Chapter 6: The Time of Tribulation

Because most of the kings of Judah were in a state of rebellion against God, the Dominion Mandate of Judah was finally given to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Jer. 25:9-12 says,

⁹ …I will send to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants… ¹¹ This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. ¹² Then it will be when the seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, declares the Lord…

Again, we read in Jer. 27:5-7,

⁵ I have made the earth, the men and the beasts which are on the face of the earth by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and I will give it to the one who is pleasing in My sight. ⁶ Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and I have given him also the wild animals of the field to serve him. ⁷ All nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until the time of his own land come; then many nations and great kings will make him their servant.

As the Creator of all things, God claims the right to empower anyone He pleases according to the pleasure of His own will. In other words, He will give the Dominion Mandate to whoever He wishes, and the kings of Judah should not think that this Mandate is theirs unconditionally by reason of their biological descent from Judah.

The effect of giving the Dominion Mandate to another nation (Babylon, in this case) was to put Judah and Jerusalem under the authority of “gentile” nations whose kings did not know God. In fact, God then commanded the people of Judah to serve the king of Babylon. Jer. 27:8 says,

⁸ “It will be, that the nation or the kingdom which will NOT serve him, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and which will NOT put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will punish that nation with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence,” declares the Lord, “until I have destroyed it by his hand.”

During such times of captivity, one cannot say, “I refuse to serve these ungodly rulers, because God wants me to be free to serve Him!” No, the rulers of Judah were ungodly, refusing to listen to God’s laws and the prophetic word (Jer. 25:7, 8). So God says (in effect), “If you want ungodly rulers, then I will give you ungodly rulers, so that you will know what it means to be ruled by the unjust laws of men.”

In the New Testament, this captivity is referred to as Tribulation.

The Times of the Gentiles

Jeremiah saw only a seventy-year tribulation for Jerusalem, for his revelation was limited to the time of the Babylonian captivity. During that captivity, however, God raised up Daniel and gave him further revelation, showing that Babylon was only one of four empires who would hold the Dominion Mandate until the rise of the saints of the Most High (Dan. 7:27 KJV). These “saints,” along with Christ (their Head) were to rule in the Kingdom of God, pictured as a great “stone” (Dan. 2:34, 35).

In other words, the Dominion Mandate was never again to return to the children of fleshy Judah. Instead, the Mandate was to be held by a succession of empires in “the times of the gentiles” (Luke 21:24). When those “times” reach their conclusion, then the “saints of the Most High” will be given the Kingdom, and the Dominion Mandate will be given to them. These saints are a cross section of overcomers “from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9).

Babylon’s practice was to take a few men from each of the nations it had conquered and train them in the ways and culture of Babylon. They were chosen to represent their own people in the government of Babylon. God has been doing the same during the times of the gentiles. He has chosen a few from each nation, trained them in the ways and culture of His Kingdom, and empowered them to reign with Christ when the last gentile kingdom is crushed by the stone.

These are the ones who will inherit the Kingdom. Of course, the majority of these chosen ones have already lived and died in past generations. For this reason, they must be raised from the dead on the Feast of Trumpets, so that they can be joined as one body with the living overcomers who are changed into His image on the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles. Then their Head will descend upon the body in the midst of Tabernacles, so that they may be presented as a complete body to the Father on the 8^th day of Tabernacles.

The resurrection of these overcomers will be a limited resurrection, for we read in Rev. 20:5,

⁵ The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection.

A thousand years later will be the general resurrection of the rest of the dead—all who were not raised in the first resurrection. These will be summoned to the great White Throne, where “books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life” (Rev. 20:12). The need for the book of life is because there will be many believers who will be raised along with the unbelievers, as Jesus asserted in John 5:28, 29. Paul affirmed this in Acts 24:14, 15.

Therefore, we see that the overcomers will receive their inheritance a thousand years before the other believers receive their inheritance. This is the order in which believers will inherit the Birthright.

The Succession of Empires

Jerusalem’s tribulation began when Nebuchadnezzar captured the city in 604 B.C. (The city was later destroyed in 586 B.C. after the king of Jerusalem revolted in violation of God’s word in Jer. 27:8.) This tribulation was not merely seven years—nor even seventy.

Cyrus the Persian overthrew Babylon in 537 B.C. and allowed the Judahites to return to their old land in 534 B.C., precisely seventy years after the fall of Jerusalem. Even so, the people remained under the dominion of Persia, which had inherited the Dominion Mandate from Babylon, according to Daniel’s prophecy.

Persia held the Mandate for about 200 years, and then it was conquered by the Grecian empire under Alexander the Great in 330 B.C. Alexander died young while he was in Babylon in the year 323 B.C., and his kingdom was divided among his four generals.

