Study 3 – The book of Revelation – by Neville Clark for Enfield Ecclesia’s Special Effort

 

Study 3 – The book of Revelation by Neville Clark for Enfield Ecclesia’s Special Effort

The Rise of the Dragon

 

 

 

Study 3 – The book of Revelation by Neville Clark for Enfield Ecclesia’s Special Effort

Reading Revelation Ch 12.

The Jubilee Time Period

Now this is where we have got to, and I hope that this 50 year time period, this Jubilee time period, is somewhat familiar to you now, this is the 50 years, we believe which will elapse between the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the household, and the commencement of the thousand year millennial reign. 

The first 10 years

If we look at the very first ten years of that 50 – I had someone come to me and say, “Will it really take ten years for the judgment seat?” and the answer is “No,” of course it won’t take ten years for the judgment seat, but in that ten year period, although I haven’t written it there, or really explained it, that ten year period, what we have to have happen, of course, is the judgment seat of Christ, then the marriage of the Lamb with the fraternization of the saints after the marriage ceremony. We’ve got the saints of the six thousand years who have to be organized together in order that they might work together for the next thousand years, that has to happen.

Gog’s preparations

Whilst all that’s going on, Gog’s going to make his preparations and eventually find himself down in the land of Israel because that ten year period ends in the battle of Armageddon. 

The battle of Armageddon

I can’t prove this, brothers and sisters, but I would suspect that all the information that is required for the saints to govern the world for the next thousand years is already included in Scripture, but that we’ve never ever looked at Scripture from that point of view. It may well be that a fair portion of that ten years is involved in learning how to govern the world from the things that are already written. Remember the angels, how the angels desired to look into the things that the prophets wrote, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there are things in the Psalms and things in the prophets that we never dreamed were there which will be revealed to us in that 10 years, that we’ve got to start to put together for use in the 40 years.  Year 10, Armageddon, and right after Armageddon, of course, the Prophet Elijah goes out with the refined third of Judah to bring scattered Israel back to the land so that they are there and prepared for the Lord Jesus Christ in year 50.

40 years to convert national Israel

Well, if it takes 40 years to convert national Israel, well why wouldn’t it take 40 years to convert the gentiles? 

The mid heaven proclamation

Well, we expect it will, the first ten years therefore, the summons goes to the gentiles, the mid-heaven proclamation as Revelation 14 calls it, a proclamation – “a pentecostian proclamation” as Bro Thomas says.

Appeal to submit

It is a warning of judgment to come, but an appeal to submit to the Lord who is now, as of year 10, in control of the city of Jerusalem, with the ancient throne of David re-established. That meets, it appears, with limited success, because in year 20 we have the destruction of the city of Rome, by which we mean the destruction of the complete administration of Catholic Church, and then the following 30 years, the seven-thundered judgments of Revelation Ch 10 are poured out resulting, in year 50, in the fall of great Babylon and the commencement of the 1,000 year reign.

Great Babylon

Revelation Ch 16

Great Babylon, we’ve now met a couple of times in Revelation Ch 16. Revelation 16, the last half a dozen verses is, of course, the seventh vial period, which is the last 40 years of that 50 years we just saw, and it tells us in Rev 16:19, that the great city Babylon was divided into three parts and it fell, that is, it was destroyed. 

Babylon divided into three parts – the dragon, the beast and false prophet – military economic and religious

We asked the question, one or two studies ago, “What were those three parts?” We made the observation that, all at once in the book of Revelation, Rome is divided into thirds. Well, the three parts we believe of great Babylon, that is the three divisions, the three component parts of Babylon the great, are none other than “the dragon,” “the beast,” and “the false prophet,” that is, the military, the economic, and the religious dimensions of the kingdom of men. If we were to put geographical locations on those three things they would be Russia, the military component, the European Union, the economic component, and the Papacy, the religious component. Each of those three divisions must be dealt with separately by Christ and the saints, in order to bring about the destruction of the kingdom of men.

The dragon, the beast and the false prophet

Tonight we are going to speak of the dragon. There is a difference between the dragon and the beast. They are both wild beasts, that is true, but there is a big difference between the dragon in Revelation and the beast of Revelation which I will explain. 

Tonight the dragon, I think Thursday the beast, and on the weekend, the false prophet, after which we have completely destroyed the kingdom of men. 

The beasts of Revelation

In the process of dealing with those three dimensions of the kingdom of men, we are going to become very, very familiar with this chart. Just have a look at what you’ve got on the screen, these are all the beasts of Revelation, when they exist over the last two thousand years, and then some. This is the progress of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet, from John’s day until the return of the Lord Jesus Christ and into the kingdom age. When John was alive, on the very left hand side of the screen, the Roman Empire was the great red dragon, it was a pagan empire, and that means, it was not a Christian empire, it worshiped false gods, it worshiped Caesars and so forth. When Constantine came on the scene in 324 AD, he came on the scene a little before that, but he became the sole emperor of the Roman Empire in 324AD, and in addition to conquering the entire empire himself, he became the first Christian emperor of the Roman Empire. That was a watershed moment in the Roman Empire, and that in fact required the dragon to change his color. It would go from a pagan empire to a Christian Empire, well, that’s not all Constantine did. In addition to Christianizing the empire, that is, making Christianity, not only a legal religion, but a state-sponsored religion. In addition to doing that, he established a second capital. He made Constantinople, in fact, the primary capital of the Roman Empire, and Rome became a secondary capital.

