Revelation, World Wars, End of the World
by Ulrich Utiger

Albrecht Dürer, Apocalypse (the woman clothed with the sun and the seven-headed dragon)
Albrecht Dürer, Apocalypse
(the woman clothed with the sun and the seven-headed dragon)

Page description
What the book of Revelation predicts about the two World Wars, the End of the World, the Millennium and the Last Judgment.

Contents of this page
The last Saints
The interference between the phases
Science: dangerous salvation of the modern world
The end of the world prefigured by the World Wars

Short summary of the previous pages
It was pointed out that the history of salvation follows repeating cycles of four typical phases, the phases of peace (beginning), sin, judgment and return to peace. This cycles are incorporated in the era of the Patriarchs, the era of Israel, the spiritual era and the era of the Millennium (see Summary of Salvation History). On the immediate previous page the history of Europe from the formation of the first states after the decline of the Roman Empire to contemporary history is related in the light of Revelation. This is used on this page to explain the phases of the fourth cycle of the spiritual era.

Next page
THE NEW EVE

Previous page
THE BEAST ASCENDING FROM THE ABYSS

Page 11

4.3. FROM THE STATE CHURCH TO MODERNITY

4.3.2. THE FOUR PHASES OF WESTERN HISTORY

The last Saints

As we know, the phase of beginning is a very long period, because during this time the Gospel has to be "preached to all nations" (Mk 13:10). At the end of this period, great Saints will arise, "the rest" of the offspring of the Woman clothed with the sun (Rev 12:17). This Woman gave birth to the male Child (Rev 12:5), who is Christ. Since Jesus was conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit, the Woman is Mary, and the birth of the rest of these children will be similar, but not identical, to the one of Christ, that is to say that it will also have Saint Mary and the Holy Spirit as intermediaries.

As we are going to see in the section Saint Mary and the Holy Spirit, this birth will be inaugurated by an apparition of Mary predicted by Revelation 12:1: "A great portent appeared in heaven, a Women clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars". This apparition will prepare a great number of disciples to the reception of the Holy Spirit. Thus, they will be born "from above" (Jn 3:3-8) similar to their elder brother Jesus (Rom 8:29), who descended from heaven as Son of God and was conceived by the Spirit.

The prophecy of the effusion of the Spirit (Joel 2:28-31) does therefore not only refer to Pentecost. It is even mainly valid for the last times, because the predicted signs only apply to this time:

"And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days, I will pour out my Spirit. And I will give portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes" Joel 2:28-31.

The Spirit of Pentecost was therefore only a first gift, "the first fruits of the Spirit", as St. Paul expresses it (Rom 8:23). This is why the main gift must still arrive. The persons who will receive it will hence inevitably be Saints who "will surpass as much in sanctity the other Saints as the cedars of Lebanon surpass the small shrubs...", as St. Louis DE MONFORT in True Devotion to Mary (VD 47) among others says on them. That agrees well with the thoughts of St. Paul, who says that "the creation waits with eager longing for revealing of the sons of God" (Rom 8:19). The mission of these Saints will constitute the zenith of the phase of beginning of the fourth cycle. We will return to that subject.

The interference between the phases

But they will be persecuted according to Revelation 17:17 and will lose their life, which will be their victory over Evil (Rev 17:11) following the example of Jesus Christ, who has defeated it at the cross. There are many common points between Jesus and the last Saints (see The male Child and the rest of the children), as well as this one: Christ was first welcomed with elation by the crowd when he entered Jerusalem some days before his Passion (Lk 19:28-38). The attitude of the crowd towards him, however, transformed into aggressive contempt hardly a week later because they no longer saw him as the hero they waited for (Lk 23:35-36). So we can better imagine how the last Saints will also first enthusiastically be welcomed by all nations to be persecuted after.

This persecution against the last Saints obviously belongs to the phase of sin, which will entail the judgment with first the seven apocalyptic cups (Rev 15-16) and finally the extermination "of the kings of the earth with their armies" by a celestial army, which will be directed by Christ returning to earth (Rev 19:11-21). This judgment of the seven cups is preceded by the seven trumpets (Rev 8-11), which in turn are initiated by the seven seals (Rev 5:1-8:1).

So the question arises what the disasters announced by the trumpets and the seals mean, by supposing that the phase of sin only begins with the persecutions against the last Saints, which forms part of the ulterior judgment of the seven cups? For in that case the preceding troubles seem to belong to the phase of beginning, which is characterized by peace. Furthermore, there are not only these predicted disasters, but also tribulations that have already taken place, as for example the two World Wars. Can we say that such events form part of a phase supposed to be peaceful?

Of course not! The problem is that it is impossible to determine exactly when a phase begins. This is due to the interference of the phases I have already mentioned several times. It is comparable to the change of seasons, of which the beginning and the end can indeed exactly be determined according to the calendar. Yet according to the meteorological conditions this is not possible at all, for there can very well be clement and beautiful days, for example, in January and others in May that are tempestuous and icy. This interference is particularly recognizable within the fourth cycle, because its first phase is very long. All the wars from the Crusades to the two World Wars, which increasingly worsen through the centuries, therefore are always more distinct prefigurations of the future phases of sin and judgment.

