A Bible Prophecy Timeline (Part 3) – More on the 10 Kings and the 7-Headed Beast- (Rerun)

Before we start this podcast, I wanted to announce the release of my new book, The Deformation,

Examining Reformation Theology through the Lens of the Early Church by me, Chris White,

available in Kindle, Paperback, and audiobook. It's not about Bible prophecy,

it's more general theology, but I think it's my most important book yet. Again, it's called The

Deformation by Chris White. Welcome back to the multi-week study I'm doing called a Bible

Prophecy Timeline. This is part three, which I'm calling more on the Ten Kings and the Seven

Headed Beast. I decided to take a pause before we move on to the next part in the timeline,

and take an episode to just answer a few questions that people have sent in,

which I feel are important to the discussion so far, and should be addressed in detail before

we move on. The first one starts out by quoting Revelation 17 12 through 13, and the 10 horns that

you saw are 10 kings, who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as

kings for one hour together with the beast. These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and

authority to the beast. The question then follows, the text above says that the 10 kings do not

receive royal power until they receive it with the beast for one hour. This text seems to suggest

that the 10 kings and the Antichrist receive their power at the same time. If that's the case,

then how can there be a global government in place beforehand? Let me start off with my long

answer to this question, and then I'm going to work my way through the scriptures to explain my

answer. I think that the 10 kings rule in some lesser sense before the Antichrist takes over,

perhaps some kind of bureaucratic coalition, but not true rule as in authoritarian control.

It is only after the three kings have been conquered, and the Antichrist's war-making

ability has been fully realized that the 10 kings submit to him. Their capitulation also coincides

with the Antichrist's apparent death and resurrection, and his subsequent declaration of deity

at the midpoint. The 10 kings receive their royal authority at the same time he does. He is crowned

king at the midpoint, not a second before, and they are crowned sort of co-kings with him in this

new theocratic system at that point. The one hour is a reference to the three-and-a-half-year period,

which is explicitly the time that the Antichrist is given authority for, which begins at the

abomination of desolation at the midpoint. This is alternatively referenced as a short time,

a time times and a half a time, 42 months, 1260 days, etc., in the book of Revelation,

as the time given for the Antichrist's authority to reign. Let me start off by reviewing why I said

that the 10 kings must come before the Antichrist from the book of Daniel. Daniel 724 says,

As for the 10 horns, out of this kingdom, 10 kings shall arise, and another shall arise after

them. He shall be different from the former ones, and shall put down three kings.

So it seems to explicitly say, in Daniel 724, that the little horn, the Antichrist,

comes, quote, after the 10 kings chronologically, and seems to reiterate that with the word

and the fact that he is uprooting or subduing three of those kings upon his arrival,

is also highly suggestive that the 10 kings were in power before this, and that he does in fact

come on the scene after the 10 kings have been established. So do we have a conflict here?

Does the Antichrist come before the 10 king coalition, as Daniel seems to suggest,

or do the Antichrist and the 10 kings all get their power at the same time as it seems to

suggest in Revelation 17. So let's go through this verse, and I will start off by reading it again.

It says, and the 10 horns that you saw are 10 kings who have not yet received royal power,

but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour together with the beast. These are of

one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast. Let's first take this phrase,

who have not yet received royal power? I think the best way to understand this is that these

kings had not yet received royal power in John's day. There is precedent for this interpretation

of John referring to his own time as a way to show chronology as in verse 10 of this chapter,

and I think it also happens to be the face-value interpretation of this verse. So it's basically

just saying you haven't seen these guys yet from John's perspective, but it doesn't give us any

information about when they might be seen, however. The next line says, but they are to receive

authority as kings for one hour together with the beast. Let's start off by figuring out when

the Antichrist gets his royal authority, because if they all get this royal authority at the same time,

then it will help us get a time stamp for this event. I think one of the clearer passages about this

is found in Revelation 13 verse 5, which says, and the beast was given a mouth, uttering haughty,

blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months. So if the Antichrist

is this beast, then we can know that he gets his authority for 42 months, or 3.5 years,

which is a reference to the final three and a half year period after the abomination of

desolation at the midpoint. Because of verses like this and several like it, it is commonly understood

that the Antichrist begins his kingship or ruling authority at the midpoint when he declares himself

to be God in the temple. This is an important point. He is not king, or at least does not have the

type of authority that Revelation 13 considers, quote, authority, until after the midpoint. So if the