The great red dragon splits into two separate beasts

Now as far as the book of Revelation is concerned, that was supremely significant, because that requires us now to split the great red dragon into two separate beasts, one would live in Constantinople, and the other would live in Western Europe where Rome is. You might say, “well, why do we need two beasts, it is still all one empire, it’s just that it’s got two capitals?” That’s the point you see, that those two capitals take on a life of their own. They were both extremely powerful entities in themselves, because each capital owned half of the Roman Empire, each was like a sub-empire, and more than once they went to war with each other, and over time they head in very different directions. That’s why we need two separate beasts, and you can see, that from the great red dragon on the left, all of a sudden we split the Roman Beast into an eastern and a western European dimension. In the east, the line is very simple, Constantinople becomes the eastern empire, and that beast is called “the dragon.” He is called “the dragon” all his life until in fact, the very end of the 1,000 years reign of Christ. He changes location once. He begins in Constantinople, as we will show you tonight, he moves, he relocates to Moscow, but before the millennial reign of Christ begins, he will relocate to Constantinople. So he’s just shifted, just for a moment, but he’s going to come back to Constantinople again, that dragon is Russia. That’s who we are speaking about that’s who we are going to talk about tonight.

The dimensions of the kingdom of men.

In Western Europe, well, we have the “beast of the sea,” and he runs all the way along the bottom of that screen, to become the latter day manifestation of the beast of the sea which is the “scarlet colored beast.” The European Union. And in between time we have the “beast of the earth” come and go, we have the “image of the beast,” come and go, so that today, the only component parts of great Babylon that we have in existence today, which must be dealt with by the Lord Jesus Christ when he comes are, “the dragon,” “the false prophet,” and “the beast,” the scarlet colored beast of Revelation 17. Now I’m not going to speak any more about that because I only want to talk about the dragon tonight, but you can see why we make the point that “the dragon” and “the beast” are very different creatures as far as Revelation is concerned.

But if we were to look at all those beasts that we just saw, if we were to look at where they lived, or have lived in time, this is how the map of their world appears. The dragon, of course, is based in Constantinople, yes, we’ve made the point that he goes to Moscow, but he’s going to come back to Constantinople, he’s a very simple creature. The “beast of the sea,” is Western Europe. For a portion of time, about 1,000 years, there was a second, competing beast, called the “beast of the earth,” who was in central Europe. The difference between the “beast of the sea,” and the “beast of the earth,” is simply this, the reason he is called “the beast of the sea,” is because he is a coastal empire in Western Europe, it’s the European Union.  The reason the second beast is called the “beast of the earth,” because he is an inland empire in Western Europe, he was a Germanic beast, he’s the holy Roman Empire. And down there, on the peninsula, you’ve got this other little creature, he’s called “the image of the beast.” The word “image” is the Greek work “Icon,” and it means a copy, and all it simply means is that the Pope, when he got the Papal State, he had a bit of land, he had a few farmers, he had an army to help him, he created a miniature copy of the “beast of the sea” in his own back yard, and it was called “the image of the beast,” an icon, or a miniature copy of the sea beast of Europe. They are the dimensions of the kingdom of men.

The Eastern Roman Empire

That was the very top row. We’re just going to talk about the Eastern Roman Empire this evening, that portion, or that half of the Roman Empire which was ensconced in Constantinople and its surrounds, from the time of Constantine, forwards. What is that all about? Well, the dragon, in fact, is a crocodile. When you come to draw the beasts of Revelation, this particular beast looks like a crocodile. How do we know that? Well, the word “dragon,” in Revelation 12 where he begins, is the Greek word “dracon,” from which we get, of course, the English “dragon.” In the Hebrew, if we were to look at the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, It is the Hebrew word “tanniym,” which becomes the word ‘dragon,” and this word, “tanniym,”  occurs in Ezekiel 29:3, speaking of Pharaoh King of Egypt, that great dragon, or in the Septuagint, “dracon.” Leviathan in the midst of the rivers which has said, “My river is my own and I have made it for myself, I will put hooks in thy jaws.”  Well, the dragon of Egypt, of course, was the Nile crocodile, that’s how we know that this dragon was in fact a crocodile, that’s where we get that from, arrogant, aggressive, anti-Semitic, that’s what he was, down there in Egypt. So you see, of Egypt, he says, “My river is my own I have made it for myself,” words, of course, which were very closely repeated by Nebuchadnezzar many, many hundreds of years later. Interestingly, in Jeremiah 51:34, Nebuchadnezzar is also called “a dragon.” And look what God is going to do with this Egyptian dragon, he’s going to put hooks in his jaws. So the Egyptian dragon, was not only typical of the Babylonian dragon, he’s also typical of the Gogian dragon.

Now what’s the point about this crocodile? If you were to go to Job 41, you would find that the Leviathan of Job 41 is “the dragon.” And in Job 41:4, this is what it says, speaking of the crocodile, “Will he make a covenant with thee? Wilt thou take him for a servant forever? Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? lay thy hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more.” What does that mean? The New International Version says it like this, “If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again.” In the book of Job, as I say, Leviathan is the crocodile, and the crocodile in the book of Job is the symbol of sin, that’s what that dragon represents in scripture, arrogant, calculating, merciless, he’s very happy with you if you serve him, but he will never serve you. You can’t tame him, you can’t make deals with him, he only exists to please himself, and if he wants, any day he wants, he will kill you. The only treatment you can give to this dragon is to starve him. If you feed him, he only gets bigger, you can’t parley with sin, that’s the point. That was Egypt, that was Babylon, that is Russia. The dragon, therefore as a symbol in the book of Revelation is simply the political manifestation of sin, or if you like, sin incorporated into an empire, that’s the biblical symbol.

