Revelation Part 10

[Unless in brackets, all of the message is by Bertrand L. Comparet.] We’re getting now to the 10th installment of our study of the Book of Revelation. Up to this point we’ve covered topics through Revelation chapter 13, verse 10, which is the vision of a beast’s rising out of the sea and which obviously includes all of the four beasts that Daniel had a vision of, all rolled into one, because it has the characteristics of all four. It says that this beast, which had seven heads, one of the heads was wounded with what appeared to be a deadly wound, but that the deadly wound healed. In checking this out the last time, we found that that particular head which recovered from the deadly wound was the Roman Empire, which came to what appeared to be a complete and permanent end in 476 A.D. For a period of three centuries it stayed dead and in chaos. Then in the year 800 Charlemagne really revived the Roman Empire, because he conquered practically all the European territory that had been part of the old Roman Empire and brought it under his individual rule. He was crowned emperor of the Romans in the year 800. We are told that the dragon, which is that same red dragon that we saw previously, gave his power and throne and authority to this beast. Remember, when we were checking up on that dragon, it appeared it was obviously satanic. This red dragon stood before the woman, Israel, to devour her child as soon as it was born. The child, of course, was Yahshua the Christ, because it said that He was destined to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and that He was caught up to the throne of Yahweh in heaven. [See note #1 at end of lesson.]

Of course, we know who it was that was trying to murder the infant Christ. That was Herod, the Edomite Jew. As a further identification here, remember, that word “Edom” means “red.” This red dragon – the Edomite Jew dragon, who in other words are the literal children of Satan. Satan operates through his children just as Yahweh operates in this world, much of the time, through His children. This beast that John saw rise out of the sea had seven heads and ten horns. These seven heads and ten horns were also true of the dragon. At this point, Revelation 13, verse 1 does not state the color of the beast, but rather where we pick that up is in a later chapter, and its obviously the same beast, for there we find it is a “scarlet” (red) beast. In Revelation chapter 17, verses 1 to 3, we’re picking up this same beast that we first meet in the 13th chapter: “And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters.”

Throughout the Bible, waters are symbolic of people. That’s further confirmed here, because the angel telling John about this says that “the waters on which the whore sits and rules are people, races, and nations ....”  “With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.” [See note #2 at end of lesson.]

Fittingly, the dragon is emblematic of satanic power – it says he gave his power, throne and authority to the beast, and the beast carries the same marks of satanic leadership as these seven heads and ten horns. Hence, John said that he looked at this and was astonished, and marveled at what he saw. Following up at Revelation chapter 17, verses 7 to 11: “And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.” We now come to a portion which has tripped up most of the people who try to interpret the Book of Revelation. This originates chiefly by people who have been taught the old theory; you must blame everything on the Catholic “Church.” Presumably, the serpent that deceived Adam and Eve was the Pope, and undoubtedly the Catholic “Church” was to blame for Noah’s flood, and all that sort of thing.

You find things here which cannot possibly be accounted for by the Catholic “Church”, except that the Catholic “Church” was only a part of what is described here, and corrupted by the same satanic influence and working for the same satanic purposes as the rest. But the Catholic “Church” is only one cog in the wheel, and not the whole machine. Continuing, we read: “The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.” Therefore, the people who hold the “everything is the Catholic ‘Church’ fallacy” say, “Ah, you see, that’s the city of Rome because Rome had seven hills.” But there are four great world capitals which have seven hills, as far as that goes, so that doesn’t mark out Rome. This whole thing is obviously tremendously bigger than Rome, either politically or religiously.

“The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.” In the Bible a mountain is the symbol of a nation. Your King James Version says “there are seven kings”, but that’s pure mistranslation, because even the marginal notes in the Scofield edition corrects it. The original says “and they (referring to these seven mountains) are seven kings. Really, kingdoms would be a more accurate English translation. Now up to – oh, three hundred years ago or less – very few people conceived of the existence of a nation as such. It was simply the territory ruled by a particular king. Whenever he was able, by conquest, to take over other territory – or by marriage, or by inheritance get other territory – they never considered that to be something distinct. That was always part of his same kingdom. Hence, in speaking of a king, you’re speaking here of a monarchy, a nation governed by a king. “And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.” I have read books full of utter rot. They’re all trying to make this simply the Roman Empire. They speak about five previous rulers of Rome, then the sixth was living in John’s time, so this must refer here to the next emperor after the death of John, and so on. It’s nothing but pure rot. [See note #3 at end of lesson.]

Nearly everything that you find written about the Book of Revelation you can throw in the trash can without bothering to read it. I have seen one that was surprisingly good by [something that sounds like Farris] an Australian, with two little paperback volumes about a quarter of an inch thick each, and very condensed. It simply states what happened and will give you a date and no details. If you want to find out whether it’s right, you’ve got to go look it up in an encyclopedia or history book and find out for yourself. But he’s right to a surprising degree. We are dealing at Revelation 17:9-10, with “seven heads” or “seven mountains” – “seven kings, five already fallen” when John wrote this in 94 A.D. “One is (existed at that time), and the other is not yet come; and when he comes, he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.”

Let’s now start unscrambling this. The beast can’t be Rome because John was told that in his time, the beast is not, and Rome was just at the apex of its empire in John’s time. It can’t be the Catholic “Church” because that didn’t come into existence for some centuries after John wrote. The beast is scarlet – another tip-off that it is Edomite Jew ruled, and obviously satanic. Thus, you can’t say that its heads are individual Roman emperors. They are rather, great empires.

Daniel got a vision of only four world empires, beginning with Babylon, which was the great world empire in his own lifetime, followed by Medo-Persia, Alexander’s Greek Empire, and lastly, Rome. No review of past history was intended in the Book of Daniel, and therefore it spoke of nothing prior to Babylon. It didn’t go beyond Rome because that particular vision was not intended to go clear to the time of the end. Let’s see now if we can pick up seven great world empires: Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Medo-Persia, and Alexander’s empire. That’s five which had fallen before John’s time. You’ll remember, Alexander died about 323 B.C. – or something like that B.C. One more is the Roman Empire .... [See note #’s 4A & 4B at end of lesson.]

