4,000 Years of World Empires — Foretold in Bible Prophecy

Over 4,000 years ago, God made a promise to the faithful patriarch Abraham. Because Abraham had obeyed him, God would raise up from him a chosen people who would become a model nation. If they would be faithful and obey God, he would bless them above all the nations of the earth. God kept his promise. He brought the descendants of Abraham’s grandson Israel out of slavery in Egypt and revealed to them a way of life.

Ten great commandments and laws, statutes, and judgments that would allow them to live in peace and safety in the Promised Land. The chosen people rose to the peak of their power and influence in the days of King Solomon. But after his death, they split into two, a northern kingdom of Israel dominated by the descendants of Israel’s son, Joseph, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. And they forgot their God.
The Northern Kingdom continued for two and a half centuries sinking ever further into idolatry. Until in the eighth century BC God allowed his people to be conquered and taken into captivity by the armies of the Assyrian Empire.

The Southern Kingdom struggled on for 120 more years. But eventually ignoring the warnings of the great prophets. Judah suffered the same fate. In 585 BC, Jerusalem fell to the Babylonian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar and the inhabitants of Judah were led into exile.

Jerusalem was in ruins and the promised land laid waste. It seemed as if the promise had been broken.

But God had not forgotten his people or his plan. In Babylon, a young Jewish captive Daniel is summoned before Nebuchadnezzar to interpret a strange dream that had troubled the Babylonian Emperor.
You O King were watching and behold a great image. This great image whose splendor was excellent, stood before you and its form was awesome.

This image’s head was a fine gold. Its chest and arms of silver. Its belly and thighs of bronze. Its legs of iron. Its feet, partly of iron, and partly of clay.
You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

Then Daniel explained the meaning of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.

You, O King are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom power, strength, and glory. You are this head of gold.

But after you shall arise, another kingdom inferior to yours. Then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron. And like iron that crushes that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others.

Whereas you saw the feet and toes partly of potter’s clay, and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided, yet the strength of the iron shall be in it. So, the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile, just as iron does not mix with clay.

And in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
In one startling prophecy, God had outlined the course of world events for thousands of years into the future.

During the next few years, God continued to give Daniel details of the four great empires that would dominate history. After a startling dream, Daniel awoke to write down the frightening revelation.
I saw in my vision by night and behold the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea and four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other.

The first was like a lion and had eagle’s wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man and a man’s heart was given to it.
And suddenly another beast, a second, like a bear. It was raised up on one side and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth, and they said thus to it — Arise, devour much flesh.

After this I looked and there was another, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. The beast also had four heads and dominion was given to it. 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.

Then I wished to know the truth about the fourth beast. Thus, he said, the fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all other kingdoms and shall devour the whole earth, trample it and break it in pieces. The ten horns are ten kings. Who shall arise from this kingdom?

And so, God revealed that the fourth beast represented the fourth empire, which would continue in one form or another, to the time of the end.

Babylon fell to the Persian empire in the sixth century BC. The Persians ruled the world for two centuries until 333 BC when the armies of Alexander destroyed Persia’s power. This third empire, like unto a leopard, endured for nearly three more centuries before falling to the might of the Romans. And so, in 31 BC, the fourth beast was born as an empire. A power that would influence the affairs of the world until the second coming of Jesus Christ rescues mankind from its clutches.

It was in the heyday of the first stage of the Roman Empire that Jesus Christ revealed the final details of its role in world history.
On the Mediterranean island of Patmos, the elderly Apostle John received the visions recorded in the apocalypse, or book of Revelation. He saw in vivid detail, a cataclysmic war that would take place at the end of the age.

Against this backdrop of mayhem and destruction, John saw once again the savage beasts of Daniel’s vision now combined into one, all-consuming monster.

Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns. And on his horns, ten crowns and on his head a blasphemous name.

Now the beast, which I saw was like a leopard. His feet were like the feet of a bear. And his mouth like a mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority, and all the world marveled and followed the beast. So, they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast. And they worshipped the beast saying, “who is like the beast and who is able to make war with him?”
Here then is a beast of fearsome proportion. The majesty of Babylon. The relentless force of Persia. The speed of the four headed leopard of Greece. All combined to produce the formidable military might of the Romans.