Now come to Revelation Ch 12, this is where you meet the dragon, this is the first occurrence of the word “dragon,” in the book of Revelation. We won’t read the whole chapter, I only want to look at the first four verses, reading most particularly, vs 3-4, but let’s start at v 1 because this gives you the entire context of this particular portion of the Roman Empire. “There appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars, and she being with child, travailed in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven and behold a great red dragon,” there he is, “ having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his head, and the tail of that dragon,”  it says, “drew the third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth, and the dragon stood before the woman, which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.”

Two wonders in heaven

So what have we got here? Well, we’ve got two wonders in heaven, don’t we? The first one in v1 is a woman clothed with the sun, and the second one in v 3 is a dragon, flicking the starts of heaven around. “Heaven” here cannot possibly be the literal abode of God because there is utter chaos in this “heaven.” There is “war” it tells us in v 7, there is a dragon running around trying to eat little children, in v 4, and at the same time it is throwing the “stars from heaven” down to the earth. So what does it mean? Well, let’s begin with the dragon, this is a slide which you are familiar with, I don’t need to explain too much here, my simple point is, this is a representation of one of the phases of the Roman Empire. How do we know that? because the “dragon” in v 3 has ten horns. There are only four beasts in the Bible which have ten horns, the fourth beast of Daniel Ch 7, the Roman Beast, and his equivalent, in Revelation 12, 13 and 17, so outside of the book of Revelation, the only other beast in Scripture which has ten horns is the Roman Empire in Daniel Ch 7. So we are talking about the Roman Empire in Revelation Ch 12, so if you were talking with Jehovah’s Witnesses, that would be the first thing I would try and prove, that this is not talking about the devil, it is not talking about a warfare in heaven in the orthodox sense, it is a phase of the Roman Empire, in which there is great conflict. Why does this great red dragon have seven heads? Well, because, in the entire existence of the Roman Empire, there were seven forms of government and when I say seven forms of government, I mean like communism, a dictatorship, democracy, socialism, etc, etc., these are different forms of government.

The Roman Empire actually began in about 753 BC with the seven famous kings of Rome, that is, one after the other, that was called the “Regal” period of the Roman Empire. It lasted from 753 BC to 510 BC. Well what the Romans found of course was that Kings were want to abuse their power, because they gave the throne to their sons, it didn’t mean that the best man necessarily sat on the throne, so they replaced that sort of government with consuls, so they had a consular sort of government where you had two kings if you like, holding hands, in a coalition. Well the problem was that way back in the centuries BC, Rome was want to get attacked all the time and when you went to war, the last thing you needed was two kings who couldn’t agree what the battle plan was so they went straight to dictators as the third form of government, because a dictator is what you need when you fight a war. Well a dictator is even worse than a king, so it wasn’t long before the fourth phase of government occurs, the “Decimviral ,” ten men , they governed Rome by a committee up until about 388 BC, and then the “tribunicial” phase, tribunes were like generals who became kings. They had extensive military experience, and then from about 27BC, with Augustus Caesar, through to 476AD when the western empire fell, the “imperial” phase, “Imperial” means “emperor,” there were Roman Emperors for about 500 years, of course, even during the time that John wrote. And it tells you by the way in Revelation 17:10, as you can see on the screen, John says, “And there are seven kings,” well, there they are there, “seven heads,” seven forms of government, “five are fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come,” which means he was in the sixth kingdom, if you like, the sixth form of government of the empire, which you can see through the book of Revelation, written in 96AD, is exactly right. After 476AD the emperor in Rome was killed and his government was replaced by one of the barbarian tribes called the Ostragoths and they formed the Gothic form of government. They are the seven heads of the beast.

The ten horns

But what about ten horns? Well there is no mystery there, there were sometimes more, sometimes less but on average, ten barbarian tribes which carved up the body of the fallen Roman Empire of western Europe, they are the ten horns on the head of the Roman beast. Well, what about the woman? What’s the story of the woman in Revelation 12, well you know, this is very important because identifying the woman is really the key to identifying the entire chapter, and it’s not really very complicated. A woman is a biblical symbol of a religious system, in this case, she stands for the Christian religious system because Christ is mentioned in v 10 of Revelation 12. But she’s an apostate Christian religious system because she is about to have a child, she is no longer a “chaste virgin.” So this is the time when Christianity came into the Roman Empire. So we’ve identified the Roman beast, seven heads and ten horns, this is the time when Christianity arose in the Roman Empire, but it didn’t just come into the empire, this woman in v 1 is clothed with the sun because she’s got the support of the emperor. She’s standing on the moon because she has triumphed over paganism, this is state-sponsored Christianity arriving in the Roman Empire. The empire is changing, you see, and the child that is born here, he is the product of that woman, of that church and he is none other than emperor Constantine himself, the first Christian emperor of the Roman Empire. So we know exactly where we are in time you see, in Revelation Ch 12 in the context of the Roman Empire. The war in heaven in v 7 concluded in 324 AD with Constantine victorious and the Roman Empire now officially “Christian.”