[Transcriber’s Note: At this point on the tape, it has all the earmarks of the original master tape being damaged, then having the damaged portion being cut out and then spliced together again with a portion of the message missing. However, this will not be problematic as we can be quite sure of the point Comparet was about to make. He had just named five beast empires in the paragraph above, then to this he added the Roman Empire, making a total of six. In the missing portion which was evidently cut out and spliced, he was getting ready to name The Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne and his successors as the seventh beast empire. So let’s count these beast empires in their proper order: (1) Egypt, (2) Babylon, (3) Assyria, (4) Medo-Persia, (5) Alexander’s Greece, (6) The Roman Empire, and, (7) The Holy Roman Empire. The next intelligible words, which are at the end of a sentence are “and no others.” After this, Comparet adds to these seven a further short-lived empire, and as we continue, I believe most will be surprised who that additional empire is. Now returning to Comparet’s message. C.A.E.]

It is apparent that these are not petty kingdoms, rather they are all empires which ruled pretty much all the world they knew in their day. So the seventh, which had not yet come, has to be of the same kind. From the time of the fall of Rome – and by the way, for the last century of that the empire was not ruled from the city of Rome anyway; it was ruled from either Ravenna or Milan for the last century before the total break-up in 476. Of course, there remained a truly Grecian empire, still clinging to the name of Roman Empire in the east under Constantinople. But it was gradually fizzling out and would finally be conquered by the Saracens and the Turks.

But in Europe, where John’s visions apply – in Europe you simply had a vacuum. At that time it consisted of a multitude of petty little city-states fighting constantly among themselves, and none of them able to keep order. Then in 800, we find Charlemagne establishing an empire. He was crowned by the Pope as “King of the Romans” in an attempt to re-establish the Roman Empire. Logically, if you had to live your lifetime in a period of three centuries of utter anarchy, you’d probably view the idea of restoring an authoritative rule with some relief. That likewise fizzled – oh, about a century, I think it was, until that also came to an end with Charles the Bald and Charles the Fat, being their only distinguishing characteristics. Then came a gap for some small period of time, until 962, when the German king Otho was asked to take over and rule. He was then crowned by the Pope and it was called the “Holy Roman Empire.”

This revived Roman Empire was ruled usually from Austria, always with a Germanic king, and to a certain extent it maintained order, not to the extent the previous empires had done, as it wasn’t as tyrannical, but just the same an empire after a fashion. You had a time gap in there, a long period before anything else showed up, and certainly nothing that could be called a seventh empire equal to the previous six.

Then there appeared on the scene Napoleon Bonaparte. He was a French army officer from 1785. He continued in the service after the French Revolution in 1793. Unquestionably a very brilliant officer, his strategy was so much better than that of any competitor that he almost never lost a battle, till it came to Waterloo. Thus, he was promoted rapidly in the revolutionary Communist French government, which consisted largely of a jumble of stupid and incompetent theoreticians who couldn’t adapt their theories to reality. It bogged down worse and worse in the idiocy that socialism always does.

Finally, in 1799, by a swift military coup d’ état, Napoleon overthrew this old government. They established the new government, governed by a triumvirate who were called “consuls.” But the other two were non-entities. Napoleon was at the head of it, and in August, 1802 he was made consul for life, and in May, 1804 he proclaimed himself emperor of the French. Then, the Pope thought, “Well now, here again I will declare ‘the crown is mine to give or withhold’ as I choose, and he (the king) has it only by my sufferance.” When Napoleon told the Pope to come there to his coronation, and when the Pope stepped up holding the crown, Napoleon grabbed it out of his hands and put it on his own head, that there might be no doubt as to the source of Napoleon’s authority.

The year 1804 began Napoleon’s empire. Let’s now take a look at what he did in this very short space that was allotted to him. Before this, under the old Communist government, Spain had pretty well been conquered. Thus when he took over in 1804, he was already king of France, he was master of Spain, and he was proclaimed king of Italy in 1805. He conquered Austria that same year, 1805. The king of Austria, the following year, 1806, gave up his title of Holy Roman Emperor. Actually, for a century, at least, it had been an empty title with no power. In 1806 Napoleon conquered the German state of Prussia – remember there was no nation of Germany, but a number of small German states, and Prussia was the only one large enough to give him any real opposition. So, you can say Napoleon took over all of Germany with that.

In 1807 he defeated the forces of Russia in eastern Europe. They were coming in there to try to battle him. In turn, the Russians whom he had defeated formed an alliance with him, which lasted about as long as most Russian alliances, just until an opportunity arose to break it. In 1808 he conquered Sweden. Remember, at that time Sweden also ruled Norway. He had, in the meantime, taken over Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and so on. Therefore, by 1808 he was the master of the entire continent of Europe, leaving only England against him. There were also the Balkan states and Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia (then called Bohemia), who were no longer under Turkish rule. These were all under the domination of Austrian or Germanic kings, so those were also taken as part of his conquering of the major nations. [See note #5 at end of lesson.]

