The Global Kingdom
Seven Systems – Ten Rulers

Studio Session 80
Sam Soleyn

We have been looking at how virtual reality is redefining reality itself and how the spread of virtual reality is engulfing the entire world and shaping and directing how the world thinks of itself—everything from how disaster relief will be distributed globally, to how global security is going to be arranged and so on.  And we are watching how a global community is rising up that wants to reach out to itself across national boundaries and across political, geographic and religious and ethnic boundaries.  One of the realities that humans are coming to is that when things happen in one part of the world they have a direct and proximate effect upon populations thousands of miles away.  For example, in the recent tsunami disaster many Western nations lost citizens in that disaster because some parts of the earth have become the playground for citizens of countries thousands of miles away, whereas other parts of the world are the shopping or entertainment or business centers for the rest of the world.

 The world has become global in its way of being and the survival of nations contributes directly to the economic and even social well-being of other nations.  For example, if there is major economic turmoil in a rising consumer nation, to whom do the producing nations export their goods?  It has a direct effect upon the producing nations for the consuming nations and if cultural things are disrupted in one nation, the ability of other nations to enjoy these cultural things is affected.  So we are seeing that the world is global in its outlook and in its perspective.  The leaders of course, and some of the strong and powerful leaders who have a particular agenda try to hold the world back.  But even in places like Saudi Arabia that has an absolute despotism as far as its rulership is concerned—protecting the wealth of the nation for itself—you are beginning to see the cracks in this monolithic order because its population wants to be part of a greater Arabic experience for example.

 So the world is reaching out beyond the borders that it normally has accepted and with the flow of information and the exchange of information that comes with access to this global network of information, the world wants to somehow pull itself up by its bootstrap and better itself by being part of that global trade in information.  Some of the visionaries of our time—especially those who have made fortunes in establishing computer-related technologies and industries—want to see the whole world “wired” because the ability to send information and to engage in all forms of discourse, dialogue and commerce is further enhanced.  So there is an impetus in the world for this kind of networking which has been made possible through the Internet and has been legitimized by the new perception of reality called virtual reality.  This is the world we live in.

 A person may sit in his living room in some remote corner of the earth and trade on the American stock market or do currency trading from a ranch house in the Texas panhandle or the Oklahoma panhandle.  It is that kind of access that has become normal and the world wants it and it is not subject to the kinds of regulations that are possible when you control national boundaries and control physical geographies.  The Scriptures spoke of the rise of such a kingdom as this.  Here it is, in Daniel.  We introduced it earlier in this series, but I’ll want to revisit it now.  This was the passage of Scripture, Daniel 7, that spoke of four great beasts:  a lion, a bear, a leopard and a beast that was described in these terms:  “it had ten horns on its head and it crushed and devoured its victims under its feet.”  Here it is in Daniel 7:7, “ ‘After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying and frightening and very powerful.  It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left.  It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns.’”

 This beast devoured the whole earth; it had the ability to oppress the whole earth.  Now the way we have thought about kingdoms before has been like Alexander the Great’s kingdom or like the Roman kingdom or like one of the ancient empires or even a modern empire headquartered in a particular location with an outreach that either controlled other territories or made peace with them.  So in that genre we continue to think of a global kingdom as something that is headquartered in a particular location that has its armies and its vassals ruling throughout the whole earth.  Well such a thing has never happened on the earth and if one thinks about the logistics of controlling the whole earth, think about it this way:  if there were a nation on the face of the earth today that could control the whole earth what nation would that be?  Obviously, the United States.  Look at the difficulty we are having in containing the insurgents in just one small country—in Iraq. Imagine trying to rule the whole earth in this fashion with your armies, your troops located in the whole earth.  You couldn’t.  That’s why this global kingdom has seven heads and ten horns.