Rome and Constantinople

Well, by the time Constantine had finished with the Empire, this is what it looked like. We have a Christian beast, in western Europe, and we have a dragon in Eastern Europe, one based around Rome if you like, and the other based in Constantinople. But you must understand just how powerful this dragon is, he is more powerful than the beast. The dragon is the capital, Constantine went and lived in Constantinople, the dragon is the capital city of the Roman Empire, Here’s a couple of questions for you just while you are thinking about it, why doesn’t the dragon have seven heads, I’ve drawn it with one head, why doesn’t the dragon have seven heads? I thought it was Roman? Well, because there is only one form of government in Constantinople, “Imperial.” The other six heads all related to the Roman empire down in history, this is a new capital, there’s only one head, there’s only one form of government, there’s an emperor in Constantinople, it’s imperial. Why doesn’t the dragon have ten horns? Well, because the ten horns relate to the barbarian tribes which overtook Western Europe, the dragon’s in Eastern Europe, you see. So the seven heads and ten horns make complete sense they are part of the legate Roman Empire in Western Europe, this is a new phase, if you like, of the Roman Empire, the eastern Roman Empire. What that means, by the way, is that Putin, let’s imagine Putin’s Gog, he may not be, that does imply that Putin must become an emperor. If this dragon rises in the last days, it will be an imperial dragon, there’s only one head on this dragon, it’s not a democracy. Well, perhaps, Russian democracy’s not a real democracy anyway. You see the point? Understand just how strong this dragon was. The first seven Ecumenical Councils of the Christian Church were run around Constantinople. In 325AD, one year after he became the sole emperor, Constantine called the first Ecumenical Council in Nicaea, you can see the map there, those seven councils are all in places dotted around Constantinople. What’s the point, do you suppose, of me putting up this slide here? Well, look what those councils worked out. The first council repudiates  Aryanism and declares that Christ is of one substance with the Father, so Christ and God are the same. The second council repudiates Aryanism and says that Christ is, in fact, pre-existent, he was born of the Father before all time, so they work out the Trinity first, then they work out pre-existence second, and by the third Council, Mary is the Mother of God. Can you see that the entire fabric of Catholic Church doctrine was forged in the Eastern Empire by the dragon, he defined the Catholic Church. Over in Western Rome, they are a fraction as powerful as the dragon was over in the east. The entire roots of the Western Roman Empire, I mean, you think about the Catholic Church, and you think about Catholic dogma, and you associate it with Rome, understand, it was born in Constantinople, that’s how powerful the dragon was.  In fact the Byzantine Empire which was the empire in the east, we call it Byzantine, by the way, because before Constantinople was called Constantinople, it was the Greek city of Byzantium, so we call it the Byzantine Empire after its old name. The Byzantine Empire dominated the Papacy between 537 and 752 AD. All the Popes had to have the approval of the Byzantine Emperor before they were consecrated. You can see how much control this Eastern Empire has.

The Western Roman Empire

Now come to Revelation 13, because here’s where we meet our first problem, and this is where the Eastern Empire is going to shine, like you wouldn’t believe. Revelation 13:1, “I stood upon the sand of the sea and I saw a beast rise up out of the sea and he had seven heads and ten horns and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his head the name of blasphemy.”  Now this is a seven headed, ten horned beast, this is Western Europe. It’s Western Europe because it’s got ten horns and seven heads, the dragon has only got one head over in the East, so this is Western Europe, this is the Christian Roman Empire. It is exactly the same looking sort of beast as the dragon of Revelation Ch 12 except the dragon was pagan and this fellow here is Christian. But something has changed. Something very serious has happened to this beast in v 1. Look at the crowns, whereabouts are the crowns in Revelation 13:1? Well they are on the horns of this beast. Whereabouts were the crowns in Revelation 12:3? they were on the head of the beast. What’s the difference? Well, what was it that made the crowns move from the head of the beast to the horns of the beast? Well what’s “crowns?” Well crowns are governments, crowns are the control of the king, you see what’s happened here, those ten horns of the Western Roman Empire are now ruling themselves, they are doing what they want. What’s that mean? It means that when you come to Revelation 13:1 you are after the year 476 AD, the ten barbarian tribes have now dropped the Western Roman Empire and are ruling themselves. The body of the Western Roman Empire has now been carved into ten parts, that’s what has happened, Europe’s in chaos. Do you want to know how serious the problem is? Look, we’ve moved into the seventh head. The Goth’s now control Rome, they are not even Roman, they are not even Catholic and they control the city of Rome and they are destined to do so for some 60 years, we are now into the seventh head of the beast. How do we know? Well, because look at v 3 of Revelation ch 13. “I saw one of the heads,” that is one of the forms of government, “as it were, wounded to death, and its deadly wound was healed, and all the world wondered after the beast.” What does it mean? It means the sixth head, the imperial head, the last emperor has died, and a new form of government has been brought in, the problem was, it was a barbarian form of government, it wasn’t what the Romans wanted, but they had no military power to do anything about it.

There are two problems with this Gothic form of ruler ship. The first one was that they were barbarians and they weren’t really Roman, and the second one is, they weren’t Catholic, they might have been Christian, but they were not Catholic, and look what happens, v 4, “And they worshiped the dragon, which gave power to the beast and they worshiped the beast saying, “Who’s like the beast, who is able to make war with him.” What happened? What is this talking about? Well the answer is, it is not long before Constantinople gets involved again,“and the dragon of the east comes to the military aid of the beast of the west, that’s what’s going to happen. The year is now 527 AD and a man steps up to the throne in Constantinople and is destined to be the greatest, the greatest emperor Constantinople would ever see. What’s his name? Justinian! Look at him, he doesn’t look too flash there, but he was pretty good in real life as I’m getting to understand. Justinian the first, Justinian the great, he had three wishes, listen carefully, three wishes: One God, One Empire, One religion. One God means, the God of the Bible, paganism is illegal. One Empire means, East and West united, and one religion means Catholicism, and only Catholicism. Trinitarianism, and only Trinitarianism.  If you believed anything else, you were a heretic. There was no Biblical sin in killing heretics.