In 1809 he annexed the Papal States. During the period of anarchy, between the fall of Rome and Charlemagne taking over, the Pope had expanded his power until he ruled, you might say, the central third of the Italian peninsula. Later, under the more powerful kings of the restored empire, he was given additional bits and tatters of territory. Therefore, he had fully a third of all Italy as the Papal States. Hence, Napoleon had annexed the Papal States – remember, he’d already shown the Pope that the crown was not the Pope’s to give. Pope Pius the 7th then excommunicated Napoleon. In the past, that had been a terribly powerful weapon. You’ll remember that the Pope excommunicated Henry the 7th of Germany, a maneuver which just simply took him off the throne. He had to come to where the Pope was at Canossa and humbly beg for forgiveness. The Pope kept him standing outside the castle barefooted in snow for three days before he would let him in. In a country whose people were Catholic, the interdict upon the nation, or excommunication of the king was a terrifically serious thing, because when the population was substantially all Catholic, they were forbidden, under pain of eternal damnation, to recognize that they owed any loyalty to the excommunicated king. They couldn’t even deliver food for him to eat, nor could they have any dealings with one who had been excommunicated by the “church.” Hence, the Pope thought he had a terrific weapon against Napoleon. But Napoleon simply arrested and imprisoned the Pope until he signed a treaty, recognizing Napoleon’s conquest of the Papal States. Therefore, if you listen to some preachers nowadays telling you that the Catholic “Church” is about to gain worldwide dominion, that’s another of these foolish ideas.

Russia had already turned against Napoleon and was intriguing with all the nations of eastern Europe to turn against him, giving the promise of Russian military assistance. In 1812 Napoleon attempted the conquest of Russia. This was certainly the greatest military disaster in history. He raised his grand army – an army of half a million men, and they didn’t have much fighting to do till they got to the Russian border because he pretty much had the nations of eastern Europe under his control. But when they got into Russia, that turned out to be a different thing. He captured Moscow September 14th, in the year 1812. Beginning the following day, the city was set afire and burned to complete destruction, turning into a four day conflagration. All this really turned into total irredeemable disaster, and with winter coming on, he didn’t even have the houses of the city in which he could keep his troops sheltered from Russian winter storms. Additionally, there was no food, and he couldn’t live foraging off the country because the Russians used a very thorough scorched-earth policy.  What the Russians couldn’t carry away, out of his reach, they destroyed. Neither could he bring supplies hundreds of miles from Europe because he didn’t have the forces back there to bring them. Additionally, they were subject to guerrilla warfare every inch of the way. Consequently, he began a retreat, beginning the middle of October, and October through December was the period of his retreat back into central Europe. Not only that, but his army had almost no food. Their uniforms were not heavy enough for the terrific Russian and Polish winters, and they were harassed by guerrilla bands all the time. The exact number of his losses isn’t known, but it has been thought that it was as high as 80 to 90 percent of all those 500 thousand men that he took into Russia. [See note #6 at end of lesson.]

The greatest military disaster that the Romans ever suffered was the battle of Cannae, when they suffered a terrific defeat at the hands of Hannibal’s forces. But that was not nearly as bad as this. So in 1814, April 12th, Napoleon abdicated. Now that his army was lost, the nations of Europe that had been conquered began rising against him, and Britain, supplying them with munitions and some excellent troops and that sort of thing, he was forced off the throne. He was then banished to Elba, a little island off the Italian coast. His empire began in 1804 and it ended in 1814, lasting just ten years. Even Alexander, whose empire was considered very short-lived – his empire lasted for 13 years – Napoleon’s by comparison lasted only ten. Therefore, remember what Scripture said? “When he cometh, he must continue a short space.” This, of all empires in history worthy of such a name, this is the shortest lived of the lot. Napoleon then returned to France March lst, 1815, trying to regain his throne. Indeed, he was received with considerable popular enthusiasm – raised an army of sorts – but he was defeated at Waterloo between June 12th and 18th.

This hundred days’ attempt to regain his throne is no part of his empire, time-wise. He never succeeded in gaining the throne, so the end of it would be 1814 rather than 1815. They then banished him again to the Island of St. Helena off the African coast, and there he died some five or six years later. But remember, an empire which covers all of the continent of Europe is certainly one worthy to be ranked with the previous six, and there’s no doubt that Napoleon was identified with this seventh head of the beast. As you can see, we have now accounted for all the seven heads. Now, what about the beast itself? As I pointed out before, it can’t be the Catholic “Church”, because John was told in the year 94 that this beast previously was, and the Catholic “Church” didn’t exist for centuries after that. Neither can it be Rome, because John was told “the beast is not in his day”; yet Rome was at the height of its power and glory at John’s time. [See note #7 at end of lesson.]

Now the final re-appearance of this beast, as the eighth, cannot be a revival of the Roman Empire under Mussolini, to rule three and a half years, as so many of these well meaning but stupid people have preached for a long time. As you know, that was Herbert W. Armstrong’s great theme song – that Mussolini was going to revive the Roman Empire and rule the world for three and a half years. Thus, anybody who thinks there is going to be a revival of Rome, they might as well take Mussolini along with it, as they’re both equally dead. Importantly, we are told that the beast itself would be the eighth empire and would be of the seven of a similar nature. The fact is that this one beast had the characteristics of all four that John saw, and indeed we see this with all these seven world empires; it simply shows they were all of that same satanic nature. The beast is red, like the dragon – Edomite Jew controlled; “and the dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority.”

Before any of these empires were in existence, it goes back to the old, direct satanic rule that was enforced in Adam’s time. You’ll remember, Adam wasn’t up against a great world empire that he had to contend with. He was up against the world empire of Satan himself. Now John was told, in his time, “it is not”, because at that time Satan was not ruling directly. He was ruling through the series of world empires to whom he’d given his authority.

Remember – you read that Satan took Yahshua the Christ up onto a mountain and he showed Him, in a moment of time, all the kingdoms of the earth, which included the empires, and said “These are mine and I give them to whom I wish, and if you will fall down and worship me, I’ll give all these to you.” And you’ll remember, Yahshua the Christ did not deny that. He didn’t say “Are you trying to kid Me? – You don’t have any power over these.” He told Satan, “Get thee behind me Satan, and it is written, thou shall worship only Yahweh thy Elohim.” But it’s recognition nevertheless, even by Yahshua the Christ Himself, that all these world empires were examples of the satanic power.

