My initial comments were meant to serve as a prelude to what I want to say about end time prophesies. I apologize for a couple poorly structured sentences. I wanted to establish that prophecy is ambiguous until it needs to be understood. Eventually it will be interpreted correctly and it will be understood by everyone. The matching game is not all there is to prophecy. The prophecy about the end has the purpose of generating certain behaviors. The prophecy isn't about sitting on a roof waiting to be levitated. It's about flight for survival. Physical flight. It is a time where those who believe will be able to say with confidence "This is it!"
All the end time prophesies have a very obvious thing in common. The prophesies specifically talk about the succession of specific powers with a western vector. Each power achieves it's ascendency by conquering the previous power. This goes on until the last power is replaced "without human hands". "Without human hands" is mentioned twice referring to the rock that strikes the feet of the immense image. The destruction of the stern-faced king at Daniel 8:23 is accomplished "not by human power". The beast of Daniel 7 meets its end when some heavenly court rules against it and it is burned with fire. After the King of the North successfully brings an end to the King of the South he is destroyed by Michael the great prince. Revelation follows a similar pattern. The last contestants for domination are the Wild Beast and Babylon The Great. Babylon the Great is destroyed by the Wild Beast but the Wild Beast is tossed into the fire by heavenly entities.
The chain of dominating powers doesn't go on forever. There are only four powers mentioned by Daniel. Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. There is an extension of the 4th metal - iron in the feet and toes. This suggests an interesting development. The feet and toes are not a totally new empire but a continuation of the iron legs. The Watchtower makes a mistake in thinking that the Anglo-American empire is a continuation of the Roman empire. The Roman empire didn't end with the fall of Rome. The Byzantine empire centered in the densely populated Eastern Mediterranean was the continuation of the Roman Empire. When the second Rome (Constantinople) fell in 1453 the Russians claimed to be the inheritor of the Roman empire. Look up the Third Rome Concept. There is plenty of research on the internet. Also look up Russian Messianism.
There has been some speculation about what the clay and iron mixture represents. The full understanding of this is quite clear when you do research on the "nationalities" problem in Russia. There are numerous books and articles about how Russia has had to accommodate over 100 distinct nationalities. I could give hundreds of links about this and no one will go through the bother of looking up reading and digesting the information. So here is at least one link that I have snipped on the subject of Russia's Nationality problem.
http://trotsky1917.blogspot.com/2011/08/21-problem-of-nationalities.html
Lenin on the National Question
"Whatever may be the further destiny of the Soviet Union … the national policy of Lenin will find its place among the eternal treasures of mankind" (14).
This conclusion to Trotsky's chapter on ‘the problem of nationalities' shows how highly he valued Lenin's approach to the National Question – not just for the Russian Revolution but for the international revolution as a whole.
Trotsky explains:"Russia was formed not as a national state, but as a state made up of nationalities. This corresponded to its belated character. On a foundation of extensive agriculture and home industry commercial capital developed not deeply, not by transforming production, but broadly, by increasing the radius of its operation" (15).
"To the seventy million Great Russians … there were gradually added about ninety million ‘outlanders' … sharply divided into two groups: the western peoples excelling Russia in their culture, and the eastern standing on a lower level. The vast numbers of these nationalities deprived of rights, and the sharpness of their deprivation, gave to the national problem in Russia a gigantic explosive force" (16).
This amalgam of nationalities meant that a bourgeois revolution in Russia, instead of forging national unity as in countries like Italy and Germany, would tend to pull the different nationalities apart.
"Lenin early learned the inevitability of this development of centrifugal national movements in Russia, and for many years stubbornly fought … for that famous paragraph 9 of the old party programme which formulated the right of nations to self-determination – that is, to complete separation as states. Only in this way could the Russian proletariat gradually win the confidence of the oppressed nationalities " (17).
Remember the image is struck by a stone on it's feet of clay/iron and it is at that point that world empire's are dissolved making room for the stone that evolves into a large mountain and fills the entire earth.
