all nation states – which many regard as a serious assault on the concept of national sovereignty.
The court will formally open for business July 1 in the Netherlands where temporary quarters for the court have been secured. The ICC cannot retroactively prosecute crimes under its jurisdiction.
One World Religion
1. One of the things that “spur on” the wrath of God is the corrupt one-world religion. Revelation 17 gives a graphic picture of this global religion.
Revelation 17:3-5,16
2. These verses describe a one-world religion that, in the first half of the tribulation, will have “quite a bit” of control over the ten kings and even some over the Antichrist. At the middle of the tribulation, the harlot (one-world religion) is overthrown.
3. How close are we getting to a one-world religion? Maybe closer than you think. Let me read you part of an article from a magazine called “Battle Cry”.
“Pope Invites World Religious Leaders to Assisi for Prayer”
On January 24 this year, Pope John Paul II again illustrated his position as head of the Mother of Harlots and Abominations by inviting 200 delegates from 12 major world religions to Assisi, Italy to pray together for world peace.
They gathered under a huge plastic tent to mix Christian hymns and Buddhist chants before reading commitments to work for peace in 11 languages from Arabic to Hebrew to Farsi and Punjabi.
According to the Associated Press, the gathering was one of the largest ever of “Christian groups, bringing together Catholics, Baptist, Lutherans, Quakers and Mennonites, among others, along with Orthodox Christians headed by the ecumenical patriarch, Bartholmew I.” But “Christians” were only one of 12 religions represented. While they and the Jews were praying to Jehovah, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhist, Sikhs, Shintoist, and African witchdoctors were all besieging their respective deities.
For centuries, the Vatican used force to expand its domination of kings and peoples. After being beaten back by the Reformation which opened the Western world to education and freedom, the popes changed tactics.
Seduction, rather than force, is the new strategy. And praying together has become a major enticement tool. In his book “A Woman Rides The Beats”, author Dave Hunt details the amazing progress of the seduction of this ecumenism. Hunt lists the world class evangelist, ministry leaders and Christian TV personalities who have all visited the pope and later touted his moral leadership as a foremost Christian statesman.
“Roman Catholicism is proving to be the bridge that brings together all faiths,” writes Hunt. “That fact alone is not surprising, but it is astonishing to see evangelical Christians stepping onto that bridge on one end while at the same time Hindus, Buddhists, and pagans of every stripe are stepping onto it from the other.”
In a letter to the world bishops, the pope had instructed them to hold similar ecumenical prayer meetings in their locales. They were to invite local leaders of other religions to pray together.
When the local ministerial association in your town calls for an “ecumenical prayer service for world peace” should you, as a Bible believer, attend? The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, instructs the believers to “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” (Eph.5:11)
Many pastors have accepted this seemingly innocent invitation, but after such “fellowship” with darkness, find it much more difficult to publicly “reprove” them.
4. All it would take for the world’s religions to unite under the leadership of Rome would be the Rapture of Christians. There is a reason Christians are the most persecuted of all religions in the world.
5. I believe the cry for religious tolerance ought to be a sign for us to notice.
Conclusion:
1. Yet another sign that the end is drawing nearer.
2. With all of the false teachings out there, Christians do you know the difference between truth and lies?
3. The only way that happens is to study God’s Word.
4. Remember this is all about the urgency of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