The four generals are pictured as four wings in Dan. 7:6, but the most important prophecy about Alexander is found in Dan. 8:8, where he is pictured as the mighty horn of a strong male goat:

⁸ Then the male goat magnified himself exceedingly. But as soon as he was mighty, the large horn was broken; and in its place there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven.

Two of these generals (or “horns”) were the subject of further prophecy, as they were in a state of constant war to control the land of Judah (Greek: Judea). Alexander’s general, Ptolemy Soter, took Egypt, Libya, Cyrenaica, Arabia, Judea and some Mediterranean islands. Another general, Antigonus, took Syria, which included the territory of what is now Turkey.

These two generals became known prophetically as the king of the south and the king of the north (Dan. 11:6). The directions are relative to the land of Judea, of course. The eleventh chapter of Daniel gives us a detailed history of these conflicts, culminating with the atrocities of the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes. There, Daniel’s historical prophecies end. (See Daniel: Prophet of the Ages, book 3.)

The wickedness of Antiochus Epiphanes cut short the time in which the Grecian empire was allowed to hold the Dominion Mandate. They should have held it from 330 to 63 B.C., a period of 267 years. However, their time was cut short by a full century, for the Judeans rose up and overthrew Antiochus in 163 B.C. Judea then became relatively independent for the next century, being ruled by the Hasmonean king-priests until Rome took over in 63 B.C.

Rome was the fourth empire in the times of the gentiles. It held the Dominion Mandate from 63 B.C. until 476 A.D., when Rome finally fell. Fifty years later, it was replaced by “the little horn” (Dan. 7:8, KJV) in the time of Justinian, the Roman Emperor who ruled the eastern empire from Constantinople (now Istanbul).

The Little Horn

Dan. 7:25 describes the “little horn,” saying,

²⁵ He will speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One, and he will intend to make alterations in times and in law; and they will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.

Justinian’s first project (527 A.D.) was to alter the Roman calendar. Up to then, the calendar had been dated from the founding of Rome in the year 753 B.C. That old calendar, known as AUC, “Ab Urbe Condita,” had stood for 1,279 years, and all contracts had to be dated accordingly. But Justinian changed the calendar to begin with the birth of Christ.

Justinian’s new calendar is what we use today, and it is why we date historical events with the words “Before Christ” (B.C.) and “In the Year of Our Lord” (Anno Domini, A.D.). This was established in 527 A.D.

Justinian’s next project was to change Roman laws to reflect church laws. The first draft of this new law system was published in 529 A.D. The Catholic Encyclopedia says of Justinian, “the most enduring work of Justinian was his codification of the laws.” It was known as the Corpus Juris Civilis. The Catholic Encyclopedia says further,

“It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of this ‘Corpus.’ It is the basis of all canon law (ecclesia vivet romana) and the basis of civil law in every civilized country.”

New law textbooks had to be written to reflect these new laws, so the Corpus did not take effect until December 30, 534 A.D.

As we have seen, Justinian made alterations in times (calendar) and in law (the Corpus Juris Civilis). The “time, times, and half a time” refers to a period of 3½ “times,” which Rev. 13:5 interprets more precisely as “forty-two months.” A prophetic month is 30 days, and so this time frame is also said to be 1,260 days (Rev. 12:6, 14).

If this were merely a short-term prophecy, then the time of the little horn would have lasted just 3½ years, ending perhaps in 538 A.D. However, this was long-term prophecy, where a day is actually a year. (The Hebrew word yom is translated both as a “day” and as a “year.) Hence, the 3½ “times” actually span 1,260 years from 529-1789 A.D. or from 534-1794 A.D.

It ended with the French Revolution (1789-1794), at which time, the Roman Church began to lose power. Out of that revolution, Napoleon rose to power. He marched on Rome and took Pope Pius VI captive in 1798. The Pope was taken to Tuscany, where he remained three months in the convent of St. Augustine in Sienna. An earthquake then destroyed the convent, and he was moved again.

Louis Cormenin says in his History of the Popes, Vol. 2, p. 416,

“They placed at once at his disposal a country house called ‘The Lower Regions,’ which induced sarcasms of the irreligious, and made them say that the holy father was at last in his place.”

The pope died in prison in 1799. This was the “fatal wound” described in Rev. 13:3. His fatal wound, however, was healed when Napoleon allowed Pius VII to become the next pope on March 4, 1800.

Napoleon reinstated the papacy in order to have someone with sufficient gravitas to crown him as emperor (in 1804). When Napoleon was finally defeated in 1814, the Roman Church was fully revived from its near-death experience.

