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When God brought judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the course of world history was changed. The divine court ruling stripped Judah of its Dominion Mandate and gave it to Babylon. Jeremiah saw no more than a seventy-year captivity, but Daniel later saw that this captivity was to last much longer. After Babylon, the Dominion Mandate would be passed, like a relay race, to other nations, each in their turn.
Each of those nations rose and fell according to the judgments of God. History does not happen outside of God’s control, as each of those kingdoms were forced to recognize. God never stopped judging the nations according to the principles of His law.
I thought it would be helpful to break this down step by step to show those principles of law. One of the main laws on which the judgment of nations is based is the law that forbids judges to be partial in their judgments (Exodus 23:3, 6; James 2:1-4). For this reason, God has judged Israel by the same law that He has judged the other nations.
When Israel sinned, God “sold” them into the hands of other nations according to the law in Exodus 22:3. Hence, we read in Judges 3:8, “He sold them into the hand of Chushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia.” In Judges 4:2, “The Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan.” It happened again in Judges 10:7.
The legal process is this: God had planted a “vineyard” in Canaan and then expected to receive the fruits of this Kingdom from the people. But instead of bearing fruit, Isaiah 5:2 says that it brought forth “worthless ones.” Isaiah 5:7 concludes,
7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.
Justice and righteousness are the fruits that He wanted, but He saw only bloodshed. Isaiah 1:26 calls Jerusalem the “City of Righteousness,” but tells us that it had become a “harlot.” Ezekiel 22:2 thus renames Jerusalem “the bloody city,” or the City of Bloodshed on account of the violence done in it.
The lack of fruit coming from the city and the nation is what brought about divine judgment.
The law saw this in terms of theft. The caretakers of the vineyard had refused to render the fruits of justice and righteousness to the Owner of the vineyard. Because all sin is reckoned as a debt, the nation had built up a huge debt to God. During the time of the Judges, God “sold” them to various nations, and Israel remained in captivity until they repented of their lawlessness.
Looking deeper at the situation, we can see also that the Dominion Mandate was given to various nations for short periods of time during the time of the Judges. Only later, during the time of Jeremiah and Daniel, do we see the captivity extended to the time of the end. Yet in each case, the transfer of the Dominion Mandate gave those other nations the opportunity to rule as “chosen people.” After all, the whole point of being “chosen” is that God “elects” people to public office to administer the will (law) of God to all men. The “chosen” ones were to rule as stewards of the Kingdom. They were also made accountable for their actions in the exact measure of their authority.
So it is interesting that the captivities of Israel and Judah represented times when God “chose” other nations, giving them opportunity to be God’s chosen people. However, they squandered their opportunity in the same way that Judah and Israel had done.
On each occasion, when Israel was sentenced to be sold for its debt, another nation came forth and redeemed Israel’s debt. That means the redeemer nation took the responsibility to pay Israel’s debt, and in turn that nation was given authority over Israel (as a slave). Theoretically, if the nation had been able to pay the debt, bringing forth the fruit of justice and righteousness that God required, they would have found favor with God.
However, all nations are carnal, so these other nations were no more successful than Israel and Judah before them. For this reason, when the appointed time of slavery came to an end, God brought judgment upon each nation.
In the case of the long captivity prophesied by Daniel, we see that this captivity was to last for “seven times,” or 2,520 years. Four main “beast” nations were to rule in succession: Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. These all came up “from the sea” (Daniel 7:3).
Daniel also saw a “little horn” that came up out of the fourth (Roman) beast. Nothing is said of its origin, but in that it was an extension of the fourth beast, the implication is that it too was “from the sea.” This is confirmed in Revelation 13:1, where John gives further details about this particular beast in the first ten verses.
But John goes further and tells us of another beast, this time “of the earth” (Revelation 13:11). This beast is exceptional in its origin. All previous beasts came from the sea.
I have explained in other studies that the little horn began with Justinian the Great, who alone fits the description and time. Rome fell in 476 A.D., but the Eastern Roman Empire continued for another thousand years with its capital at Constantinople (now Istanbul). Justinian changed the law from Roman law to Church law in 529, but its final revision was in 534 A.D.
