The Beast of Revelation: Myth, Metaphor or Soon-Coming Reality?
By John H. Ogwyn

How will global religio-political developments affect you and your family? Will a world dictator soon appear? Just who or what is the Beast, and will you receive its infamous mark? Read on for the startling answers!

Introduction



Today's newspapers record a state of affairs that would have been absolutely unthinkable to an observer in 1945, at the end of World War II. Then, the Rome-Berlin Axis lay smashed, and American and British forces stood at the pinnacle of victory. Today Britain has been shorn of her empire and America is morally and culturally bankrupt. Europe is busily uniting under the aegis of a powerful German-dominated European Union.

In the decades following World War II, America and Britain invested billions of dollars in intelligence and counterintelligence operations. Yet the most astounding geopolitical events of the post-World War II era-resulting in the collapse of the "Iron Curtain" and the emergence of a powerful reunified Germany-caught these governments completely by surprise.

The rapid unfolding of events in eastern and central Europe in 1989 did not catch everyone by surprise, however. As an editorial writer in the Hendersonville, Tennessee, Free Press on December 7, 1989, stated:



"Like a great many Americans I have been watching the current political situation in East Germany with interest. While many have expressed surprise at the recent events and at East German cries for reunification of East and West Germany, I have to admit I haven't been too surprised by these events. The reason I haven't been particularly surprised is that for years I have occasionally read the publications of... the late Herbert W. Armstrong... Armstrong predicted that the Berlin Wall would some day come down and the two German states would once again reunite into a powerful nation."



As far back as the April 1952 Good News, Herbert W. Armstrong had written that East Germany would be returned to West Germany and that Russia "will be forced to relinquish her control over Hungary, Czechoslovakia and parts of Austria" (p. 16). In 1956, following Russia's invasion of Hungary, when it seemed that the "Iron Curtain" had inexorably fallen on the nations of eastern Europe, Mr. Armstrong wrote: "The way is being prepared for a colossal third force in world politics-a European Federation of Nations more powerful than either Russia or the United States!... We have shown years in advance what would happen to Russia's ill-fated Empire in Eastern Europe" (Plain Truth, December 1956, p. 3).

How could he possibly have known? In this booklet you will find out!

Not since the days of the Tower of Babel have humanity's efforts been more intertwined and interconnected. Today we commonly talk of how the world has been transformed into a "global village." Jet planes, instantaneous telecommunication and integrated world economies have changed our world.

From finance to manufacturing, multinational corporations and conglomerates now dominate virtually every field. People everywhere are linked by the Internet and satellite television transmissions. Yet paradoxically, nations are increasingly subdividing and fragmenting along old ethnic and religious lines.

Where is it all leading? While the world economy becomes ever more interconnected, ancient ethnic rivalries and hatreds are being renewed afresh. Leaders in finance and government cite these continually increasing pressures to illustrate the need for a viable alternative to the present, unsteady system of independent nation-states.

It is apparent that unless human emotions can be channeled differently, they will fracture the whole global economic structure. Humanity is seeking an identity that reaches beyond current divisions and rivalries. Internationalists have a great desire to supplant the independent nation-state with something greater. Still, they have been unable to devise a solution that would claim the loyalty and stir the emotions of the average man in the street. People do not develop intense emotional loyalty to faceless bureaucrats or to goals of maximizing corporate profits.

Where is this looming crisis-fragmentation in an age of globalism-really taking us? There is only one source where you can find the answer! The Creator God is the One who has declared the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10), and He lays it out for us in His book, the Bible.