Well, the first objective was, reconquer all the lost territory. Go back into Western Europe after the barbarians had done their thing, and take the territory of Western Europe back, so the orange on the map is the Empire in the east, that Justinian began with, the yellow on the map is the territory Justinian retook, including, of course, and most importantly, the City of Rome. So his first intention was to take back the western portion of the Empire that had fallen to the barbarians and reinstall the sixth head; heal the wound of the sixth head that the Goths had almost mortally wounded and put an emperor back in Rome, which of course, he duly did. But the dragon didn’t just move to support the beast, so here’s the dragon of Eastern Europe in Constantinople giving military support to the beast of the sea in Western Europe, who is, frankly, struggling to survive. In 538 AD, Justinian’s famous general, called who?  Belisarius, drove the Goths from Rome, and Justinian made the Pope at that point, head of all the Churches. From that moment, the Papacy would never look back, never look back, from that moment in time.  They would have all the military support they needed, from the emperor, at least in Justinian’s reign, and they had complete authority over religion, but understand this, no matter how much power the Pope had, he was still subservient to Justinian. This is not the Holy Roman Empire, this is Justinian’s Empire. The emperor is supreme, in Justinian’s Empire, don’t forget that. And to show his commitment to religion he built the greatest Cathedral Constantinople would ever see, the greatest Cathedral it would ever see, Hagia Sophia, the church of Sophie, wisdom, the church of Holy Wisdom. In fact, it was a tribute to Jesus Christ, for he believed was the second part of the Trinity, because Christ was “the Word,” and the Word was God and the Word was made flesh, so he believed that Christ in fact was the holy wisdom, and this is a tribute and not just to wisdom, that is to biblical knowledge, it is a tribute to the Lord Jesus Christ as the second part of the Trinity, that’s his point. Well, when he had built it and they consecrated that Church, he stood in the middle of that Church, and said, “Glory be to God,” he said, “who  thought me worthy to finish this work, Solomon, I have surpassed!” That’s how proud he was, of the cathedral he had built. Well, things roll on for the next 900 years, Justinian of course, dies, and he is replaced successively by subsequent emperors of the dragon power in the east. The problem was, because of its wickedness, God unleashed trumpets number 5 and number 6 upon the eastern Roman Empire. Islam is formed in about 600 AD and the Saracen hordes come through and then the Ottoman hordes eventually come through. There’s the development of the Ottoman Empire and you can see long before the Ottoman Empire took the city of Constantinople, they had territory well out to the west into Hungary, well out to the west of Constantinople, and time and time again they had tried, these Muslim invaders, to take the city of Constantinople, but nobody could ever take Constantinople, and for good reason. Constantine, who was in fact born in Serbia, in the Eastern Empire, he chose the city of Byzantium for a reason, it had water, you see,  on three sides, that is the north, the east, and the southern sides. So all they had to defend heavily was the Western Wall. The emperor Theodosia, subsequently built enormously and fortified. So the city of Constantinople after Constantine had founded it, lasted for 1100 years and nobody could take it. Well, in fact, the only people who took it, actually, were the Crusaders and their people, the very people that they might have thought were friends, but the Muslims couldn’t, until it finally happened, and what changed it? Gunpowder! Gunpowder had now made its way into Europe from China, and when the Ottoman Turks levelled the greatest canon the world had ever seen against the walls of Constantinople, they began to shake, you see. Well, as it turns out, it wasn’t the canons that finally won the day, it was somebody who left a gate open in the wall, the Turkish Janissaries ran in and slit everybody’s throats, and they were now the conquerors of the city. And Constantine’s famous Cathedral was re-badged and became a Mosque to Islam and this was his glory to God, you see.

Now, Islam dominated Constantinople and was destined to do so for the next 500 to 600 years. But now history changes course again, because what becomes of the Christian population of Constantinople? How can they survive under these Muslim overlords? Well, it all changed, one day, you see, when Ivan the Great of Moscow married Sophia Palaiologina the niece of the last Byzantine emperor and moved with her back up to Moscow, and what the Russians said, and believe to this day, that meant that the right of the Byzantine throne has been inherited by the Tsar of Russia. Russia has a title to the throne of Constantinople because one of their Tsars in 1472 married the last surviving descendant of the Byzantine empire, and this is how historians portray it. There were three Rome’s you see in history, and the Russians see it like that. This famous monk Philotheus once wrote, “Two Rome’s have fallen but the third stands and a fourth, there will not be.” That’s how Russia sees, she sees herself as the “third Rome,” and there will be no fourth Rome, and if we were to want to put a biblical interpretation on that as far as the beast is concerned, you’ve just seen the dragon move in 1472 from Constantinople, up to Moscow. Now, for the purists, it can’t really be a dragon, unless he lives in Constantinople, for that reason, bible students would call Russia, the dragon-power designate, she is the dragon-power in waiting, and the day she finally recovers the lost city of Constantinople, she will become the dragon power, and Daniel’s image will stand on two legs again, the dragon-power designate, that’s how the Russians see it. This is how the Byzantine’s saw it, this is the Byzantine. This is a Byzantine mosaic from the floor of one of our churches, they see it in exactly the same way. They also see that their entire legacy is now found in Moscow, and this is how the Russian Church sees it. Why would you build a cross like that? There is only one thing that cross could mean isn’t it? It is a cross above a crescent, what does it mean? It means one day, one day, we’ll take back Constantinople, one day, the cross will bury the crescent of Islam. On the church.