So there you have it. Russia is the last empire after it gains control over the whole earth.
Part of the Roman iron like strength is in Russia but it doesn't hold together. It has become mixed with clay - the offspring of mankind.
Next I will deal with the 7th chapter of Daniel and the dream of 4 beasts.
All the end time prophesies have a very obvious thing in common. The prophesies specifically talk about the succession of specific powers with a western vector. Each power achieves it's ascendency by conquering the previous power. This goes on until the last power is replaced "without human hands". "Without human hands" is mentioned twice referring to the rock that strikes the feet of the immense image. The destruction of the stern-faced king at Daniel 8:23 is accomplished "not by human power". The beast of Daniel 7 meets its end when some heavenly court rules against it and it is burned with fire. After the King of the North successfully brings an end to the King of the South he is destroyed by Michael the great prince. Revelation follows a similar pattern. The last contestants for domination are the Wild Beast and Babylon The Great. Babylon the Great is destroyed by the Wild Beast but the Wild Beast is tossed into the fire by heavenly entities.
The chain of dominating powers doesn't go on forever. There are only four powers mentioned by Daniel. Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. There is an extension of the 4th metal - iron in the feet and toes. This suggests an interesting development. The feet and toes are not a totally new empire but a continuation of the iron legs. The Watchtower makes a mistake in thinking that the Anglo-American empire is a continuation of the Roman empire. The Roman empire didn't end with the fall of Rome. The Byzantine empire centered in the densely populated Eastern Mediterranean was the continuation of the Roman Empire. When the second Rome (Constantinople) fell in 1453 the Russians claimed to be the inheritor of the Roman empire. Look up the Third Rome Concept. There is plenty of research on the internet. Also look up Russian Messianism.
There has been some speculation about what the clay and iron mixture represents. The full understanding of this is quite clear when you do research on the "nationalities" problem in Russia. There are numerous books and articles about how Russia has had to accommodate over 100 distinct nationalities. I could give hundreds of links about this and no one will go through the bother of looking up reading and digesting the information. So here is at least one link that I have snipped on the subject of Russia's Nationality problem.
http://trotsky1917.blogspot.com/2011/08/21-problem-of-nationalities.html
Lenin on the National Question
"Whatever may be the further destiny of the Soviet Union … the national policy of Lenin will find its place among the eternal treasures of mankind" (14).
This conclusion to Trotsky's chapter on ‘the problem of nationalities' shows how highly he valued Lenin's approach to the National Question – not just for the Russian Revolution but for the international revolution as a whole.
Trotsky explains:"Russia was formed not as a national state, but as a state made up of nationalities. This corresponded to its belated character. On a foundation of extensive agriculture and home industry commercial capital developed not deeply, not by transforming production, but broadly, by increasing the radius of its operation" (15).
"To the seventy million Great Russians … there were gradually added about ninety million ‘outlanders' … sharply divided into two groups: the western peoples excelling Russia in their culture, and the eastern standing on a lower level. The vast numbers of these nationalities deprived of rights, and the sharpness of their deprivation, gave to the national problem in Russia a gigantic explosive force" (16).
This amalgam of nationalities meant that a bourgeois revolution in Russia, instead of forging national unity as in countries like Italy and Germany, would tend to pull the different nationalities apart.
"Lenin early learned the inevitability of this development of centrifugal national movements in Russia, and for many years stubbornly fought … for that famous paragraph 9 of the old party programme which formulated the right of nations to self-determination – that is, to complete separation as states. Only in this way could the Russian proletariat gradually win the confidence of the oppressed nationalities " (17).
Remember the image is struck by a stone on it's feet of clay/iron and it is at that point that world empire's are dissolved making room for the stone that evolves into a large mountain and fills the entire earth.
So there you have it. Russia is the last empire after it gains control over the whole earth.
Part of the Roman iron like strength is in Russia but it doesn't hold together. It has become mixed with clay - the offspring of mankind.
Next I will deal with the 7th chapter of Daniel and the dream of 4 beasts.