■The Dream of Daniel #2

Last time, I talked about a dream of Daniel mentioned in the Book of Daniel Chapter seven. Today, I would go on to detail the part written about the Roman Empire in the same Chapter.
　

The Book of Daniel 7: 7-8 “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth; it was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. I was considering the horns, and there was another horn, a little one, coming up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. And there, in this horn, were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking pompous words."

As Daniel saw that the beast was so differnt from others and far more terrible than others, he wanted to know it more, then suddenly another revelation came upon him. Chapter 7: 24 says;

"The ten horns are ten kings who shall arise from this kingdom. And another shall rise after them; He shall be different from the first ones, and subdue three kings."

We hereby notice that the Roman Empire, the fourth beast, has three phases in its development.The first phase, the beast with terrible nature, is the ancient Roman Empire which subdued Europe and northern part of Africa.

The second phase is the time when ten kings appear in the Empire. There could be two interpretations in the meaning of ten kings. It may mean that there were ten powerful leaders in the Empire or it was the union of ten independent states. Looking into the history of Europe shows however that there was no empire that was quite dominant in the European continent and had ten strong leaders in it or was consisted of ten states.

Presumably therefore, the dream was showing that a new empire reigned by ten kings will arise in the future and will come to dominate Eurpope. This Empire is, what we call, "revived new Roman Empire". Even today, EU, as the union of 27 countries, began to be very influential power in Europe. Some day in future, ten leading countries or ten leaders might control the EU as the Bible foresees.

The third phase is shown in Chapter 7:7."there was another horn, a little one, coming up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots".The meaning of this part is: A king who was not remarkable at first became strong and destroyed three kings out of ten and finally took control of the Empire. So, eventually the new Roman Empire will be dominated by one powerful leader. This powerful leader is the Anti-Christ who will appear in the Last Days as the Bible tells.

The Book of Daniel 7:25 tells more about the coming Anti-Christ. We would see it next time.

September,2008