After the end of these world empires, the direct satanic rule of the world is then to re-appear. Napoleon is past history for a century and a half. The seven were bad, but the eighth would be worse. There is one little parenthetical thing we might throw in here. The beast, it says, in the 17th chapter of Revelation, “will finally destroy great Babylon.” We’re going into that in greater detail later as we come to it, but I picked this up here in order to show we’re dealing with the same beast as in the 13th chapter.

We are told: “The beast had seven heads with ten horns.” The woman riding on the beast “had a name written on her forehead, ‘Mystery Babylon the Great’.” Thus, the whole Babylonian system, religious, economic and political, is summed up in this woman.

Again, you know how many of these fanatics not only say the beast was the Catholic “Church”, but also the woman riding the beast was the Catholic “Church.” Significantly, the Catholic “Church” is but one phase only of the satanic Babylonian system – the religious phase – nothing else. But we’re told in the seventeenth chapter that these ten horns will hate this Babylonian system, the woman riding on the beast, and that they will destroy her. What we now jokingly call our civilization is nevertheless this Babylonian system. The troubles we face day-to-day are the direct product of it being Babylonian. We have the brutal, tyrannical character of the Babylonian political system and have the people who have been misled, led away from the proper worship of the one true Elohim by the religious phase of Babylon. The economic phase is bringing us to destruction under the Jewish-owned and operated Federal Reserve Bank. [See note #8 at end of lesson.]

We now see this same thing, which is the only civilization we have at the moment, which makes us nervous when it’s threatened. We see it now threatened by destruction from within. Right now, with Russia getting plenty of rockets and hydrogen bombs ready; Russia figures she isn’t going to have to use them because the forces of destruction from within will destroy us. All this, of course, is according to their Jewish-Marxist theory. While it has a great measure of truth in it, its not because its Marxist, but because of factors in the Bible they don’t know about. Consequently, here we have the drug peddlers and the poor, stupefied youth who are taking the drugs. With or without drugs, we have these loathsome “hippie” things, and of course the general left-wing takeover of the youth because it has been 50 years since the schools have educated them. In the last 50 years they haven’t received an education – they’ve received merely brainwashing and indoctrination. The people that received an education in this country today (maybe fifty years is too much, I should have said forty), but the people who got an education are all sixty or over. Thus, we now have all these satanic, internal forces threatening to topple and destroy our civilization. Do you notice what loathsome beasts they are? Take a good look at these hippie types. You can’t classify them as being cultured in any way. In fact, it’s an insult to the animals to call them “animals” or “beasts.”

In this 13th chapter of Revelation, verses 11 to 17, we run into another beast. It is a little tougher to figure this one out: “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

Absurdly, the same people who have decided that the first beast was the Catholic “Church” furthermore tell us that the second beast, likewise, is the Catholic “Church.” It’s quite evident that the Catholic “Church” alone cannot fulfill the things that are said about this second beast. Now it’s true that the Catholic “Church” pretends to be a lamb yet it speaks rather as a “dragon.” That’s not the only thing that carries on that sort of pretense. It is noteworthy that the creation of the image of the first beast, which the second beast brings about, does not fit the Catholic “Church.” Remember that the revived Holy Roman Empire was not the creation of an image of the first beast. It was simply the healing of a deadly wound of one head only, of the previous beast. Secondly, the Holy Roman Empire didn’t perform the things that we’re told here about the image of the first beast. It didn’t exercise any more tyranny than any of the other empires did. It didn’t fulfill this at all. [See note #9 at end of lesson.]

The first beast arose out of the sea. The sea would be symbolic of the great mass of non-Israel people in general. Out of them rose the empires of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, as well as Rome in Europe, not to mention Asian peoples out to the far fringe of the white race. But now, this second beast with the two horns like a lamb, this arose not out of the sea but out of the earth, so it means it is basically of a European origin. In other words, you will find this arising in the territory of the northern and western Roman Empire. What are we finding developing out of this territory, from what it symbolically called the earth? The tyrannical organization developing out of that is obviously the United Nations. This is an image of the first beast. They haven’t given it its full power yet, but the aspiration of the thing, held up by all who favor it, is a worldwide tyranny, able to rule all nations and crush with great force any attempted opposition. [See note #’s10 & 11 at end of lesson.]

So, obviously this is an image, a copy of the ancient empires that ruled on just that basis, incorporating brutal force to compel complete conformance. The first beast was symbolic of our concentrated worldwide power. Each of the heads, or empires, ruled substantially all the world that it knew. Hence, we’re seeing the copy, the image of that prepared. This second beast, while pretending to be a lamb with the two horns, spoke as a dragon, saying to them that dwell on the earth, “they should make an image of the first beast.” At the present time, we’re getting all this propaganda from so many sources to brainwash us into believing that only a one-worldwide-supreme government, with limitless power, can produce peace. You see that written continually in all sorts of newspaper and magazine articles. Our politicians are telling us the same thing. We’re getting it from many sources in Washington. Senator Fulbright, who’s desperately afraid that he won’t get the oak leaf cluster for his Order of the Red Banner unless he succeeds in bringing us a total defeat in Vietnam; he’s giving you this same idea. You note that in the 1945 conference at San Francisco, where the United Nations was brought into being, a multitude of small nations were allowed to be there and say “yes” when they were told to. It was dominated, of course, by the great powers which are today in complete control of the European continent.