So Daniel’s prophecy was fulfilled, but this was still not the end. Daniel saw only one “little horn,” but John received a more detailed revelation. Revelation 13 speaks of two beasts, the first rising from the sea (Rev. 13:1) to fulfill the main portion of Daniel’s “little horn” prophecies. John then saw a second beast rising from the earth (Rev. 13:11). It was a beast that was not revealed to Daniel.

This second beast was described in financial terms and describes perfectly a banking system and dynasty that arose in 1798—the same year that Pope Pius VI was taken captive. This was the year that Meyer Amschel Rothschild sent his son Nathan to London to set up a bank, which soon took political control of Britain and much of the world as a whole.

Guardians of the Papal Treasure

The beast from the sea (Rev. 13:1) is the one that Daniel described as the “little horn.” We know this because in Rev. 13:4-7, John’s description matched Daniel’s perfectly (Dan. 7:8, 21). This little horn was to make great boasts and was to wage war on the saints until the time came for the saints to possess the Kingdom.

John, however, added that this beast would receive a “fatal wound” that would be healed. Daniel knew nothing of this. Neither was it revealed to Daniel that a second beast would arise that would give its financial power to the first beast (Rev. 13:12). It seems that the second beast came specifically to assist the first beast in its time of weakness.

So we see the rise of Rothschild banking in 1798 at the same time that Pope Pius VI was taken captive and imprisoned. The formal alliance between the Rothschild banks and the Roman Church appears to have been established at the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815, where the European leaders met to “redraw the map of Europe” after Napoleon’s defeat.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. X, tells us about the Rothschilds,

“It is a somewhat curious sequel to the attempt to set up a Catholic competitor to the Rothschilds that at the present time the latter are the guardians of the papal treasure.”

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12909-rothschild

We know that both the Rothschilds and the Roman Church had representatives attending the Congress of Vienna. A guardian, in a legal sense, is defined in The American Heritage Dictionary as:

“A person who is legally responsible for the care and management of the person or property of one who is considered by law to be incompetent to manage his own affairs.”

In other words, the Rothschilds became the financial managers of Vatican’s wealth, holding the key to Rome’s money. Exactly when this arrangement began is not stated, but The Jewish Encyclopedia (above) implies that a Catholic bank, Union Générale, had been set up in 1876 to compete with the Jewish Rothschild banks, hoping the Vatican would entrust them with their money. However, the bank was disappointed (at the time), for this did not happen.

Why did the Roman church continue to utilize a Jewish bank rather than a Catholic bank? One has to wonder about this curious arrangement. It is probably because the Rothschild banks had been appointed as “guardians” in 1814-1815 on a 99-year legal contract. The owners of the Catholic bank, Union Générale, apparently were unaware of this when they tried to induce the Vatican to deposit its “treasure” with their new bank.

This guardianship no doubt ended formally in 1913-1914 when the Federal Reserve Bank was established in the USA. Ten powerful banks were the Class A stockholders in this private bank, though many thought it was owned by the US government. The Fed’s own web page, however, tells us that it is a privately-owned bank.

According to both Thomas D. Schauf and Eustace Mullins, it is owned by ten international banks:

1. N.M. Rothschild of London

2. Rothschild Bank of Berlin

3. Warburg Bank of Hamburg

4. Warburg Bank of Amsterdam

5. Lehman Brothers of New York (bankrupted in 2008, most assets sold to Barclays Bank)

6. Lazard Brothers of Paris

7. Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York

8. Israel Moses Seif Bank of Italy

9. Goldman Sachs of New York

10. JP Morgan Chase Bank of New York

The coincidence of timing suggests that the Vatican was behind the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank. Perhaps they needed it until they could set up the Vatican Bank, which was done from 1933-1942.

The Rise of Corporations

Corporations (as legal entities) were an invention of the Roman Church in the early 14^th century. As such, all corporations, in the end, are under the authority of Rome. US corporations are registered in various states, all of which are now corporations under the US corporation, which in turn is registered in the City of London, which in turn is a corporate subsidiary of Rome.

In 1933, President Roosevelt presided over the bankruptcy of America, which allowed the banks to foreclose on the entire country. They immediately set about to transform America from a Christian Republic to a Socialist Democracy.

They had already prepared for this takeover by establishing birth certificates in 1921, by which they would register all births with the Department of Transportation. Babies were registered as little corporations with their names written in all capital letters to distinguish them from actual living beings, whose names were written in upper and lower case.

By this subterfuge, they enslaved everyone by making them citizens of the US corporation. By duplicating this in the rest of the world as well, the Roman Church claimed jurisdiction over all the people of the world. In doing so, the prophecy was fulfilled that the little horn would overpower and overcome even the saints of the Most High.