Justinian achieved lasting fame through his judicial reforms, particularly through the complete revision of all Roman law,[32] something that had not previously been attempted. The total of Justinian's legislature is known today as the Corpus juris civilis. It consists of the Codex Iustinianus, the Digesta or Pandectae, theInstitutiones, and the Novellae.
Early in his reign, Justinian appointed the quaestor Tribonian to oversee this task. The first draft of the Codex Iustinianus, a codification of imperial constitutions from the 2nd century onward, was issued on 7 April 529. (The final version appeared in 534.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_I
This change of law, along with the change of calendar based on the supposed birth of Christ, was Daniel’s description of the “little horn” in Daniel 7:25.
This “little horn” was given 3½ “times,” or 1,260 years in Daniel 7:25, from 529-1789 or from 534-1794. These mark the dates of the French Revolution, followed by Napoleon’s war against the Vatican, where he took the pope captive in 1798.
This marks the point where the beast from the earth rose to power. The Vatican’s fatal wound was healed (Revelation 13:3) in 1804 when Napoleon reinstated the pope in order to have someone to crown him emperor. After the final defeat of Napoleon, the beast from the earth made a “Holy Alliance” with the Vatican at the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Alliance
This was when Revelation 13:12 was fulfilled, saying, “he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed.” This beast from the earth was a banking beast, led (at least visibly) by the Rothschild family, whose patriarch had invented modern banking.
In my view, the total time for the “little horn,” including the time after its fatal wound was healed, is 1480 years. As I have explained elsewhere, this time frame has precedent, because Jesus was crucified on the 1480th Passover since the first feast that was kept in Egypt. From Moses to Christ, then, was 1480 years in which the first “church” (Acts 7:38 KJV) had been established.
The “little horn” was also given 1480 years from Justinian to the present time, ending from 2009-2014.
So I believe we are now at the end of the final beast prophesied in Scripture. Neither Daniel nor John speak of any other beasts. We know only of Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, the Little Horn, and the banking beast from the earth. The next great event is the transfer of the Dominion Mandate from these beasts to the saints of the Most High (Daniel 7:21, 22).
Hence also, Revelation 13, which describes these two final beasts, is followed by Revelation 14, which describes the saints of the Most High. They are pictured as a group of 144,000 who sing a new song and follow the Lamb wherever He goes. In this transfer of dominion, an angel is sent to preach the gospel “to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people” (Revelation 14:6). That angel also says, “the hour of His judgment has come” (Revelation 14:7).
This angel is joined by two other angels, all of whom are nameless, although their job description is given. Some year ago I received revelation that the names of these angels are: (1) Angel of Hastening Hope; (2) Angel of Abundant Clarity of Loveliness; and (3) Angel of Severance.
The first preaches the everlasting gospel; the second makes the nations drink the “wine” that is the fruit of their beliefs and actions, but also judges by divine truth. The third separates or severs the true believers from those with the mark of the beast.
Then, of course, the “grapes” are said to be harvested with a Sickle. The constellations, which prophesy of these things, picture it as the Sickle of Leo, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
http://www.space.com/11253-sickle-constellation-leo-night-sky.html
God is about to bring about a great harvest of souls as the angel of the everlasting gospel does his work. By divine judgment upon the world systems, God will tread down the grapes in order to obtain the new wine of the Kingdom. This new wine will be the people of the earth, who will come into the Kingdom of God when they hear this gospel preached with signs following.
In Revelation 14:17 the angel with the sickle is the Angel of Effective Abundant Harvest, according to my own revelation. The next angel in Revelation 14:18, who has power over the fire from the brazen altar, is the Angel of Divine Judgment. This is the same angel who appears in Ezekiel 9:2 as the angel judging Israel and Judah.
The time of the beast nations is ending. The Dominion Mandate is being transferred one final time to the saints of the Most High. No fleshly nation will receive this mandate, for all have proven themselves unworthy of it. It will go to the overcomers alone, who have been taken from “every tribe and tongue and people and nation” to be a kingdom of priests (Revelation 5:9, 10). This cross-section of humanity will represent all the nations in the government of Christ coming Kingdom.