Book excerpt below from Chapter 3 entitled: The Fourth Beast Is Different From The Other Three Kingdoms (The Last and Worst):
Roman Violence and Domination to the End
As described in Daniel 7, the conquering power and domination of the Roman Empire will be “dreadful and terrible” (KJV) or, in the words of the NIV, “terrifying and frightening” (Daniel 7:7 KJV and NIV); and it will be felt over “the whole earth” (Daniel 7:23 KJV), not just in the Mediterranean region and eastward where the three prior kingdoms ruled, and not just in the Mediterranean realm dominated by the Roman Empire before AD 476. (See Figures 7 and 8.) Josephus affirms that the Roman government “shall have dominion over all the earth.”[1] Daniel says the Roman Empire “shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces” (Daniel 7:23 KJV). The same verse in the NIV reads that the Roman Empire “will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it” (Daniel 7:23 NIV). Thus, the Bible is clear that the fourth kingdom will conquer and rule globally with extreme violence and terror (Daniel 7:7, 23 KJV). For example, in Daniel 9, the prophet describes the violent reign of the Roman Empire: “The Anointed One will be killed . . . and a king will arise whose armies will destroy the city [Jerusalem] and the Temple. They will be overwhelmed as with a flood, and war and its miseries are decreed from that time to the very end” (Daniel 9:26 TLB). Referring to the belligerence of the Roman rule before His second coming, Jesus told his disciples, “Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom” (Luke 21:10 KJV).
Both Daniel and Jesus prophesied that the city of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple would be destroyed by the Romans. Daniel foretold that “the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary” (Daniel 9:26 KJV). Jesus foretold this same event in Matthew 24:1–2 (NIV): “Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. ‘Do you see all these things?’ he asked. ‘Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.’” This predictive prophecy was fulfilled in AD 70 when the Roman army, commanded by Titus, destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish temple. The Arch of Titus, which stands today in Rome, was built in AD 81 by Roman Emperor Domitian to commemorate his brother Titus’s conquest of Jerusalem.[2] (See Figure 6.) Since “the people” who destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70 were Romans, then “the prince that shall come” will also be Roman (Daniel 9:26 KJV).[3] This coming Roman “prince” is the Antichrist[4] (1 John 2:18 KJV), the “man of sin” (2 Thessalonians 2:3 KJV), whom Jesus Christ “shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8 KJV).
Daniel describes the period of time following the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the temple as the “end,” prophesying that: “The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed” (Daniel 9:26 NIV). This “end” time referred to in Daniel 9:26 (NIV) began in AD 70 and continues to the present day, and the Arch of Titus stands as a marker that signals the beginning of that “end” period. (See Figure 6.) This may explain why Jesus taught His disciples not to be alarmed when they heard of “wars and [rumors] of wars” because “the end is not yet” (Matthew 24:6 KJV); perhaps Jesus was alluding to the intervening and continuing Roman age in which we now live, which precedes the end that will include the pretribulation rapture and the second coming. Daniel’s and Jesus’s prophecies about the warring, belligerent reign of the fourth kingdom have been and are being fulfilled daily; wars and desolations have been commonplace in the Roman world and are distinctive features of the fourth kingdom. For example, as previously noted, there were eighty-four “principal European battles” alone between May 4, 1471, and June 15, 1878.[5] Such violent Roman history also fulfills another prophecy and assurance that Jesus gave His disciples: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 NIV).
[1]. The Works of Josephus, With a Life Written by Himself, Vol. II., 186, emphasis added.
[2]. Eyewitness Travel, Rome (London, et al.: Dorling Kindersley Limited, a Penguin Company, 2006), 25, 87.
[3]. In agreement, see Tim LaHaye, Prophecy Study Bible, 914, footnote 9:26.
[4]. Ibid. LaHaye suggests that the future Antichrist may be “of European descent.”
[5]. The Timechart History of the World.