War on the Saints

Daniel describes the little horn in Dan. 7:21, 22,

²¹ I kept looking, and that horn was waging war with the saints and overpowering them, ²² until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the Highest One, and the time arrived when the saints took possession of the Kingdom.

Rev. 13:7 echoes this, saying,

⁷ It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him.

During the Middle Ages, the Roman Church made war against anyone who would dispute its authority. The most well-known case in point is in the Inquisitions, which were based on the papal bull of Pope Lucius III in 1184, entitled, Ad Abolendam.

Up to that time the usual punishment for “heresy” was the death penalty. (This has been called the Episcopal Inquisition to contrast it with the Papal Inquisition that began in 1229.) But the Inquisitions made torture a pious act, supposedly to force heretics to recant “for their own good,” submit to Rome’s official creed, and thereby “save” their souls. In 1229 such torture was again authorized by the pope, and confirmed on May 15, 1252 by Pope Innocent IV in his papal bull, Ad Extirpanda.

After the Church’s fatal wound (1798-1800), and during the time that the Rothschilds were “guardians of the papal treasure,” the war against the saints took a different turn. We may, of course, relate this to the great wars of the 20^th century, all of which played their part, but at the time of the end, the great war has become a culture war.

This is a war between the culture of Mystery Babylon and the culture of God’s Kingdom. It really began in the early 1960’s when God was removed from schools and government. School prayer was abolished. Marriage itself began to come under attack, and sexual relations outside of marriage was condoned.

The next phase was when abortion was legalized in 1973. Then in the 1990’s, President Bill Clinton normalized immorality as a whole. Finally, gay marriage was legalized, and it quickly became illegal to object or to criticize it. This is where we now stand in the war against the saints.

The Mark of the Beast

Rev. 13:16 speaks primarily of the financial beast rising from the earth who assists and empowers the little horn of religious Rome.

¹⁶ And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads.

The purpose of this is to have the power to regulate all financial transactions, including the sale of goods and services. Everyone is given a Social Security number to identify them by number as slaves in the Babylonian system. This is not a feature that is yet to come. It is here now.

The mark of the beast stands in contrast to the mark of God that is described in Deut. 6:5-8,

⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶ These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.

The Jews in Jesus’ day often followed this command literally by putting written Scriptures into small boxes and tying them to their hand and forehead. We need not follow this practice, but we certainly are required to remember the law in all that we think with our minds or do with our hands. In all things we are to follow the greatest commandment (verse 5).

If we do this, we will stand in direct contrast to those who allow the culture of Mystery Babylon to be written on their hearts, foreheads, and hands. Today there is a move to put bar codes or computer chips on people’s foreheads and hands, even as Jews used to take this law of God literally.

In my view, the command of God is not about physical things, because God judges our hearts. A computer chip will not determine our relationship with God, though it may be a sign of adopting Babylonian culture and practice.

Rev. 13:18 speaks of the number 666, which supposedly identifies the Antichrist. There is no mention of Antichrist in Revelation 13, or even in the entire book, so this is an assumption. This number was given so that we would connect it with the financial system of the beast from the earth. The Old Testament pattern is found in 2 Chron. 9:13,

¹³ Now the weight of gold which came to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of gold.

This number came to represent Kingdom finance in the days of Solomon’s Kingdom. It was a positive feature, based on God’s money, gold (and silver). Revelation 13 gives us a fleshly counterpart to this, especially when, in the course of turning America into a Babylonian system, President Nixon took us off the gold standard on August 15, 1971.

From then on, the US dollar was just a piece of paper with marks on it and with the image of some famous man imprinted on it. Recall what Jesus said in Luke 20:24, 25 about paying taxes,

²⁴ “Show Me a denarius [coin]. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar’s.” ²⁵ And He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Every coin has an image, and every paper currency has its own image and number. Germany’s currency was even called a mark. All of this has to do with the financial system of Mystery Babylon, which is the final “beast” in the succession of empires. The real question is whether we worship the beast and his image, for Paul tells us that “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Tim. 6:10, KJV). If the accumulation of money is our primary goal in life, that is, if it is our god, we should reexamine our hearts to see if the mark of the beast is written on our hands, our forehead, and our heart.

The Babylonian banking system is currently collapsing. We are nearing the end of tribulation. The final beast has already run its course. While many in the Church think that the beast and his government is yet to come, those who understand history and prophecy see that it is finally coming to an end.

The Tribulation began when Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem. When the first beast was overthrown, three other beasts came on the scene, each in succession. The little horn and the beast from the earth were the last beasts to hold the Dominion Mandate. Now they too are being overthrown, even while God’s Kingdom rises.