Well then, as far as Revelation is concerned, we know nothing more about the dragon until Revelation Ch 16 and the battle of Armageddon. John is completely silent on the movements of the dragon in the latter days. So where would we go therefore, brothers and sisters and young people, to find guidance on the movements of Russia in our day? Well, there is only one place left, Daniel Ch 7, come back with me to Daniel Ch 7. Now I’m just going to show you one verse because we have “time no longer.” I’m just saying this in deference to my chairman, he would like me to continue, I know. Daniel Ch 7:19. Look at this verse carefully, what do you think it means? “Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast,” that’s the Roman beast of Daniel 7, “which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron and his nails of brass, which devoured and break in pieces and stamped the residue with his feet.” What is the meaning of iron and brass in this fourth beast? I mean if I get up to Daniel 2 for example, I find that the Roman Empire was an empire of iron, solid iron, two iron legs; that was the Roman Empire. If you want to speak about the Roman Empire of the last days, it iron and clay, but there’s no brass anywhere, brass was the Greek Empire, so why do we have a Roman beast with a component of brass in him? Well, if you look at the map on the screen, you will see very clearly that the Roman Empire was divided into two halves, one ruled from Rome and one ruled from Constantinople as we’ve discussed.

The Eastern Roman Empire

Now look at that eastern half, that purple half, that is in fact the exact territory of the old Greek Empire, it doesn’t quite go far enough out to the east, but you can see that it is the exact territory..can you see what.. that all the Roman Empire did was that it acquired the Greek Empire to its east, and stitched it to the existing Roman Empire in the west, and so therefore, as far as Daniel is concerned, that fourth beast really just was an iron beast which welded a brazen half to itself. And it tells you in v 19, that this beast hasn’t finished his job, because he’s going to “stamp the residue” with his feet, the residue of what? Well, in fact, it turns out, as you read this chapter carefully, it’s the residue of the Greek Empire, because you may be aware, that if you were to look at the Greek Empire, it extends well east. well east, of what the Romans controlled. There is an entire portion of land which the Roman Empire never took, let me just put that to that previous map, you see, the Roman Empire never really went east of Jordan, the Greek Empire went substantially east of Jordan. And there was a portion you see, of the old Greek Empire, which the Roman Empire never took, but which she will take, and which part of the Roman Empire will “stamp the residue with his feet?” Well, there is two options, it is either the iron part or the brass part. Well, how can you tell which one? Well, in V 19, the iron part is “teeth,” and the brazen part is “claws.” 

The Eastern Roman Empire

Well, which one of those is going to “stamp the residue?” Well, the claws. So the Eastern Roman Empire, it appears, is going to go and conquer all the residue of the old Greek Empire, which the Roman Empire hasn’t yet overtaken, and stamp it to pieces. What does that simply mean? What does that simply mean? It means Russia is going to take all that land there. all that land of the old Seleucid Empire, all that land of the empire we call in Daniel Chapter 11, the King of the North. Russia must become the King of the North in Dan 11:40 , and once she does, what will she do? Well, you know it yourself, she will “push at him.” Who is the “him” of Daniel 11:40? Constantinople. What do we expect to see then from the prophecy of Daniel? We expect Russia to control the area by military conquest or otherwise, of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and, having controlled that area, she becomes, what is called in Ancient terms, “the King of the North.” Having become the King of the North, she pushes at Turkey, and takes Turkey. Why would she want to do such a thing? Isn’t it obvious from history? She’ll take Constantinople, and having done that, invade the land of Israel, into Egypt, back up to Jerusalem, and plant the tabernacle of her palace between the two seas, at which point, she will be destroyed, or at least her army, will be destroyed.

That’s the future, the Scripture tells us of Russia, now what do current events say? Well, Putin’s got an imperial adventure, now why would he want “an imperial adventure?” Well because the eastern dragon has only got one head, it’s an imperial head, the eastern dragon is run by an emperor. Russia’s ties to the region, that is Syria, don’t you find it singularly interesting then, that Russia is in Syria, in Syria to stay, when you know she’s going to become the King of the North and conquer the ancient territory of the Seleucid Empire? But Russia’s ties the region are recent in its self-assigned role as the defender of Orthodox Christianity, which it claims to inherit from the Byzantine Caesars, that’s history you now know. The Tsars present Moscow, not just a third Rome but also as the New Jerusalem and Protector of Christians in the Balkans and the Arab world, including the holy places of Jerusalem. So why would she want to take Jerusalem? Well, she sees herself as the Protector of Christian trade there, not just that, she’s also the Protector of Christians. “At no time in history,” this news commentator is saying, “has the persecution of Christians been as intense, and widespread as it is at the moment. There is a global war on Christians which has escalated in a scale and intensity since the US invasion of Iraq; the US and her allies, have created a situation in the Middle East now, which is detrimental to Christians,” that’s how Russia sees it. “Russia,” the next red paragraph, “Russia is the only major power in the world today that accepts the responsibility for protecting persecuted Christians. Now this is from RT, which is a Russian news agency, but that’s how the Russians see themselves. They are the only one that cares about the welfare of Christians  persecuted by Muslims in the Middle East, it is their job to deal with the problem, and not just Christians, but Christianity. Russia sees herself as the Protector of Christian values, as well as Christian people. The Vatican has no troops. This explains why in truly troubled times, the Pope badly needs a world power that can be a defender of Christians. Can you see therefore why the Pope wants to have discussions with Mr Putin?

