n Revelation 6, we find a reference to the believers who have lost their lives for the sake of the Gospel:

“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” — Revelation 6:9,10

The Prophetic Parallels Continue

      Those familiar with our work are aware we’ve long emphasized the prophetic parallels of the world’s kingdoms as a way of anticipating future fulfillment of prophecy. In this regard, it’s useful to note the Martyrs in the fifth seal are rather sharply separated from the first four seals, for the former develop as a sub-group, in that each of the first four seals are imaged as color coded horses with a rider.

      About 12 years ago, I experienced a prophetic breakthrough when I realized the four horsemen were synonymous with the four beasts of Daniel 7 — the lion, the bear, the leopard, and the diverse fourth beast kingdom. I had already concluded these four kingdoms were distinct from the mainstream teaching that erroneously says they are another version of the four kingdoms of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2 — the statue dream representing Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome.

      Once I perceived the lion was the British Empire, the Bear the Soviet Union, and the Leopard the Nazi Reich, the process of elimination led to identifying the fourth beast with America, as well as our various political tentacles, such as the UN, the G8, and the North American Union. Furthermore, a huge truth is found in the White Horse as the lion of England (White Hall, White Chapel, colonial era white wigs), the Red Horse as the Russian Bear (the Bolshevik Reds overthrew the White Russians), and the agile Leopard (which is a breed of Panther) as the Black Horse (Black Panther, Black SS Uniforms, Black Science).

      The American Pale Horse is a different type of beast (“diverse from the others”), which ushers in the end times, transitioning humanity to a New World Order government, seen as the composite beast of Revelation 13 — the one with the feet of a bear, mouth of a lion, and body of a leopard.

      In many previous works, I’ve demonstrated these progressive identifications indicate a parallel structure to the ancient kingdoms of the Old Testament, where we see a striking similitude between Babylon/Britain, Persia/Russia, Greece/Germany, and Rome/America. With these facts as prologue, I now see how the martyrs fit precisely into the prophetic panorama just described.

In The Days Of These Kings

      Almost all prophecy teachers recognize the two kingdoms that preceded Daniel 2’s statue imagery of the head of gold (Babylon), arms of Silver (Persian Union), Brass belly (Greece), and iron legs (Rome) — and those are the only two kingdoms that dominated Israel before the quartet seen in the statue. They are, of course, Egypt and Assyria. Thus, the four statue kingdoms are actually kingdoms 3, 4, 5, and 6 since Egypt and Assyria had already come and gone by the time Nebuchadnezzar’s famous dream occurred.

      When the LORD revealed to Daniel the identities of these four kingdoms in a “night vision” (Daniel 2:19), Daniel also prophesied of the coming of the kingdom of God:

“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” — Daniel 2:44

      Although the many false prophets of contemporary Christendom continue to tell us the kingdom of God comes after ten kings appear (through an unstated identification of the ten toes of the statue as kings), there are actually only four kingdoms mentioned, and they are clearly Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Thus, the prophecy plainly states that after the four kingdoms have emerged (“in the days of these kings”), the kingdom of God will arrive. It’s self evident Jesus Christ arrived, saying the kingdom of God is at hand, during the Roman Empire.

      This makes the kingdom of God the 7th kingdom — a rather fitting symbolic number. We then see the 8th kingdom, which Revelation 17 characterizes as the Beast Empire (which is “of the seven”), arrives as a synthesis of its predecessors. Since the 6th kingdom was pagan Rome, the 8th has to be a combination of Rome and the kingdom of God — i.e. the “Holy Roman Empire.”

The Christian Timeline

      Just as the 8th day is the first day of the new week, the 8th kingdom resets the cycle, and the Holy Roman Empire becomes the 1st of a new set. The second timeline recapitulates the first, except now the common denominator is Spiritual Israel, in the Christian era.

      The 2nd kingdom is then manifested as the imperial kingdom of Spain, complete with the conquistadors and the beginning of the colonial epic that will reach its apex with its successor, the British Commonwealth. We note, for example, the demise of the Spanish military might was punctuated by a completely unexpected naval defeat when God intervened against the famed Spanish Armada. I would remind the reader the British lion “came up from the sea” (Daniel 7:3).

      This was an amazing parallel to the end of Spain’s ancient counterpart in the Old Testament timeline, in which the Assyrian dominion also came to a sudden end in Jerusalem in 702 BC. In that awesome event, described in II Kings, God said of the Assyrian leader

“Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.” — II Kings 19:7

      When we trace the Scriptural use of the word blast, we see a parallel to the great wind that history tells us thwarted the huge naval power of Spain, which was repelled from England in 1588 AD. Indeed, Spain embarked with over 100 ships and sailed up from Spain along the English Channel, where they ran into the “blast” of the LORD. 2,500 years before it occurred, Psalms records the episode:

“Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.” — Psalm 18:15

The Parallel To The Kingdom Of God

      As previously stated, after Rome and Spain, we see the segregated set of four kingdoms of Britain, Russia, Germany, and America as imaged through the metaphor of the lion, bear, leopard, and diverse fourth beast of Daniel 7. Because Daniel’s prophecy of the first timeline has the kingdom of God arriving after the 6th kingdom of antiquity (the Roman Empire) has arrived, we can now make some projections of coming events in our time.

      Once again, America is Rome’s parallel in the Christian era, so we should be looking for a parallel to the manifestation of the kingdom of God, which arrived during Roman times. Once we realize the four horsemen of Revelation are actually synonymous with the four beast kingdoms of Britain, Russia, Germany, and America, it becomes clear the seal that follows the pale horse (America) is the parallel numeric equivalent of the 7th kingdom, the kingdom of God.

      Intriguingly, Revelation describes that seal in terms that are mysteriously similar to the way Christ’s kingdom was manifested in the first timeline, and that is through the martyrdom of Jesus Christ:

“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held…

“And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.” — Revelation 6:9,11

      This is an amazing sequence, for it again confirms the transitional cycle in which the 6th kingdom (Rome/America) sees the manifestation of the 7th kingdom (Christ/Martyrs), then synthesizes them into the 8th kingdom (Holy Roman/Beast Empire) of the Antichrist.

      In fact, after the martyrs of Jesus are seen in Revelation, we find a description of that 8th kingdom of Antichrist, in tribulational terms, where we see

“…there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood….” — Revelation 6:12

      This coincides with the Beast kingdom being “full of darkness” as a direct result of the globalist tampering with “the powers of the heavens” spoken of by Christ. Furthermore, when the Beast’s kingdom is “scorched with great heat,” related to that darkening of the sun, the text tells us this judgment was because

“…they have shed the blood of saints and prophets….” — Revelation 16:5

The Sum Of The Saints

      This chronology directly contradicts the theological perspective that rules the churches, for the false prophets preach escape through the fraud of the pre-tribulational rapture, even as the Preterists tell us not to be concerned, for the tribulation supposedly already occurred. The Amillennialists tell us this corrupt world is the kingdom of God, while the Jewish Supremacists prepare to rule the planet with one world under Antichrist.

      The sum of the matter is, the greater body of Christ will repeat the pattern that Jesus established. The day of the martyrs is directly ahead as God will complete the work He has begun in Christ; and just as Jesus said, vast numbers of believers are buying, selling, building, marrying and giving in marriage, and have no idea they are about to become the martyrs of Revelation:

“Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt: And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames. — Isaiah 13:6-8

“And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days. — Daniel 11:33

“And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.” — Daniel 7:27

The Multitude And The Martyrs

The Sixth Seal

The Lion The Bear And The Leopard

Serpents And Scorpions

Multitudes In The Valley Of Decision