168 



EEV. E. L. LAXGSTON, M.A., ON 



Eoman Empire to be revived; for did not Gibbon say that the 

 Eoman Empire came to an end in a.d. 476? What! after ail 

 tliese years shall it be revived/ Eev. xvii. 8 is rather interesting 

 in the light of this question, and may help us to understand what 

 to some is a great difficulty. " The beast that thou sawest was, 

 and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go 

 into perdition." The beast here is generally thought to refer to 

 the Eoman Empire that " was, and is not." That is to say, 

 came to an end in a.d. 476 ; and here is a distinct prediction that 

 it shall ascend out of the bottomless pit. In other words, the 

 coming into being of the Eoman Empire again will be overruled 

 and directed by powers of evil, rather than by powers of good; 

 and it may be that all the conferences held in connection with the 

 League of Nations are under the powers of darkness, and " the 

 god of this Age ' ' is directing, to bring his plans and purposes to 

 a head. Thus we may see, coming to the front in connection 

 with the League of Nations very shortly, a remarkable and unique 

 personality : he which is typified in Daniel vii., and whose remark- 

 able personality is described in Eevelation xiii., who is evidently 

 a great world-nder. In Eev. xiii. 1, I . . . . saw a beast rise 

 up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon 

 his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blas- 

 phemy." This, therefore, is a remarkable king, or ruler over 

 some confederated kingdom or empire within the sphere of the 

 ancient Eoman Empire. 



In symbolical language we are told that this coming king, or 

 president, is to have all the inherent and dominant qualities that 

 were manifested in Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece. Prophecy 

 reveals to us the fact that this world leader will enter into a 

 covenant with the Jews, and after a period of three and a half 

 years will break that covenant, and for a further three and a half 

 years will persecute the Jews badly. Daniel ix. 27, " And he 

 shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the 

 midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, 

 and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it 

 desolate, even until the consummation and that determined shall 

 be poured upon the desolate "; and during that period of the 

 second of the three and a half years both the Jews and Jerusalem 

 will he the objects of persecution and hatred. These predictions 

 are all the more remarkable in \dew of the fact that the League of 

 Nations has already entered into a covenant with regard to the 

 Jews and Palestine, and that covenant is already a cause of 

 trouble and anxiety, and may have to be either modified or altered 

 in the near future; the coming leader of the League of Nations 

 may therefore have to enter into another covenant with the Jews 

 and Palestine which may be the very covenant referred to in 

 Daniel ix. 