It said that this image of the beast speaks, and it does. It speaks through the various resolutions and so-called conventions and treaties of the United Nations. But you notice that it rarely speaks for good, but nearly always for evil. When it does speak anything that is faintly good, it is ignored and nothing comes of it. We should have remembered Isaiah, chapter 8, verses 9 and 10: “Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand ...” Isn’t that a perfect thumbnail sketch of the United Nations to date? Totally helpless for any good, but powerful enough for a great deal of evil. It said the image of the beast also causes that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. In Africa, the only civilized portion of the so-called nation of the Congo, Katanga, tried to break away from cannibal, savage domination and maintain a certain degree of civilization. But you’ll remember, the United Nations forbade it. It was United Nations’ troops that put down the revolt in Katanga. Even though they were furnished largely from a somewhat civilized nation, Sweden, they were guilty – these Swede air force pilots were guilty of shameful atrocities that would make an Apache Indian blush. Repeatedly they bombed and strafed well-marked hospitals. They bombed residential portions of cities where there was no possible military target, but just simply terrorized the people by brutal bloodshed until they would lose their will to resist. As many of you know, the United Nations backed Nigeria against Biafra. The United Nations refused to send food to the starving Biafrans during that whole period, and even today the only food that’s getting to the Biafrans is that which is being brought in by a private organization, the Red Cross. The rest of them, like the United States, turn over all food and trucks and supplies to the Nigerian government. It is not going to the Biafrans. [See note #’s12 & 13 at end of lesson.]

Hence, those who wouldn’t worship the image of the beast are caused to be murdered. If they ever get us to disarm and turn what weapons we have over to the U.N., we’ll be treated with equally bestial brutality. It goes on with another thing here, that “no man might buy or sell save he that had the mark or name of the beast or the number of his name.” Everyone had to receive a mark, either in his forehead or in his right hand. It has been pointed out that it was customary back in John’s time to brand slaves either on the forehead or the right hand. Also, it’s been pointed out that this might well be symbolic; the mark on the forehead, the seat of intellectual achievement – that all mental products would have to be subject to their rule; and on the right hand – that material products likewise should be governed thereby. [See note #14 at end of lesson.]

So without the mark of the beast you couldn’t either buy or sell. The people who want to blame everything on the Catholic “Church” have said, “Well, you see, there were times when the Catholic ‘Church’, in the middle ages, used the power of interdict with a particular village who had some Protestants among it. They’d put the whole village under the interdict. No Catholic could have any dealings with them whatsoever. They couldn’t be married in the ‘church’, they couldn’t be buried in the ‘church’ cemetery, but even more than that, no Catholic could buy any of their products they had for sale. No Catholic could sell to them anything that they needed.” But this was on a little dime store scale that was used a very few times, and insignificantly small where it was used that way, and that is now permanently ended. But as an example of this in the present day, you notice the United Nations has already gotten all the nations, except South Africa and Portugal, to boycott Rhodesia, and that’s only the first step.

They’re trying, of course, to get American military forces to make war against Rhodesia and South Africa. I don’t know whether tricky Dicky will fall as low as Judas Iscariot himself wouldn’t, but then that degree of restraint may not always be expected these days. The way its going to be brought home to us, on a much greater scale, is beginning to show up. Our own government has already sold out, and I use the term advisedly – sold out our entire money system to the Jews in the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank. We have no government money of a denomination larger than 50 cents. Beginning with the dollar bill and on up, we don’t have any silver dollars any more in the mint. All the rest of it is Federal Reserve.

[Transcriber’s Note: I find, at this point, that I must break into this message of Bertrand L. Comparet to make a short comment. Evidently, at the time he was giving these messages, Nixon was president in either his first or second term sometime between 1969 and 1973. The fact that Comparet speaks of Lyndon Johnson in retrospect may help date the timing of these lessons. Now back to Bertrand L. Comparet.]

 How many of you heard Richard Cotton a few weeks ago when he broadcast that fable of the Temple of the Thirteen Sons [or maybe Suns]? It was excellent. He was entirely correct in his analysis. It might be well to write to him and get a copy of that. Incidentally, he needs some support. He’s in some pretty desperate straits financially in order to stay on the air. Our whole economic system is being brought to the point of complete collapse now, due to the Federal Reserve Bank. We are told this is being done to prevent inflation, which is a deliberate lie, and told knowingly as a lie by 99 and 99/100ths percent of the officials who say it. They know better. They describe an imaginary situation that hasn’t existed in the past century. They say “The whole trouble that brings inflation is that there is more money in circulation than there are goods to be bought with it, and so that causes inflation.”

Correctly replying to such a faulty premise, it must be pointed out that in times of great scarcity, more or less approaching famine, where you don’t have enough products to go around, it’s very true that if somebody has to go without, the man with enough money to bid high, says, “I’m going to get it anyway; I’ll get my share.” But that situation doesn’t exist. There is no shortage of anything the American people want. You can’t show me one major industry in this country running – well, go back a year before they started bringing this catastrophe on us, when employment was a little bit higher, but even then, you can’t show me one major company which is running close to 80% of its present day productive capacity, and they’re not producing more because they can’t market it. Rather, it’s because they can’t find people with enough money to buy the diminished output that they’re producing. There is no shortage of goods and there is no surplus of money.

No such thing existed at all. The trouble was not too little goods and too much money, but the other way around. Then they shut off credit. Of course, no economy should be running on credit anyway, it should be running on money. I studied economics in college, and a textbook written by Towsig [or a name that sounds somewhat like that] – he was a pretty reputable economist. He states the quantity theory of money this way: “That there should be enough money in circulation to commit the purchase of all property, real or personal, that can be bought and sold.” In other words, if you are an automobile dealer, for every automobile in your stock, there should be money enough, someplace or other, to buy it. Likewise, there should be enough money available for your home if you want to sell it. A man I know was getting into financial difficulties and he offered his home for sale for 30 thousand dollars. They were in a little town 20 some miles out of Los Angeles. It was a valuable property and the price was very reasonable, and he had found a buyer. He was willing to take 10 thousand dollars down. The buyer was ready, but the buyer couldn’t find a bank that had that much money to lend. He went to the Bank of America in that town. They said, “The property was well worth it, we aren’t worried about it not being sufficient security, but we don’t have the money.” They contacted a number of other branches of the Bank of America to see if they could get money from them, and they couldn’t. Now, further shutting off credit is obviously not the remedy for that sort of situation. This is done knowingly and deliberately for the purpose of bringing on disaster, just like the 1929 crash which was brought on in the same way and for the same purpose. After ruining everybody, the vultures were able to pick up whatever was worthwhile out of the wreckage for a song. They got it by foreclosure. Today, the total amount of money in circulation, including even this “funny money” of the Federal Reserve Bank, doesn’t remotely approach 5%. I would say probably not 3% of the value it should have under the accepted quantity theory of money. They say our gross national product per year is approaching the trillion dollar mark now, and the total money in circulation wouldn’t come anywhere near 10% of one year’s production, not to say anything about the permanent assets. The houses, the factories, the mines and the farms. Without money, what can you buy? What can you sell?