  Now what about these heads and horns?  What are they?  They are the insights into what this kingdom actually is.  You begin with the truth that it is a global kingdom.  That means it has the capability of controlling human population across the earth.  I just pointed out to you how difficult that would be if we were trying to militarily control the entire world’s population.  You take a nation as powerful as the United States… it simply does not have the human resources nor does it have the financial resources to maintain a world-wide army capable of maintaining a global dominance through military might.  It simply can’t do that.  That’s not the way that this global kingdom and its ruler who is described as the “little horn that comes up among the ten”—so it is an eleventh horn that overthrows three of the former horns and rules. (Inserted – actual verse—“ ‘While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it.  This horn had eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth that spoke boastfully.’” – Daniel 7:8)

It has to be, in a fashion, different than how we have constructed the scenarios over time for the rule of the antichrist.  It is not going to be primarily by military might. It isn’t to say there isn’t military might attached to it but it can’t be by military might.  One of the interesting things about this is you’ve seen people who have been very concerned about foreign troops training on American bases and vice versa:  American troops in foreign deployments.  And again this comes about when you think of a global kingdom and the antichrist as this “horn”—the eleventh horn on the head of this beast—as a military process, that is the control and rule over the whole earth as Daniel tells us it will do and that occurring as military process.

 It simply doesn’t make sense.  Not in any kind of conventional military sense and indeed not for the foreseeable future.  And you can’t control it by nuclear blackmail either because if you annihilate the world’s population then you have no one over whom to rule.  It simply doesn’t work that way but the danger of trying to extrapolate from how we see reality to Biblical prophecy—the danger of trying to extrapolate that way is that we are distracted… we are distracted from what is the real revelation on the matter, which is that such a system, such a kingdom actually, already exists and no one can buy or sell—no one will soon be able to buy or sell—without participating in these systems.

 What then is the mystery of this beast with seven heads and ten horns?  First let me point out that the reference to seven heads is not found in Daniel.  It’s found in the Revelation—in Revelation 13.  (Inserted – actual verse—“And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea.  And I saw a beast coming out of the sea.  He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.” – Revelation 13:1)  But the reference to ten horns is found in both Daniel 7 and Revelation 13.

 We’ve already read from Daniel 7, about the ten horns but I will reread it,   “‘After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying and frightening and very powerful.  It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left.  It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns.”  And the reference to the little horn follows after that, “While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns,” (so three of the ten) “were uprooted before it.  This horn had eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth that spoke boastfully.’”  (Inserted – Daniel 7:7,8)

 Now we know… we know, from Daniel 7, that this is a reference—not to some bizarre beast—but to a kingdom.  It says, concerning that:  “I was troubled in my spirit I approached one of those standing there because I wanted to know the true meaning of the fourth beast.”  That’s verse 19 of Daniel 7, and he is told once again that this beast, with its ten horns and the little horn that came up which was, “waging war against the saints…”—that’s verse 20—and “speaking boastfully and blasphemously against the Most High.”  The explanation that was given was this:  “ ‘The fourth beast,’ this is verse 23, ‘is a fourth kingdom…’”

 So it is not a beast, it is not a vision, it is not a dream; it is about a kingdom spoken of prophetically that will appear on the earth.  It will be different from all the other kingdoms and it will devour the whole earth.  It will have control over the populations of the whole earth.  “The ten horns are ten kings which will come from this kingdom and after them, another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; and he will subdue three kings.  He will speak against the Most High, he will oppress the saints and he will try to change the set times and the laws.  The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time.”  (Inserted – actual verse—“ ‘Then I wanted to know the true meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others and most terrifying, with its iron teeth and bronze claws—the beast that crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left.  I also wanted to know about the ten horns on its head and about the other horn that came up, before which three of them fell—the horn that looked more imposing than the others and that had eyes and a mouth that spoke boastfully.  As I watched, this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them, until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom.  ‘He gave me this explanation:  ‘The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth.  It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it.  The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom.  After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings.  He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws.  The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time.’” –  Daniel 7:19-25) 

What are we looking at?  Daniel tells us that this global kingdom will rise from the earth and it will trample down, oppress and control the whole earth.  It will also have ten horns, which horns will be ten kings.  Now all ten kings will be reigning contemporaneously because when the little horn comes up it will displace three kings.  If all kings are not reigning contemporaneously how will the little horn displace three of them?  He will have to displace them because he will take their places, the places that they presently have. 

