The Beast of Revelation and the Coming Final World Empire

The Beast from the Sea

“I stood upon the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and 10 horns, and upon his horns 10 crowns, and upon his heads the names of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and the feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion.”

And the dragon gave him his power and his seat and great authority. Now, what did that beast mean? It’s only a symbol, but it means something that is very vital to you and me on the earth today.

World Tomorrow Broadcast Intro

Tomorrow. The Worldwide Church of God presents The World Tomorrow with Herbert W. Armstrong

Ladies and gentlemen, Herbert W. Armstrong.

Middle East: The World’s Final Crisis

What is going to be the outcome of this tense situation now in the Middle East? You can be sure that all of the world troubles from now on are going to center more or less in the Middle East. And the grand smash climax of the present world crisis that we’re really getting into already is going to end up in the Middle East, in and near Jerusalem and north, north of Jerusalem

Bible Prophecy: The Only Sure Guide

There is only one way to know what is going to happen in the future. You know, astrology can’t tell you. Many people are using astrology. It isn’t going to tell you what is going to happen, what is best to do today or tomorrow or on any certain day. Fortune tellers can’t tell you. There is only one source that can tell you unerringly what is going to happen in the future, and that is the Bible, the prophecies of the Bible.

Now, about one-third of all of the Bible is devoted to prophecy, but almost nobody understands it. And 90% of those prophecies are devoted to events that are to happen in this generation and have not yet happened. We’re just beginning to emerge into it right now. We’re already in a situation of extreme world trouble, and it’s worldwide.

In the United States, we’ve been now coming into a time of deeper and deeper depression, and it may get worse. But there is depression all over the world, and there is trouble all over the world.

Revelation & the Day of the Lord

In the prophecies of the Bible, the biggest book of prophecy in the New Testament is the Book of Revelation. And I’ve been speaking quite a little about the Book of Revelation in recent programs. Now, the Book of Revelation has as its keynote what is called the Day of the Lord. We have been for 6,000 years in the day we might call the Day of Man, or we might better call it the Day of Satan because he has been influencing humanity and all humanity for 6,000 years in a way that human beings simply do not realize.

Progress Without Peace: Why?

In this world, for 6,000 years, we’ve finally come in this 20th century to a place in the United States and in Western Europe and Japan of awesome progress. We’ve sent men to the moon and back. We’ve landed spacecraft on the surface of Mars to send back close-up photographs of the very surface of Mars and fairly close photographs of Jupiter and Saturn that astronomers say are mind-boggling.

We’ve made awesome progress in many directions, but did you ever notice it’s all in materialism? But we’re living in a time of appalling evils, and all of the evils are a matter of humans dealing with humans. We don’t know how to get along with one another. Husband and wife can’t get along together.

Parents and children can’t get along together. Any police chief will tell you that there are more murders in the home today than any other place, and many of them are husband killing wife, wife killing husband, parents killing children, children killing parents. Family can’t get along with next door neighbor.

Capital can’t get along with labor. Black can’t get along with white, different races have contentions and all we have is appalling troubles because we don’t know how to live together. Well, those are spiritual problems. I’ve gone into a lot about that, and there’s a reason for it. There’s a cause for every effect. But we’ve come to this time near the end of what is known as the day of man, or you could call it the day of Satan.

God Intervenes: Christ Returns to Earth

The day of the Lord is the time when the very creator, God Almighty, is going to intervene in world affairs supernaturally, is going to once again send Jesus Christ back to this earth in the power and the glory of the eternal creator God, and is going to bring this world to its senses and is going to bring us at last world peace.

And I proclaim that world peace to the heads of nations all over this world, as well as to you who are listening and viewing on television. Now, the Book of Revelation reveals what is going to happen in this day of the Lord, and we’re almost at the very beginning of it right now.

Revelation’s Symbols Explained

The Book of Revelation speaks in symbols. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ. He is the revealer. No wonder people can’t understand it. It has been closed and sealed until the time of the end. That’s explained by Daniel. I’ll read that to you in just a moment. But it all began in the time of Jesus Christ by false apostles preaching wrong things and counterfeiting the very gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that has been done, and the whole world has been deceived, and the world doesn’t realize it. You know, as I’ve said time and time again, when one is deceived, he doesn’t know he’s deceived. And again, what you don’t know, you don’t know that you don’t know it. It’s just that simple.