You’ve already seen published the first trial balloons put up to see if they can get people to accept the idea that we have a United Nation’s world currency. Naturally, it hasn’t gone over very well because nobody wants United Nation’s funny money if we can have American money with any value. Therefore, they’ve got to bring upon us total ruin, which they’re deliberately trying to bring upon us in order to get us to accept that idea. The U.N. world money, I’m told, has already been printed and is in storage. How might they distribute it? The United Nations will presumably issue it and the United Nations will determine how much money is issued to any one particular nation. Remember, in the United Nations we will be out-voted something over one hundred thirty to one. Just the cannibals of Africa alone out-vote us twenty-five to one. Of course, the Jews will get the united support of all these beast-nations by promising them that, under Jewish leadership, they can steal all our wealth.

[I break into this paragraph for a transcriber’s note: Although the enemy has not as yet issued a world currency to date, at 2005, he has developed many other evil schemes to redistribute our wealth to the “beasts” within our borders, and export our jobs to third world “beast” countries.]

When this is done under the fiction “that we need to cut down inflation”, we would be issued barely enough money for the people of the United States to have a bare subsistence on a coolie-labor standard. We will not have money enough to buy our own products. We may work in a Detroit automobile factory or as a mechanic in a garage, but you won’t be able to buy an automobile. You may work in a factory making refrigerators, but you won’t have money enough to buy a refrigerator for your family. If you get just enough to eat, where they’ll make sure it’s not a surplus, you’ll be very lucky. What happens to the rest of the money? That’s issued in vast quantities to the people of Russia, China, India, and Africa. Every Congolese chief will have money enough for a Cadillac and many additional luxuries. And are these nations going to support that sort of leadership in the U.N.? You bet they are. Well, with no money in existence – remember now, you’re a criminal who can be sent to a federal penitentiary if you have or obtain any gold money. It only requires the mere issuing of an edict to put you in the same situation if you have any silver money – and you probably haven’t; you have these copper sandwiches with a thin skin of nickel on top and bottom. The only honest money we have is the penny, because that’s at least solid bronze all the way through.

If this happens, the only money available will be the U.N. money. If you still have some of the by-then-repudiated Federal Reserve Notes, who’s going to take them? You won’t be able to go to a bank and trade a Federal Reserve Note for another Federal Reserve Note, which is all you can get presently for it. You’ll remember, the paper money used to have the statement on it “redeemable in gold”, or as the case may be “redeemable in silver dollars at the U.S. Treasury upon demand.” Some of you, no doubt, save trading stamps. You’re told you can redeem them for various things. Suppose you went to the trading stamp office with ten books of trading stamps and they said, “The only thing we can give you in exchange for these are more trading stamps”, would you consider that redemption? But you go to any bank, including the Federal Reserve Bank itself, with some of their “funny money” Federal Reserve Notes, and all they’ll give you in exchange for them is more Federal Reserve Notes.

You can see they’re only one short step away from the point where our whole money system will be dropped down in wreckage, and we will have the United Nations world currency – that is, if we behave. It would be a socialist thing, and you notice that wherever there has been socialism, the first step is always to start rationing something-or-other. That is the only reason for the existence of socialism. It is its major purpose. If there were such a surplus of wheat that the daily ration per person was 35 hundred loaves a day per person, they would still put you on a ration. The point being, that if you are not politically reliable when this month’s ration card expires, how are you going to get next month’s ration card? There is some talk of trying to do away with money and substitute a mere bookkeeping operation through a sort of credit card, in which a very elaborate system would have to be set up. Say you wanted to buy ten gallons of gasoline, or eight dollars worth of groceries, or whatever it might be, they would be able to telephone a central computer office which would tell them whether you had enough credit in your account. Whether they do it one way or the other, the result is going to be the same – you won’t be able to buy, nor will you be able to sell, unless this mark of the beast or the number is there.

Remember all the hullabaloo they put out about the adoption of the postal zip code that is going to make it possible now to expedite the mail, where they just dump the letters into an electronic machine which would read the zip code and send it right off to the proper branch post office? None of them believed that. The only way you can get any of this electronic scanning to work is to have the thing laid out with perfect precision, because your machine is only set to scan a certain particular place. On your bank checks you will probably find, in magnetic ink, there are certain figures there which are magnetically scanned by a machine so that it posts the operation to the right account. But if by some error in printing those numbers, happen to be a sixteenth of an inch to the right or left, it wouldn’t work. Now, you take envelopes addressed by hand, some in tiny little precise writing and others in great sprawling letters that spill all over, the zip code not in magnetic ink but merely in illegible hand writing in places that probably vary anywhere within a two inch square. No human science today is capable of making a machine that can read that zip code. They never thought they could. It was simply a lie to have one swallow.

What they want it for is to make it part of your computer record so that they can make sure, when they refuse to issue next month’s ration card, that they’re withholding the correct ration card. Most names are common enough that there will be some duplication, if not of the same town, at least here and there over the United States. You take the common names like Smith or Jones – open your telephone directory and see how many John Smiths there are, or see how many William Joneses there are. How can they know which particular John Smith or William Jones this is? The zip code is a handy way of making sure it’s the John Smith that resides in a certain district in Alhambra rather than the John Smith who resides in Santa Monica. That’s the only purpose it is capable of serving. Of course, your social security number would serve the same purpose, but a lot of people do not have a social security number and probably never will. [See note #15 at end of lesson.]

