Contending WIth Two Ferocious Beasts

 In another vision, Danie sees a two-horned ram that is struck by a goat with a great horn.  The angel Gabriel explains to him what it means:  "The ram . . . stands for the kings of Media and Persia.  And the hairy he-goat stands for the king of Greece." Gabriel goes on to prophecy that the great horn of the he-goat would be broken and be  succeeded by four horns.  This actually happened  more than 200 years later when Alexander the Great died and  his kingdom was split  into four kindoms ruled by the four of his generals. - DANIEL 8:3-8, 20-25. 

It is clear, therefore, that the Author of the inspired Bible regards the polical powers of the earth as beasts.  What kind of beasts?  One commentator   calls the wild beast of Revelation  13:1, 2 "a brute" and adds :  "We accept all the connotations  that onpiov (The ri'on , the Greek word for "beast"] conveys, such of that as that of a cruel, destructive, frightful, ravenous, etc., monster.  How well that describes the bloodstained polical  system by which Satan has dominated mankindE!  The sevenn heads of this wild beast stand for six major world powers featured in Bible history up to John's day-Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome-and a seventh world power prophesied to appear later. - Compare REVELATION 17:9, 10.

True, there have been other world powers in history besides the seven-just as the wild beast John saw was made of a body as well as the seven heads and ten horns.  But the seven heads represent the seven major powers that have, each in its turn, taken the lead  in oppressing God's people.  In 33 C.E., while Rome was acendant, Satan used that head  of  that wild beast to kill the Son of God. At that time, God abandoned the faithless Jewish system of things and later, in 70 C.E., allowed Rome to execute his judgment on the nation.  Happily, the true Israel of God. the congregation of anointed Christian, had been forewarned, and those in Jerusalm and Judea had fled to safety   beyong the Jordan River. - MATTHEW 24"15, 16; Galatians 6:16. 

Next time: Contending With Two Ferocious Beasts 

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