In addition, a peace becoming increasingly relative also explains that rather violent events make part of a so-called peaceful phase. This relative peace is linked to a degradation due to the fact that all the history of the world is surrounded by the cycle of humanity, which comprises the four eras of humanity as phases (see figure 14). This cycle degrades by approaching to its sin and judgment phase. The little cycles found therein consequently also have beginning phases with a heightened limit - as compared to what has to be considered as peaceful or not - than the other cycles found in the past.

Figure 14
Cycle of humanity

In connection with this we have already seen that a similar degradation is represented - including just the history from the Babylonians to the Romans yet - by the statue of Daniel 2, particularly by the decreasing values of the four metals. This statue is that of a man and consequently represents a life cycle, whose four phases are designated by the four decreasing metals. But the iron does not represent the revival, because this is reserved to the Church, which is represented by the clay inside the iron (see The prophecy of Daniel's statue and The values of the metals of Daniel's statue).

Science: dangerous salvation of the modern world

This connection between the life cycle of man and the era of humanity allows us to draw a parallel between the degradation of the one and the other: as we know, the consumption of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil by Adam and Eve consists of the illegitimate acquisition of a spiritual property originally belonging to God (see The life cycle of the angels and man). Humanity commits this theft by discovering modern science and thus gets its eyes opened similar to Adam and Eve (Gen 3:7). Thereafter, humanity separates itself from God by creating its own existence whose salvation no longer depends on God but on science, which effectively penetrates in secrets that in principle are reserved to God alone. In this sense Isaiah reproaches to Babylon, which is a term with multiple references for the secular world in general and is thereby valid for all times but especially for the last ones: "Your wisdom and your knowledge have seduced you" (Is 47:10).

Modern science is certainly necessary for finding truth. The ambition for its elaboration, however, was partly issued from contesting the first accounts of Genesis. If one had never contested these accounts, as well as the Bible in general, I am wondering if modern science would have seen the day. And now while the knowledge of our origins become more and more complete, the Bible turns out to be more and more right. This surprise is greater than if one had always believed in its authenticity without verifying it. So science has its reason to be, although it proves the contrary of what certain persons wanted to prove.

This is why science also has a very harmful side: independently of the fact that there are people who consider it as a kind of sacred cow to which one should cede all liberties without any moral constraints, it especially has an ominous psychological impact on the society by propagating its manner of thinking and conceiving things "scientifically", which too often implies the reduction of life to a simple material mechanism and thereby the undermining of the respect for creation.

The end of the world prefigured by the World Wars

The end of the world always becomes more distinct because of the degradation of history. The event that resembles it most is World War II (for further details see also Conclusion). We know that Hitler and his stuff closely resembled the future Antichrists. What they inflicted upon the Jews shows approximately what the Christians and especially the last Saints will have to endure from the Antichristian regime. Thus, the Nazi leaders for example forbade the German population from buying in Jewish shops and from consulting Jewish physicians and attorneys. Revelation 13:17 precisely predicts that at the time of the Antichrist only those who have its name on the hand or on the front will be allowed to buy or sell. The Nazi boycott closely resembles this. Later, as one knows, the Jews were gathered in concentration camps for "the final solution". That of course indicates the most knocking parallel with the future massacre against the Christians and the last Saints.

One also knows what kind of destruction the war caused, not only in Germany but in all implied countries, and that the leaders of the German imperialism, unless they survived and could be arrested, were judged by different tribunals for crimes against humanity. This prefigures the tribunal that is reserved for the leaders of future World War III (Rev 20:4) and even the Last Judgment, which forms part of the following cycle and will incomparably be more important, since it will concern all human beings (Rev 20:11-15).

As for the revival after the war, it’s of course the reconstruction of Europe. There is an event that is still more significant yet: the birth of the Hebrew state in 1948. In fact, the Jews suffered most from the war. This is why the post-war revival concerns them more than Europe. Today, after the numerous deaths among the Palestinians and the Israelis, one can wonder if this is truly a revival. There are some people who even qualify the Israeli policy towards the Palestinians as imperialism. The Hebrew state is of course only a prefiguration of the revival that will only come after World War III. And prefigurations never perfectly correspond to the ideal they announce. Nevertheless, I think that it is rather up to the Palestinians to make efforts in view to pacify the region and abandon their fanatic religious convictions (see Critique of Islam).

This is the occasion to return to the description of the fourth cycle: since the last Saints will bring the Gospel to all nations in the course of their mission, one can suppose that both the Jews and Muslims will convert. At this moment, a global peace will reign all over the world, although this will unfortunately only be of short duration, since the Church will be persecuted afterwards (see The interference between the phases) during World War III including the phases of sin and judgment. The revival will arrive with the resurrection of the persecuted Saints and of all those who will have refused to adore the beast and its image. They will reign with Christ during one thousand years (Rev 20:4). This resurrection will mark the end of the fourth cycle of the spiritual era and inaugurate the transition to the Millennium, which makes part of the last era, that of the Last Judgment.