As part of these steps to force us into this kind of slavery, note some of the steps our own government has already taken: Public law number #774 of the 81st-82nd congress, entitled The Defense Production Act of 1950, public law #920 of the 81st-82nd congress, entitled the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950. These provide for a degree of tyranny which would make any Oriental monarchy look like the extreme of liberty; a degree of tyranny, heretofore, totally unknown in human history. The Civil Defense, as they call it, Master Plan Manual of October 1958, though a good deal of this was issued under our President Eisenhower. This manual has 42 annexes and supplements (at least it had that many when I wrote this down) and it contains the plans of a total takeover of all labor and property. A Civil Defense office booklet of December, 1958 frankly states, “The extent to which control of the economy will have to be exercised will go far beyond any previous emergency”, and it states some of them. There will be a total control of money matters, particularly actions to re-establish a dependable medium of exchange under a credit structure.

If this were a defense production thing – if the defense were any part of this, why would you have to abandon our money system and set up a new one just because the Russians bombed a few of our cities? It couldn’t serve any purpose. It couldn’t help defense in any way. In fact, it would make defense nearly impossible by making such a state of confusion that nothing would follow. This is never intended, in spite of the lying title, for use as a defense measure in time of war. It was intended for use as a measure of tyranny in time of peace. It says there will be complete control of production – complete control over distribution of goods and services – and complete control over consumption of goods and services. In other words, the government will decide just how many suits of clothes you can get in a year, just how much food your family can get per month, and such like. All this tyranny comes into effect, not upon a military attack, not upon an outbreak or attempted revolution, but it says it should come into effect whenever the President shall proclaim an emergency, which is whenever Kissinger commands him to. Kissinger is not tricky Dicky’s advisor – he’s his master. In President Kennedy’s first two years he issued over 60 executive orders specifying powers and regulations of the bureaucracy. President Johnson added a great deal more. I don’t have the number of them, and presumably tricky Dicky has added some more since then.

One of the interesting things that came to light was when a congressman produced and read into the Congressional Record an official F.B.I. memorandum which spoke of “the necessity of brainwashing the citizenry.” The F.B.I’s activities against the Mafia are merely to suppress competition, that’s all. The F.B.I. today is a minor branch of the K.B.G. of Moscow. For the past 30 years, the F.B.I. has known the exact address of every major Communist arms dump in the United States, and they have taken the most extreme pains to avoid embarrassing the Communists by picking up any of their illegal machine gun weapons. The only people they harass are patriotic American citizens who plan not to stay in their homes till the Communist takeover.

You can see what the mark of the beast is developing into and exactly how it will come about, that no man can buy what he needs to eat nor sell whatever his own products may be, unless he has the mark of the beast, the name of the beast, or his number. This was a long way in the future when John wrote this, A.D. 94, but we don’t have long to wait for this.

[Note: It is your humble transcriber’s opinion that the interdict by the Pope did indeed historically fulfill Revelation 13:16 concerning the mark. It should be noted that the total numerical value of “Vicar of Christ” adds up to 666 in Latin. It must be remembered that this is a number relating to a man. At the time John wrote his Revelation, the 10th century Arabic numbers which we use today had not yet been invented. Before the Arabic numeral system, various numerical values were assigned to several letters of the alphabets of different languages. And indeed, VICARIUS FILII DEI (Vicar of Christ) in Roman numerals adds up to 666. There are several instances in which various names of persons can add up to 666, but the man at Revelation 13:11-18 is a two-horned beast. Two-horned because he ruled over governments, both ecclesiastical and civil. And when the history of Revelation 13:11-18 is properly identified, none other but the office of the Pope can qualify. It might parallel in some manner the United Nations interdict called “sanctions”, in which trade between nations is restricted. But surely the United Nations is not the two-horned beast at Revelation 13:11-18! Therefore, the taking of the “mark of the beast” is past history and we should not be concerned with that during our present time period. We should not yield to the scare tactics being promoted today by uninformed and unqualified propagandists. C.A.E. – End of Comparet’s Lesson #10.]

CRITICAL NOTES ON LESSON #10

Comments by William Finck initialed W.R.F.

Comments by Clifton A. Emahiser in brackets in lesson text as “your transcriber”

or initialed C.A.E. in critical notes.

Note #1: It should already be evident from the notes in Lesson #9, that there is no room in the 1260-year time frame for this first beast, given at Revelation 13:5, to reckon the Holy Roman Empire along with this entity. For this beast is the same succession of empires described in Daniel chapter 2, and in Daniel 7:17-23, the time span from the Babylonian empire to the Roman which ended the 1260-year period. The Holy Roman Empire of the 9th to the 19th centuries, whose kings served at the whims of the popes in Rome, was a manifestation of the power of the second beast, centered upon the papacy itself. W.R.F.

Note #2: Comparet has misquoted Revelation 17:15 here, which clearly says “people, multitudes and nations”, rather than “peoples, races, and nations” in the A.V. and in Greek. I suspect that he wished that his reading were so to better support his view that the “sea” were simply “non-Israel masses.” It is not meet to read into Scripture what we think it should mean, only because it better fits our interpretation. That is what Catholics and Evangelicals (etc.) do, and we want not to be as they! W.R.F.

Note #3: The first clause of Revelation 17:10 may say in Greek either “And there are seven kings”, a very natural reading, or “And they are seven kings”, although Greek words such as autos (846) or houtos (3778) are used to refer to something already mentioned (such as the seven mountains), which is not the case here. So the A.V. did not mistranslate this clause, for it is correct regardless of Scofield’s marginal notes. The word “kings” here can not properly be written “kingdoms”, however, that these seven kings are symbolic of seven kingdoms (i.e. Daniel 7:17) should be manifest. W.R.F.