10 kings get their ruling authority at the same time that he does, then they also get it at the

midpoint. I think there are lots of ways to show this, but one way is later on in Revelation 13,

when it talks about this authority and how it's over every tribe and people and language and

nation, and all who dwell on the earth will worship it. And worship is something that would only

happen after the midpoint, after he has declared himself to be God, and forces the mark of the

beast and the image of the beast and all that. I think one obvious way to see that the Antichrist

does not have complete authority as described in Revelation 13 before the midpoint, is the fact

that he is warring with three of the 10 kings initially until he subdues them. In other words,

if he had authority over every tribe and people and language and nation, he would not need to be

warring with at least three nations, but probably more than that if we look at Daniel 11. In fact,

I think you can see this capitulation in real time, so to speak, in Daniel 11, 40 through 45,

where it makes it clear that through his overwhelming power and warfare, he causes these kings to

submit to him, obviously suggesting that they weren't in submission before that. So Daniel 11, 40 says,

at the time of the end, the king of the south shall attack him, but the king of the north shall

rest upon him like a whirlwind with chariots and horsemen and with many ships, and he shall come

into countries and shall overflow and pass through. He shall come into the glorious land and tens

of thousands shall fall, but these shall be delivered out of his hand, Edom and Moab and the main

part of the Ammonites. He shall stretch out his hand against the countries and the land of Egypt

shall not escape. He shall become ruler of the treasures of golden silver and all the precious

things of Egypt, and the Libyans and the Kushite shall follow in his train. But news from the east

and the north shall alarm him, and he shall go out with great fury to destroy and devote many to

destruction, and he shall pitch his palatial tents between the sea and the glorious holy mountain,

yet shall come to his end with none to help him. At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince

who has charged of your people, and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since

there was a nation till that time, but at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone

whose name shall be written in the book, etc., etc. So the idea is that through his show of force,

he gains control over them. This is a picture of that. He shall become ruler of their gold and

silver as a result of this war with Egypt. He gets to become ruler of their precious things.

It says, after the battle, they follow at his train. So this is a picture of the capitulation

brought about by his warfare, though I still would say that the control he is getting in these

passages is not the same kind of control. He gets a little bit later at the midpoint, but I think

that all develops rather quickly at the end of these wars in Daniel 11, which I hope to talk more

about in the next episode. So we know that the 10 kings get this authority that this verse is

talking about with the beast at the midpoint, but what about before that? Did the 10 kings just

show up out of nowhere at the midpoint to get their co-authority with the beast? I think the next

part of this verse refutes that idea. It says, these are of one mind and they hand over their power

and authority to the beast. So it further explains that they hand over their power and authority to

the beast. They had both power and authority before the midpoint that they hand over to the

Antichrist, and yet the first part suggests that they all get the same kind of authority at the

midpoint. So what's the deal? The resolution to this problem is in Daniel, as we've seen.

The kings exist before the Antichrist arrives. The Antichrist wars with the kings at least three

of them and subdues them. But as we'll see next time, the Antichrist seems to die and resurrect

from the dead just after these battles are won, just outside of Jerusalem. And it is after this

death and apparent resurrection, the strong delusion of 2nd Thessalonians 2, I think that everything

changes and the world goes into a theocracy with the Antichrist as the God King. And those 10 kings

are now kind of, I guess, regional monarchs that carry out his demands. And I'm guessing here,

as I don't think the exact nature of the government style is fleshed out. I describe the final

head of the beast in the first episode in this series as being the same empire, but with two stages.

The 10 kings, as we saw in that episode, will exist before the 70th week, and they will continue

to exist in rule, albeit with a different structure, until the end of the 70th week at Armageddon,

and the destruction of Mystery Babylon, which they actually play a role in.

So in conclusion on this question, I think that Daniel 7 and Revelation 17 are not in conflict.

The 10 kings with their world government do come before the Antichrist, but they all, the 10 kings

and the Antichrist, get their true 2nd stage theocracy authority at the midpoint. Moving on to

the next question that I want to cover this week, it says, at about 19 minutes into your first

video, you say that the bible is silent on whether the 10-part final empire lasts a long time or

not. What about Revelation 1710, which says that the kingdom that has not yet come must remain

only a little while. That doesn't give us a specific time period, but it does seem to rule out

a long time, probably not multiple generations long, unlike the earlier kingdoms. Your thoughts

on how this little while applies to the timeline. So yes, in the first video I mentioned that the

final head or 10 king world government could last a long time before the Antichrist arrives. I

said it could be a year or multiple generations. So is this verse in Revelation 1710 refuting that

idea that that government could be a long period of time? I don't think it is, but it will take

some explaining. Let's begin by reading a passage in Revelation 13. And I saw a beast rising out of

the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns, and blasphemous names on

its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear's and its mouth

was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority.