The ten horns represent ten governments to be formed from this beast, for it would arise again and again casting its terrible shadow across nearly 1,600 years of history.
The old Roman Empire fell in AD 476. Three kingdoms supplanted it; the Vandals, the Heruli, and the Ostrogoths. Then the Emperor Justinian restored the power of Imperial Rome in AD 554 as symbolized by the fourth horn of the beast.

In AD 800, Charlemagne was crowned by the Pope on Christmas Day as a successor to the Throne of Rome.

In 962, the sixth horn became known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, when Pope John VII crowned Otto the Great.

Then in 1530, the Hapsburg dynasty reached the apex of its power when the Pope crowned Charles V as the Holy Roman Emperor. This dynastic seventh horn lasted until it was overthrown by Napoleon, who seizing the crown from the hands of the Pope, crowned himself Emperor.

Napoleon’s short reign ended in 1814, a date recognized in history as the end of a government that lasted 1,260 years from the restoration of the Roman Empire in the West by Justinian.
But the beast was not dead.

By 1870 Garibaldi’s efforts led to a United Italy, thus beginning a chain of events that resulted in the formation of the ninth government to arise out of the Roman Empire.

In 1923, the fascists under Mussolini had already come to power in Rome. Meanwhile, an attempt by the Nazi party to take over the German government was thwarted. But ten years later, Hitler did rise to power, and his Third Reich was soon to lunge out at Europe and hold it captive for five nightmare years. Hitler drew inspiration from ancient Rome. Even his architecture was inspired by the styles of the Caesars.
Before this ninth fearsome horn of the Roman Empire had been crushed in the ruins of fascism and the third Reich, much of Europe have been reduced to rubble.

Forty years later, there is little left to remind the visitors of the ravages of war. A place where Hitler once goaded his people into frenzy is now a park where old people stroll and children play. Close by the review stand at Zeppelin Field where the legions of the Third Reich paraded before their Fuehrer, is now in ruins.

But it is not the end. The terrible beast must appear once more for a final rampage of destruction. The prophecies show that ten nations, or group of nations in Europe, will join their economic, military, and political forces. It will be a fragile union — iron mixed with miry clay — but old rivalries and quarrels will be suspended for a time, held together by a common need and a common faith.

These nations will become a third superpower. It may at first seem to be a peaceful union, but the Bible reveals the true nature that lies beneath the surface.

Goaded into action. the beast will wreak havoc on the earth. The armies of the beast will lash out, laying waste the modern-day descendants of the ancient house of Israel.

Then the beast turns in its rage on the nations of the East.

Finally, powerful armies gather to fight a climactic battle for Jerusalem. So great is the fury. So awful the weapons, that humanity teeters on the brink of destroying all flesh — man and animals alike from off the earth. Only the intervention of God can save humanity and God does intervene.

Jesus Christ returns to earth in power and glory. Stopping the fighting. Subduing, the adversaries. Rescuing His chosen people from cruel tribulation. Then this world, this civilization that has known so much misery and destruction will be over.

Jesus Christ will establish His kingdom on the earth, which will lead the world into a thousand years of peace. Leaders of nations will come to this kingdom eager to be taught the way that leads to peace. They will come to a tranquil land developing in happiness and prosperity, living in harmony with God and his laws.

Many then will remember that in the last days of that past civilization, an ambassador of this kingdom came to them with the advanced news of a peaceful world tomorrow.

And I am here to announce to you tonight that God is going to let this world come crashing down! But it’s going to be replaced with a far better world that’ll be filled with love and with peace and joy and happiness, and with greater production by far than anything we’ve dreamed of having yet, and where everybody will be well educated and rightly and properly educated. I feel the responsibility and a voice has to cry out in this wilderness of religious confusion, this wilderness of a Babylon of ideas and everybody having different ideas and everybody against everybody else.

Someone has to cry out with that message and announce what is going to happen as certain as the sun is going to rise and set tomorrow. Now, I know you haven’t heard anything said like this before, but I have been sent here by that Eternal living creator God, the God over all races and all people, and all nations, to tell you the truth, which missionaries have failed to tell you, which religions have not known and have not been able to tell you, which the colleges and universities do not teach, which science doesn’t even understand. But you have been told tonight.