Before we talk about what these ten kings are, it is important that we take a look in the book of Revelation, which mirrors in its prophetic declarations, Daniel 7, and speaks of the same beast.  Here it is; this is Revelation 13.  He says, “And I saw a beast coming out of the sea.  He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.” (Inserted – Revelation 13:1)  But you will quickly point out that once Daniel spoke of four beasts now John, in the Revelation writing some 700 years later, John sees but one beast and, you will say, “Yes, there is the similarity of the ten horns and the crowned heads which would suggest kings—crowns on the horns.  But,” you would point out, “this one says that this beast had seven heads.”  “But Daniel’s beast had no reference to a head at all… to any heads.”  “So,” you will say, “this is not an exact recreation of Daniel’s beast.”

 Well it is… absolutely it is and here is why:  read the next verse.   Before you read the next verse, what were the four beasts of Daniel?  One was a lion, a bear, a leopard and then the ten-horned beast.  Now read the next verse.  Whereas Daniel says he saw four beasts, John only said he saw one beast but here is what he said about the beast:  “The beast I saw,” verse 2 Revelation 13, “resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion…”  What were Daniel’s four beasts?  A lion, a bear and a leopard and then the ten-horned beast.  John’s beast in Revelation is one beast with seven heads and ten horns but that beast resembled a leopard, a bear and a lion.

 You will immediately observe that it is the reverse order from Daniel.  Daniel sees a lion, a bear, a leopard and the ten-horned beast.  John sees a ten-horned beast that looked like a leopard, a bear and a lion… the reverse order.  What’s going on?  Well the answer is very simple and it lets us into a great Biblical understanding that there are counterfeits to the things of God that the enemy has created and they run through history as a parallel to the things of God.  So just like there is the great kingdom of our God with righteousness and peace as its foundations, so there are kingdoms of chaos, confusion and violence, which serve the purpose of the evil one.

 When Daniel was looking at human history he was looking prospectively into history and the beast in front of him—the kingdom immediately in front of him—was like a lion.  The one further in history was like a bear.  The one further and more distant in history was like a leopard.  And then the one furthest in history, with which the age would be summed up, was the ten-horned beast.  John is standing at a point in time where all three of the first kingdoms have already come to pass and what remains to come is the fourth and final one.  So when John is looking back into history the kingdom nearest to him is depicted by the leopard.  The one more distant in history—the bear, and the one furthest back in history, and closest to Daniel—the lion.  That leaves only the ten-horned kingdom to come.

  We could go through much in the way of analysis of history to come to the same conclusion but I will tell you what the conclusion is without an historical analysis.  When John is standing in history, the only kingdom yet to come is the one that will sum up the age and John is writing the Revelation approximately between the years 91A.D. and 95A.D.—after the fall of the city of Jerusalem and in the time of the Roman emperors.  He’s looking forward to the end of the age.  We might quickly, and without ceremony, point out that there has never been—in the 2000 years since John wrote the Revelation—there has never been a single kingdom that has crushed and devoured the whole earth.  That kingdom is yet to come and it is a kingdom—as surely as the others were kingdoms so too this is a kingdom—and it is yet to come because there has never been a kingdom that has controlled the whole earth.

 Daniel speaks of this kingdom as having ten horns, and the little horn that comes up.  John speaks of it also as having ten horns but adds that it has seven heads.  What is the mystery of the seven heads and the ten horns?  This is an absolute identification of this global kingdom:  seven heads and ten horns.  What is that?  I hope that you will join me as we continue to explore the Biblical reality of the rise of a global kingdom within a time when humans have decided that reality is whatever you make of it… it is virtual.  The world longs for a global reality to solve global problems.  Let’s look at it in our following broadcast.  I’m Sam Soleyn.  God bless you and I’ll see you again.  

Scripture References:

Daniel 7:7,8
Revelation 13:1
Daniel 7:19-25
Revelation 13:2