Next Red Paragraph, “In general, there is a converging interest between Orthodox Christians and Papal Rome. Putin is becoming the most vocal attacker of European secular ovation, he has also emerged as a defender of religious normal family values.” Putin has got his own way of dealing with certain sub-classes of society which aren’t “Orthodox,” he puts them in prison, or they get radiation poisoning, or something mysterious occurs with them, he doesn’t tolerate uprisings of minority groups who aren’t “conventional.” He has no interest in people who want to marry two men together or two women together and tread in the dust “normal” family values, as he calls it. Now the Pope adds, “but the very harsh way which Mr Putin pursues this agenda via widely condemned laws, has created a bit of an embarrassment in Vatican circles.” So the Pope doesn’t necessarily like the way Putin does what he does, but he does agree with Putin’s approach to morality. ‘For Putin,” last lines, “ this is just a domestic policy talk, he isn’t concerned about the Vatican,” understand that very clearly, he isn’t concerned at all about the Pope actually, he just cares about what his ambitions are. Now let’s put all that together, so you are Mr Putin, you see it as your job to defend Christians in the Middle East, to defend Christian values in the Church, to protect Christian Holy places in Jerusalem. Most of all you resent the fact that Islam has controlled your ancient capital now for more than 500 years and you happen to believe that one of the major reasons that Constantinople fell in the first place was because of a lack of coordination between east and west. When the east needed it most, the armies of the west were not there to help them. And so the Muslim Caliphate of 1453, the Ottoman Turk,  took your sacred capital and forced you to Moscow, and now you’re watching, in the 21st century, the rise of another Muslim Caliphate, called ISIS. What might your answer be? One God! One Empire! One religion! So you instruct the Russian Patriarch to accept the meeting the Pope has been requesting for years, you tell him to fall in line, kiss him three sides on both sides of the face, and enjoy it! and stop disuniting the Empire. Do you care for the Vatican? you can read it yourself, of course not, because where you come from, the Church is always subservient to the Emperor. And the day will certainly come when you reopen the greatest Cathedral that Constantinople has ever seen, and when will that happen? It will happen the day you re-unite the empire, the day you recover all the territory that has been taken by those Muslim  barbarians, the day you take Turkey, and for that matter, the day you take back the Holy Land because, don’t forget. in Justinian’s empire, he also owned Jerusalem.   You see, that all Mr Putin really wants to do when news commentators talk about his “imperial adventure,” all Putin really wants to do, is resurrect the old empire of Justinian, to move the capital back to Constantinople, to proclaim himself as Emperor, and create a situation which he thinks will prevail forever. But he is going to go one step too far isn’t he. He’s going to enter the glorious Holy Land, he’s going to come to his end, and the record says, “none shall help him.” You know, he’s going to form his empire because none helped him in the past, and they lost Constantinople, it’s going to happen again! and he will get to Jerusalem and none will help him again, and his soldiers will die on the Mountains of Israel, and that’s about when Armageddon is. Now come to Revelation 20, because its the last instalment you see, of the dragon. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes, it tells us that the beast is killed, that is the western European Beast, the EU is actually killed in year 50 at the commencement of the 1,000 years. 

The false prophet killed in year 50

The false prophet is killed in year 50, at the commencement of the 1,000 years, the dragon? He’s not killed, he’s not killed until the end of the 1,000 years, actually. He lives another 1,000 years beyond the death of the beast and the false prophet. He is simply bound for 1,000 years, Revelation 20:1. “And I saw an angel coming down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him 1,000 years. So in year 50, that’s what happens to the dragon. Chapter 19:20 you can read, records the death of the false prophet and the beast, there’s no false religion in the kingdom, but the dragon’s not killed in v 2, he’s simply chained up for a thousand years and for a thousand years, you see, neither shall they learn war any more, but when you come to Revelation 20:7,  an amazing thing happens, when the thousand years has expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his pit, the dragon breaks free, and “he shall go out to deceive the nations between the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea, and they went up on the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of Heaven and devoured them,” there’s the death of the dragon, not in year 50, but year one thousand and fifty in terms of our time line. Almost impossible to contemplate, you know, not only because the kingdom age should be an age of unmixed good for the mortal population of the world, but what would possess you to think, brothers and sisters, that you could take on, as a mortal person, you could take on an immortal army and win? Well, it’s the end of the 1,000 years, most probably it’s the first generation of people who entered the kingdom age as mortals are dead by now, this is their children, it is a copy of the events of the Exodus. It wasn’t the first generation that made it into the land, it was the second, here it’s the opposite the second generation is opposite to the first, they’ve never seen, they were born into the kingdom age, they don’t remember what it was like before the kingdom began. It says in v 7 that Satan is loosed, this is the political manifestation of sin, is loosed again. It’s called in v 2, “the old serpent,” of course the reference to Genesis Ch 3, this is the part inside each one of us that says, “God doesn’t really mean what he says.” This is that crocodile who lurks in the river, watching, watching, waiting, waiting, for your weakest moment, to kill you. The serpent was bound in V 2 which means a complete curtailing of any personal or political rebellion, but at the end of the 1,000 years, it says in v 3, he is loosed for a little season, perhaps 50 years? perhaps another Jubilee period, at the end of the millennial reign. It appears the saints withdraw because the dragon has unfettered access to the four corners of the world, in v 8. He can recruit, he can proselytise and no one gets in his way, and so that disobedience begins unnoticed, it goes unpunished, a person here, a person there, a whisper, an innuendo, a meeting is called, another larger meeting is called, a committee is formed, information from the 21st century becomes unearthed in the 31st century, so it appears that once man did govern themselves, in fact, once man had empires, before this 1,000 year rule of Jesus Christ. There was technological progress, back in the 21st century, life wasn’t so bad, it appears before the kingdom, and after all, the kingdom’s just another empire, there have been 1,000 year’s empires of mankind before, the Byzantine Empire was more than 1,000 years, the Holy Roman Empire, was 1,000 years. Documents get circulated, books get published, rallies are called, eloquent speakers take the platform, the promise of liberty, they probably quote scripture because, of course, all these people have been brought up with scripture. Think of the mesmerising eloquence of Rabshakeh who told the Jews at the top of the wall that he was going to take them to a place where they would put every man under their vine and fig tree, the promise of certain victory against the saints. Don’t forget this is not just a dragon, he is a devil, he is a liar, and he’s got to be disciplined, and he’s got to have military training, so a movement is formed, military conscription takes place, can you believe what you are hearing? The build up then becomes open, and defiant, there’s no reaction from the saints, perhaps the rumor would start that perhaps Christ is too scared, perhaps he doesn’t dare take us on. Ecclesiastes 8:11 says, “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil,” and what began with individuals progresses to committees, to provinces, to nations, to an international force, One Empire! 