Note #4A: I am perplexed that Comparet should write that “the Book of Daniel ... didn’t go beyond Rome.” Daniel 2:44-45, 7:8-14, 7:24-27, 8:9-14 and 8:23-27 all clearly “go beyond Rome”, and also coincide with and help further illustrate parts of the Revelation. W.R.F.

Note #4B: While adding Egypt to the front of this list seems arbitrary, it is not if one considers all of the empires which ever ruled over (all, or at least a substantial part of) the children of Israel. There were other “great world empires” before the Egyptian, i.e. the Hittite and the first Babylonian – that of Kush founded by Nimrod. W.R.F.

Note #5: Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia (formerly Bohemia and Moravia) are not “Balkan states.” Poland was not, as far as I can find, ever under Turkish rule, and neither Bohemia nor Moravia, kingdoms of the Holy Roman empire, were ever under Turkish rule. W.R.F.

Note #6: Figures I’ve seen estimate that approximately 1 million men died in all of Napoleon’s wars, 40% of them French, and so the number of deaths estimated in this one Russian campaign – although it was devastating – seem to be exaggerated. W.R.F.

Note #7: While Comparet seems right to reckon the one king “not yet come” of Revelation 17:10 to Napoleon, he is oblivious that it was Napoleon who was destined to take away the dominion of the papacy, the second beast of Revelation 13, for which see Daniel 7:26. Yet Napoleon was not to keep his empire long, for which see both Rev. 17:10 and Daniel 7:27. It is the Anglo-Saxon peoples of both Britain and Germany who defeated Napoleon, and Britain and then America have had world hegemony ever since. W.R.F.

Note #8: Through the Medieval period, at the height of the Catholic “church’s” power, the “church” was indeed the instrument used to manifest all the power and authority of the beast. With the decline of the “church” authority, the Central Banking System, which hides behind the scenes in the mechanizations of “western Democracy”, asserts much of the beast’s power and authority. Yet the Catholic “church” is but a part of the same system of deception. W.R.F.

Note #9: The popes certainly were the “lamb”, in pretense anyway, which “spake as a dragon”, which exercised “all the power of the first beast” (just examine the Crusades), ruled over all the kings of Europe, and controlled the hearts and minds of most of the people of Europe. For nearly all of the time from the reign of Justinian to that of Napoleon, the popes were the single dominating force in the fate of Europe, and it is disappointing that Comparet refused to see this in the context of both Revelation and Daniel. W.R.F.

Note #10: The pharaohs of Joseph’s Egypt were Shemites. The Assyrians were Shemites. The Babylonians were Cushites and Shemites (and there were Kenites among them). The Medes were Japhethites and the Persians Shemites. The Greeks were Israelites (Danaans and Dorians) and Japhethites (Ionians). The Romans were Israelites (Trojan Dardanians) and Japhethites (Thracians) who also had other Shemites (Lydians) among them. So Comparet’s “non-Israel people” and European vs. Asian distinctions here are virtually meaningless. W.R.F.

Note #11: Now, if the United Nations were the second beast, we’d have 1260 more years (from 1948) of this mess that we are in now, and I don’t think we could bear that! (see Daniel 7:25). If the United Nations were the second beast, how could Comparet explain Anglo-American hegemony since the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo? (i.e. Daniel 2:44, 7:27). Like the Catholic “church”, the United Nations has been only a cog in the wheel, a tool used by the real power-brokers, the Jewish international bankers, when it is convenient for them. When it is not convenient, they ignore it: the war currently being waged in Iraq being a perfect example of that. The United Nations is only another face for the true beast to hide behind. W.R.F.

Note #12: Much of what people feared from the United Nations we are instead getting from our own government, in the forms of NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF, the import/export bank etc., where the U.N. itself only seems to be a distraction! We should make no covenants at all with heathens, and this trend has far transcended the U.N. Most of these pacts have rather been for the benefit of the international business community, Wall Street and multinational corporations, all beyond the notice of anyone who would only watch the U.N. W.R.F.

Note #13: I must state that somehow this concern for the people of Biafra, Katanga, Nigeria etc. seems misguided. I would have more concern for the poor Swedish taxpayers who paid for the munitions and weapons wasted in Africa, trying to help a meaningless, inane cause, along with the American taxpayers whose money was wasted on food and supplies for murderous savages that we have no business interfering with or trying to “help” in the first place! W.R.F.

Note #14: I must venture, the statement here, that if Revelation 17:10 intends Napoleon as “the other” who “is not yet come”, then the eighth of Revelation 17:11 – which is a beast but not necessarily a king – may well be with us today, our current world system ruled not by a king but by the bankers and all sorts of treaties and agreements between nations. Yet only Revelation 13:16-17 talks about the ability to buy and sell only with this “mark” of the beast, and then 15:2 tells of “those who had gotten victory over the beast”, and so with the second beast of Revelation 13 properly identified as the papacy – with the help of Daniel 7 – we see that this is in the past – for as Comparet himself explains, even German kings would starve amidst their own wealth lest they obeyed the Catholic pope. Comparet downplays this only because he did not understand what these notes hopefully have already illustrated. With this I would also venture to say that the fulfillment of Revelation 17:12-18 is not yet evident. Of course Revelation 18 is not yet fulfilled. W.R.F.

Note #15: Books concerned with the evils of massive databases, transaction tracking, cashless society etc. are a cottage industry. Many Christians are concerned with these things but seem to miss the obvious evils. Perhaps the Christian shouldn’t even be using a credit card or a checking account! And these are but a sampling of many ways that even the “best” Christians contribute daily to the Babylonian system. We are given one most important warning in these times: “Get out of Babylon!” We needn’t move to the North Pole, but rather stop unnecessarily contributing to the system, even if it means being inconvenienced somewhat. W.R.F.