163 The Revelation of Jesus Christ same time and in the same hour as the beast gets his. They represent seven forms of government. Five are past; one is; and one is yet to come. This beast represents not only the Roman Empire, but also the head of it, the man who will epitomize in himself the Roman Empire. Each of the empires that is past has had a ruler who has gathered together in himself the whole of the empire which he represented; for example, in Babylon, it was Nebuchadnezzar; in Medo-Persia, it was Cyrus the Great; in Greece, it was Alexander the Great. From this it may be clearly seen that the descriptions of the beasts here mentioned may apply to empires, and to the heads of empires as well. The leopard represents the Macedonian rapidity of con quering enemies. As it appeared in Daniel's vision, with four heads, it signifies this: Alexander the Great died childless, and each of his four leading generals took a division of the kingdom. The Roman Empire has not yet had such a head as Alexander, and that is what Europe is waiting for today. That is why the beast is described as, and associated with a man coming up and speaking great things. He has seven heads seven forms of government-five past, one present, and one yet to come. Looking at a 0 ncient history, we learn that the Roman Em pire, up to John's time, had had five forms of government. The sixth, the imperial form, was in existence at that time; and John was informed that the seventh had not yet come. It has not come even yet; but it will come. The Roman Empire is represented as being part bear, part lion, and part leopard, which means just this, to quote an other: "The Romans boasted that they never destroyed a civilization, but took the best of what they conquered and in corporated it into the Roman Empire." Consequently, the beast, to represent the Empire properly, must be a composite beast. What is true in regard to this method employed by the Roman Empire in the past will also be true of the program of the Antichrist as it relates to the present civilization. In other words, all the discoveries, sciences, and inventions, ev_erything that has any value, the Antichrist will press into his regime.
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