And look how Scripture describes it, v 8 “they go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. “To gather them together to battle,” is the identical language of Revelation 16:17, the first Armageddon. “The sand of the sea,” is Abrahamic language. This was meant to be the next generation of the saints, They have formed an army to take on the Lord Jesus Christ, and the saints have withdrawn, it appears in v 9, that, in fact, they have withdrawn back to the city Jerusalem and left the world to it, so this army goes up on the breadth of the earth and encompasses the camp of the saints about and the beloved city, and then fire comes down from God, out of heaven and devours them. They have been going to Jerusalem these people for 1,000 years, all nations have been going up to the feast of tabernacles to worship, everybody knows the way to go to get to Jerusalem. And who is it that organized the rebellion, well it says there, it’s Gog and Magog, the very same protagonists who organized it last time. The very same! Why? Why have they done it? and who are Gog and Magog? I’ve heard all sorts of answers to that question, you know, perhaps that Gog and Magog are just sort of generic terms for anti-Semitic powers, but I think it is the same people, I think it is Eastern and Western Europe who organized the rebellion the second time and I think we’ve got a clue, you see as to why it’s been again. You come up into Ezek 39, they do it again, why do they do it again? Because I think in Ezekiel 39:11 look what it says. “It shall come to pass, in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of the graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers, on the east of the sea, and it will stop the mouths, as it should be, and it will stop the mouths of the passengers and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude, and they shall call it the valley of Haman Gog,” and as your margin will tell you, “Haman Gog” means, “the multitude of Gog.” Now what’s happening in v 11 of Ezekiel 39? Well, simply this, Gog is the one who brings his soldiers, that is the soldiers under his control, of Eastern and Western Europe, and all those confederate with them, down to the land of Israel to take the Holy City and to establish their tabernacle between the two seas. They are destroyed by the Lord Jesus Christ in that battle of Armageddon. As a consequence of that an enormous mausoleum is set up in the vicinity of Jerusalem so that every pilgrim for the next 1,000 years who goes up to Jerusalem travels through the valley of Haman Gog, you know those fields in Europe you can see of green grass and white crosses as far as the eye can see, as a tribute to the fallen soldiers of the war, that’s what you’ve got outside Jerusalem. And every pilgrim for the next 1,000 years who goes up there is going to have their mouths stopped when they look at the blood-bath that Armageddon must have been, but it’s not called the valley of Haman New Zealand or the valley of Haman Austrdalia, it is called the Valley of Haman Gog and everybody knows whose soldiers are lying there. And for year after year, after year for 1,000 years, those people have walked past the bodies of their ancestors. And the stigma has never been released from them and they have resented it and across the millennium, the resentment builds, and so finally, they say “we’ve had enough. we’ve had enough!” This simmering resentment has now reached a fever pitch, and now the time’s come to remove the stigma. Isiah 26:19 says, “When God’s judgments are in the earth, then shall the inhabitants of the earth learn righteousness.” Evidently when God’s judgments are not in the earth, when the saints withdraw, the inhabitants learn rebellion, and you see, the lesson of the dragon is simply this, it is the lesson of sin in every one of us. The dragon is just a symbol of sin, you see it in your life, you see it here manifested in an empire, but there’s a part of every one of us that instinctively rebels, and it wouldn’t matter if I could prove to you every day for 1,000 years the benefits of Divine rule and of submission to Divine values, there would be a part of you that woke up like there is of me, every morning and says, ”Ah ha, well, I’m still going to do it my way.” The only thing that binds that dragon in each one of us all our lives is submission to this book, and you know yourselves, the moment that you turn away, and walk to the left or right, the dragon will take over, and will harm you  every bite you take, that’s why you are sitting here, and for a generation of mortals who grow up in the kingdom age, they have learn that lesson in exactly the same way as we have to learn it today, and it appears for many thousands and millions of them, they never really do learn the lesson.

Summary

In summary then, what have we found about the future movements of Russia? The fourth beast of Daniel 7 is the beast of iron and brass, therefore the latter day Roman Empire will include areas of the ancient Western and Eastern Roman Empire. Revelation divides Europe between the dragon and the beast, therefore European countries that are not part of the ten-horned beast of the west, must leave the EU and fall under the control of the dragon, for example, Greece. Russia will begin war, perhaps under the guise of peace, says Daniel Ch 8. By comparing Ezekiel 38 and Daniel Ch 11 it is also clear that Russia becomes the King of the North. The King of the North is the power that controls the area of the ancient Seleucid Empire. As the King of the North, Russia will then take Constantinople and complete the “drying-up process” of Turkey. Only after she takes Constantinople does she become the dragon of Revelation 16 because that’s where the dragon was based.  Russia will then be drawn into Israel for religious and commercial reasons, Ezekiel tells us in two places. After 1,000 years she will exert her influence once again this time on the whole world and that time, to be destroyed.