One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole

earth marveled as they followed the beast. And they worshiped the dragon for he had given his

authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying who is like the beast, who can

fight against it. And the beast was given a mouth, uttering haughty and blasphemous words,

and it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months. Here we see the seven headed ten horned

beast described in detail. After it is initially described, the text begins to focus only on one

of its heads. I think it's important to see that scripture begins to refer to this seventh head

as the beast, i.e. the king who we know of as the antichrist. Pretty much from here on out,

the word beast is synonymous with just the seventh head and the person of the antichrist.

One notable line is one of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was

healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. So this is the first time it

singles out one of the heads, and the one thing that it says about it is that its deadly wound

was healed. Now I think the plain reading suggests that this is the antichrist, but I think we get

confirmation of this a few verses later when it says it exercises all the authority of the first

beast in its presence, and it makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast whose

mortal wound was healed. Remember that the deadly wound that was healed was a characteristic of the

seventh head, and now we see that that characteristic is being used with the term the first beast,

who just about everyone recognizes as a title of the person of the antichrist with the second beast

in this verse being a reference to the false prophet. And again in verse 14 we see that the deadly

wound idea is applied to the antichrist, which gives a strong confirmation along with several other

places in Revelation 17 that the seventh head is a reference to the person of the antichrist when

it counts. What I mean by when it counts is that I can make a solid argument that the seven heads

must be a reference to kingdoms as well as kings, but Scripture seems to make it clear which one

kings or kingdoms it wants you to have in mind in a given situation. And I think that's what's

happening here in Revelation 1710. It wants you to know that the king aspect is in view. It starts

out in verse 10 saying they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen. One is the other has not

yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while. So why is it important to make

this distinction? Because if we're talking about kings, then the seventh king is the antichrist,

who as we saw earlier won't be a king, won't get his kingdom until the midpoint. It is only after

that that he builds mystery Babylon and populates it with his worshipers as we'll see in later studies.

The short time then is a reference that we've seen all over the Bible and is a reference to the

final three and a half years. I believe this is also a continuation of a theme started in Revelation 12,

which says, therefore rejoiceo heavens and you the dwell in them, but woe to you, O earth and the sea,

for the devil has come down to you in great wrath because he knows that his time is short,

and two times in this chapter it mentions the three and a half year period, whether it says 1,260

days or the time times and half a time to refer to this short time. So although I think it's clear

that the little while here is a reference to the antichrist's allotted short time to rule the

earth in his theocracy i.e. 3.5 years. I don't think it necessarily applies to that first phase with

the ten kings that we have seen must come before the antichrist. I will say that my early example

that it could be one or a thousand years was probably hyperbole. My main point though was to

drive the point home that the generation that sees this ten king thing develop might be in for

a lot of dystopian madness before the antichrist arrives. My gut says that this would last

over a generation or at least that the antichrist would prefer it to last one generation because

you really need one generation of censorship to exist in order to sort of wipe out good doctrine.

And I think that he wants to wipe out as much good doctrine as he possibly can before he arrives,

specifically about Bible prophecy in order to soften the landscape so to speak for his deception.

It really can't be overestimated how much damage was done to the antichrist when our lord

gave away his whole scheme on the mount of olives. And I'm sure the antichrist would prefer people

to forget as much of that as possible before he arrives. The final question I want to address

is a quick one. This one goes back to part one and it has to do with the specific kingdoms involved

in the symbolism of the seven headed beasts. So I mentioned like Babylon, Assyria,

Medopersia, Greece and Rome and all that stuff. And I made the comment about how it seemed

that a uniting factor with all these empires was that they all controlled Israel. And I said I

couldn't think of another empire that did that in history. I think this is all the ones that did

that. Many people sent comments in about the Ottoman Empire, which did control the land of Israel.

However, I should have been more clear. I don't consider any empire between 70 AD when the

temple was destroyed and Israel as a nation went into the diaspora until 1948 when the

nation of Israel was once again established to be a candidate. Yes, the Ottoman Empire controlled

Israel during this time. And I'm sure there were a few Jews living there, but no one would argue

that it was a nation at that time. If we included empires that just controlled the land of Israel,

it would mean that we would need to fit the British empire into these heads as well as it also

controlled the land of Israel, but not the nation of Israel. I think there are a lot of other

reasons that the Ottoman Empire is not in view here, which I discuss in my book, The Islamic

Antichrist Theory Debunked, which is available for free as a book at my website BibleProphesyText.com,

or even as a free eight-hour audiobook on my podcast feed.