But we’re very near to that time of the day of the Lord. But in the Book of Revelation, I’ve come to the time in that book of the beginning of the day of the Lord. There is a story flow in the Book of Revelation, but also there are inset chapters. Now chapters 13, chapter 12, chapter 13, and chapter 17 are all inset chapters, as I call them.

John’s Vision on the Isle of Patmos

That is, they are inset into the story flow. They go back some time in history and bring you up to date. And so I would like to begin a little bit with Revelation 13 and verse 1. “And I stood upon the sand of the sea.” Here, the Apostle John is revealing what he saw in a vision. He was in a vision in the Isle of Patmos in the Mediterranean Sea.

In a vision, he was caught up to heaven where he saw many things that were going to happen on the earth. He also saw some things on the earth. And here he says that in this vision, he stood upon the sand of the sea and he saw a beast rising up out of the sea. That is a wild animal, a beast. And he’s speaking of wild animals.

And incidentally, they are symbolic. The Book of Revelation speaks in symbols all of the way through, but it explains its symbols. And it is the revelation of Jesus Christ, and you have to look to the words of Jesus Christ to explain these symbols even. So he stood upon the seashore and I saw a beast or a wild animal rising out of the sea having seven heads.

That’s a strange kind of an animal, having seven heads and 10 horns. Not a single horn or two horns, but 10 horns. And upon his horns, 10 crowns. Now a crown symbolizes a ruler and authority and political rule. 10 crowns on these 10 horns and upon his heads the names of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard.

Now it was not a leopard, it was just like a leopard. And the feet were as the feet of a bear. Now that would be a funny kind of a leopard, having feet like a bear but the main body like a leopard. A leopard is cat-like and very, very quick, but it having ponderous feet like a big bear. And his mouth as the mouth of a lion, especially of a male lion.

That is the strongest part of a lion. So he had the strongest part of a lion, the strongest part of a bear, and the most effective part, the cat-like part of a leopard. And the dragon gave him his power and his seat and great authority. Now in Revelation 12 and verse seven or verse nine, you will find that the dragon is Satan the devil.

Also, it’s in the 20th chapter of Revelation. The Bible shows that in other places that dragon is merely a symbol meaning Satan the devil. It isn’t fashionable to believe in a devil today, I know, but there is a devil. He is invisible and people can’t see the devil. The Bible speaks a great deal about a devil and you can’t account for many of the things that have been happening in this world except through a devil.

Now, here was a strange animal and to understand about that wild animal, you have to go back to the Book of Daniel where you begin to find it explained. And you do find it explained in the seventh chapter of the Book of Daniel.

Daniel’s Sealed Prophecies Now Open

First, however, I would like to turn to the 12th chapter of the Book of Daniel and I want to show you something that is said there.

Daniel, near the very end of his whole book, is writing this. “I heard but I understood not.” Now an angel had come to the prophet Daniel and told him things. He heard what was said. He recorded it in writing. He wrote it down but he did not understand. “Then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?”

In other words, what’s going to come out of all that you’ve given me and all that you’ve shown me? “And he said, Go thy way, Daniel, for the words are closed and sealed up until the end.” We now, my friends, are at the time of the end. They were closed and sealed until now and that also is true of the Book of Revelation.

No wonder it’s been a mystery and people have never understood it. Now at the time of the end he says, “Many shall be purified and made white and tried but the wicked shall do wickedly and none of the wicked shall understand but the wise shall understand.” And at the time of the end he said, “Many will be running to and fro and knowledge will be increased.”

Well people are certainly going to and fro not only in automobiles and on foot but in airplanes and every possible way that you can think of in transportation today and knowledge has certainly increased especially in this 20th century. The world’s fund of knowledge doubled in the one decade of the 1960s.

The world’s fund of knowledge doubled but our troubles doubled also in that same decade. Why? The increased knowledge didn’t cause it, but it certainly didn’t eradicate the evils. It simply did not. Well, now I’d like to turn to the seventh chapter of Daniel, where Daniel, in a dream, saw the very same thing that explains that beast that John saw in Revelation.

Four Beasts of Daniel Explained

Now, what did that beast mean? It’s only a symbol, but it means something that is very vital to you and me on the earth today. So in Daniel, the seventh chapter, let’s begin with verse one. In the first year of Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, almost 600 years before Christ at this time, he says, I, Daniel, had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed.

