THE ROMAN EMPIRE

THE ROMAN EMPIRE

When I was a young man, assisting an older Pastor of a PCI (Pentecostal Church Incorporated) church, before the merger which created the United Pentecostal Church, I heard some of the other ministers talking about the revival of the Roman Empire. I was fresh out of Bible School, soon to be married, and had never heard about such a thing as they were discussing. I was all ears, but I could only hear one side of the question, because most of the ministers were, at that time, of the persuasion that the old empire would, indeed, be revived in the last days. I was intensely interested.

Yet, through all of the listening, I was somewhat dubious of the idea. You know how some things are-- they just don't seem to "put the plow in the ground", as the farm vernacular went in those days (the late 30's).

I kept quiet, for I didn't think it proper for a young "whipper snapper" to accost older men with a different opinion. The nagging doubt drove me to the Bible, but it only served to confuse me more than I already was. The reason for the confusion was that the ONLY tools I had for understanding the Word of God were those of my human understanding. The Lord was not ready to reveal anything to me yet along that line, so there was not appreciable understanding of what is written on the paper of the Bible.

Herein lies one of the MOST IMPORTANT lessons of Bible Study that a person can learn. We might as well wait for God to give us a revelation of the TRUE meaning of the words on the paper. Any conclusions drawn from what human knowledge we have, will almost without fail, be wrong and misleading. Seek God for the meaning, and WAIT UNTIL IT COMES.

I DID wait, for several years, before I arrived at a place in Spiritual development where the Lord seemed to ascertain that I was ready for His Word to be revealed to me. I can not say that I was delighted by what the Lord showed me. It was not exactly what I had wanted to hear, though I had already seen a few signs pointing in that direction. My reckoning is that the Lord was giving me some answers in bite-size form, and I did not realize what was happening.

I have preached for many years that Communism could never become a world-wide government. Neither can any other ideology, for that matter-- not United Nations, not NATO, certainly not Islam. The Bible allows for FOUR world-wide Gentile kingdoms, and they are all history-- except one aspect of the fourth kingdom. It is still with us-- real as life itself, but unrecognized by the multitudes. It is, in its own way, wielding the full powers of the fourth kingdom from which it came-- hurtling headlong to its destruction. God Himself, will bring that destruction about-- by His Spirit.

Daniel, and John in the Revelation, teach us about the four kingdoms. Daniel can only speak in vague terms about them, for some of the latter-day facts were too far away for him to describe clearly. John, however, was much closer to them, and could describe them in much more detail, using somewhat different terms in those descriptions.

I can not lay claim to knowledge about many of the details of either narrative (I am still waiting for the revelation from the Lord), but the over-all picture has become clear enough for me to speak freely about it to those who show an interest. I am amazed at how few people, comparatively, are even the least bit interested.

Will the old ROMAN EMPIRE BE REVIVED? Many famous authors and television evangelist sure NEED to see it happen. But IT IS NOT "IN THE CARDS."

What we are confronted with today is an EXTENSION, rather than a REVIVAL of that old, cruel, strong, vicious kingdom "speaking loudly" into the affairs of humanity-- even nations, today, wielding tremendous influence over even governments all over the world.

It is the "little horn" of the book of Daniel. It is the "man of sin" found in 2Thes 2. The "man of sin" is a SYSTEM rather than an individual.