Two and half thousand years ago Daniel predicted that no one would succeed in recreating the Roman Empire until the final generation when the Messiah would return.

The dream of a revived Roman Empire continues to inspire great men.

Despite the often violent efforts of world leaders, many countries resist any attempts to force them to come together into one political empire.

After centuries of successful growth the Roman Empire's political, military and economic systems began to disintegrate.

Chaos reigned for hundreds of years.
The fall of Rome brought in the Dark Ages.

The only ones who kept the culture and literature of the civilization were the Christians and their churches.

Mystics, Poets and Kings have dreamed of uniting the nations into a worldwide empire for centuries.

Horrors of wars and threats of nuclear war convinces many that a one-world government is the only hope of man surviving.

They want to world united as it was in the days of ancient Rome.

The last great enemy of the Jewish people who would appear after the War of Gog and Magog and would be finally slain by the real Messiah at the end of the age.

The old Jews had an understanding of the defeat of an anti-Messiah by the true Messiah before their deliverance into the promised Kingdom of God.

2 Thessalonians 2:8 is partly taken from Isaiah 11:4, "and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked one."

The evaluation of the importance of prophecy is still as true today as when they were written two hundred years ago.

History is the interpreter of prophecy.

Prophecy is history anticipated.
History is prophecy accomplished.

It has been concluded from Psalm 90 that the Lord would return to establish his kingdom at the end of six thousand years from Adam.

"the Gospel cries out, 'Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled"

The times will now be fulfilled with the end of the world already near and it shall please God to send the Antichrist, the head of all evil, who is to occupy Jerusalem the throne of the kingdom.

During the time leading up to the First Crusade, the Pope made a speech encouraging the Christians of Europe to regain the Holy Land. 

Even though prophecy wasn't focused on much during the Medieval period, there were manuscripts then that spoke of the future Antichrist in the last days.

When Christ comes and slays the wicked one by the breath of His mouth, desolation  will hold until the end; of the Church belief in a future Antichrist, the Great Tribulation and the premillennial return of Jesus to set up His Kingdom.

The final week of the end of the world is divided into the of the Antichrist, so that during the first 3 1/2 years of the last week the knowledge of God is established.

And as for the statement, "He shall establish a compact with many for a week" in Daniel 9:27, during the other 3 1/2 years under the Antichrist the sacrifice and offering shall cease.

Happy Mother's Day 2013

The early Church knew that the prophecies of Revelation would be fulfilled in the last days leading to the Second Coming of Christ.

The early Church understood Daniel's prophecy of the Seventy Weeks like we do today.

They expected the final Seventieth Week to be fulfilled at the end of this age by a seven-year treaty leading to the return of Jesus.

In Daniel 9:24-27, he points out the time that his [Antichrist's] tyranny shall last, during which the saints shall be put to flight, those who offer a pure sacrifice unto God.

"And in the midst of the week, the sacrifice and the libation shall be taken away, and the abomination of desolation [shall be brought] into the temple: even unto the consummation of the time shall the desolation be complete."

The kingdom of the Antichrist is identified with the future revival of the Roman Empire, the fourth beast of Daniel 7.

    He, Satan's prince, will violently overthrow three of the ten nations forming the revived Empire.

As Daniel was looking forward to the end of the last kingdom, the ten last kings, and upon the son of perdition that comes, declares that ten horns shall spring from the beast, and that another little horn shall arise in the middle of them, and that three of the former ten shall be rooted up before his face.

Irenaeus wrote regarding Daniel's prophecies of the coming Antichrist, "For when he [Antichrist] is come, and of his own accord concentrates in his own person the apostasy and accomplishes whatever he shall do according to his own will and choice, sitting also in the temple of God, so that his dupes may adore him as the Christ; wherefore also shall he deservedly 'be cast into the like of fire'. . ."

Irenaeus refers to the Antichrist sitting in a rebuilt 'Temple in Jerusalem.'

He says, "in which [Temple] the enemy shall sit, endeavoring to show himself as Christ, as the Lord also declares" quoting Matthew 24:15.

Irenaeus, a great writer in the second century after Jesus, gave a long discussion of the Antichrist at Christ's Second Coming.

He wrote, "For he [Antichrist] being endued with all the power of the devil, shall come, not as a righteous king, but as an unjust and lawless one; as an apostate, murderous and as a robber, concentrating in himself satanic apostasy, and setting aside idols to persuade that he himself is God, raising himself as the only idol, having in himself the multifarious errors of the other idols."

An early Church manuscript confirms the understanding that Daniel 9:24-27 prophesied a final seven-year tribulation period under the Antichrist at the end of the age.

The Antichrist "will set up his image before him in every city"; Revelation 13:14 declares that Satan will deceive "those who dwell on the earth to make an image, to the beast wounded by the sword and lived."