And then he wrote the dream and told the sum of the matters. Daniel spake and said, I saw in my night visions by night and behold the four winds of heaven over the great sea. And four great beasts, not one, but four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from the other. The first was like a lion.

Now he saw a beast that was like a lion. Then he beheld a second beast that was like a bear with his ponderous feet. And then he saw a third like a leopard. Now here we see the same thing. We saw one beast in Revelation. It was like a leopard, but it had the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion. And here we find the first beast that Daniel saw was like a lion.

The second was like a bear. Not a bear, but was like a bear. The third was like a leopard, and that beast had also four heads. Not seven heads, but four heads this leopard did, and dominion was given unto him. Dominion means power or political rule, as we’re going to see. And now verse seven. “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth.”

Notice the iron in this beast. “It devoured and it brake in pieces and stamped the residue with the feet of it; and it was diverse from all of the beasts that were before it; and it had 10 horns.” Now, here are the 10 horns, and here are really seven heads because the first beast had a head, the second beast had a head, the third beast, like a leopard, had four heads, and that makes six heads all together.

And the fourth beast, of course, had a head. Now that is the seven heads. But on the fourth beast, which came later, were the 10 horns. Now we have the beasts, and you see what John saw in the Book of Revelation was a composite of these. It had the cat-like quickness of a leopard, it had ponderous feet of a bear, and it had the strength of a mouth of a lion. And it’s like this fourth beast, and it involved all four of these beasts.

The Fourth Kingdom: Rome & Revival

In other words, what John saw really was this fourth beast, which had all of the power of those before it. Now, what does it mean? What, why is he talking about wild animals here? What has that got to do– You know, I used to say when I was a boy, eleven years old, I used to say about something if I thought it wasn’t important, I’d say, “Well, what has that got to do with the price of putty?”

And you might ask, what has this got to do with the price of putty? All about these wild animals. Well, it’s very, very important to you and me because they represent things that happen in our time in the world now. Now let’s get to verse seventeen. “These great beasts,” or wild animals, “which are four, are four kings which shall arise out of the earth.”

Now we drop down to verse twenty-three. “Thus he said,” this angel speaking to Daniel, “said to him, ‘The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon the earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and it shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.'” This fourth wild animal then, which did have all of the quickness, the speed, and everything of a leopard, the ponderous feet of a bear, the strength of the mouth of a lion.

It was stronger than any and strong like iron. And you see what John saw really was this fourth beast, which had all of the power of those before it. Now dropping down to verse twenty-seven. “And the kingdom, and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven,” so it is on Earth, and it’s a kingdom, it’s a nation, it’s a people with a government over them, “shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominion shall serve and obey him.”

Saints Rule with Christ as King

Now, the “him” there is referring to the one that will be the ruler in that kingdom. And incidentally, I think right in there I’m gonna turn to something that I hadn’t expected to turn to. In the third chapter of the Book of Revelation, in a message to the seven churches, the churches of the time since Christ, here is a message.

“To him,” this is the very words of Jesus Christ, “to him that overcometh,” that is a saint, a Christian, or as we call them, saints. You know, the Catholic Church have named many cities and towns and places after certain saints. So we have Saint this and Saint that. We have St. Louis in the United States, and we have St. Petersburg. We have San Luis Obispo. We have San Diego, which means saint, and so on. Now to him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne. Jesus Christ, as I have said time and again, was born to be a king. He gave the parable of a rich young ruler going to a far country when he went to heaven as he ascended after his resurrection to get for himself a kingdom and then to return.

He had to have that kingdom given to him by God the Father at the throne of the whole universe to come down and rule over all the nations of this earth. Now we’re speaking about four governments on this earth. And finally, the saints are going to take it. But here Christ is the King of kings that is coming to rule the earth, and the saints will rule under him.

Now he says to him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne when he comes to rule over the whole earth, even as I also overcame and am sat down. Now he’s in heaven on his father’s throne, on my father’s throne. And so I wanted you to see that. Now then, if we’re going to understand this, you have to go further back into some of the prophecies of Daniel.

Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream: World Empires

In the second chapter of Daniel, and I’ve gone through that in previous programs. I won’t have time to go clear through it this time, but just a little of it. In the second chapter of Daniel, it was in the days of King Nebuchadnezzar some six hundred years before Christ. King Nebuchadnezzar had organized the first great world empire.

It was the very first world empire. And he had a strange dream. It was an astonishing dream, but he wanted to know what it was and he wanted to know what it meant. He thought it had meaning. So he called his fortune tellers, his astrologers, his Chaldeans, and so on. But he said, “Tell us the dream.” They couldn’t tell him.

He then demanded that they tell the dream or he was going to put them to death. Well, they said, “Nobody can tell you the dream.” Then they found that Daniel was a prophet, a young Jewish lad that was there, had been in the captivity when the Jews had been taken captive at that time, and that somehow God was with him.

And Daniel prayed and God revealed to him what the dream was and what it meant. So he came before the king and he said, “The God of heaven has revealed this.” He said, “I could not do it. No man can do it, but God did reveal it to me.” And he tells the king what is going to happen in the latter days. Now, he saw a great image.

Its head was of gold, its breast and arms were of silver, its belly of brass or bronze, and the legs were of iron and the feet part of iron and part of clay. And the head was Nebuchadnezzar. The arms and the breast were another kingdom to follow him, which was the Persian kingdom, the kingdom of Persia.

And another would follow, which was Greece.

Rome Revived: 10 Nations in Europe

And after that would come another, the fourth kingdom, strong as iron, represented by the legs, the Roman Empire. And it would carry on clear down to our time. Now, the Roman Empire is yet to be revived, and that will happen very soon in Europe. And apparently, part of it in Eastern Europe and part in Western Europe, where the old ancient Roman Empire was, by 10 nations, which are the 10 toes.

They’re going together, and they are going to fight Christ at His coming. Now, this shows Gentile world-ruling governments that have been ruling the world politically and representing all of the world-ruling governments from six hundred years before Christ down to our time today. And we’re coming into that very time.

Now, other things are revealed in these prophecies that are immediately to happen, but it does get down to our time today. And it’s very important that we understand these things or you don’t know what is going to happen. And not only that, the Bible reveals so much more than that. It reveals the cause of all of today’s troubles.

God’s Purpose & Christ’s Coming

It reveals the purpose being worked out here below. And I’ve mentioned how Prime Minister Churchill mentioned that before the American Congress in World War II, that there is a purpose being worked out here below. And people don’t realize that God Almighty is working out a purpose through humanity. And Jesus Christ is coming to save us from all the world troubles that we’re having today and bring us world peace.

It is coming, and it’s coming in our time. Now, continue to listen to these programs. You won’t hear these truths on any other program, I assure you. I’m sorry, I wish you did. I really wish you did. But I would also like to send you some very, very important literature that will help reveal these things to you.

Free Booklets & Contact Information

Now, I have a booklet, Who Is the Beast?, explaining who the beast is and what is coming in the Book of Revelation and how that is to be revived very soon in the Middle East and in Europe. And you’re going to see it. Also, the booklet that I’ve mentioned many times on this program, The Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last.

It will open the Book of Revelation to your understanding. Now, especially this book, Who Is the Beast? That beast is coming, and we don’t have any fanciful interpretation of that, but the real one. And with that, Who Is the Beast?, we will send you a Plain Truth magazine. I think it’s the greatest magazine published in the world today.

It’s one of the world’s mass circulation magazines of 4 million copies per month. But there is no subscription price, and I know of no magazine like it. You can have a year’s subscription gratis if you wish. There is no subscription price. We don’t beg for money over the air. Now, all you do is send your request to me, Herbert W. Armstrong, Pasadena, California, 91123. Herbert W. Armstrong, Pasadena, California, 91123. Or you call toll-free. Just go to the telephone and call toll-free. No charge. Area code 800-423-4444. That’s area code 800-423-4444. If the lines are busy, why, please keep calling. Now, in California, Alaska, and Hawaii, you call collect.

We’ll pay for the call. Call collect 213 area code. Area code 213-577-5555. Now, that’s area code 213, collect, 577-5555. Very easy to remember. So until next time, Herbert W. Armstrong speaking. Goodbye, friends.

For the free literature offered on this program, write Herbert W. Armstrong, Pasadena, California 91123. In Canada, Box 44, Vancouver, BC. Or in the continental United States, you may call this toll-free number: 800-423-4444. In California, Alaska, and Hawaii, call collect 213-577-5555. If the lines are busy, please try again.

The preceding program and all literature were produced by the Worldwide Church of God.