 Daniel
7:7-8,19, 23"...a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and
extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed,
and trampled down the remainder with its feet; and it was different from
all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. While I
was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one, came up
among them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots
before it; and behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man,
and a mouth uttering great boasts.
"Then I desired to know the exact meaning of the fourth beast, which
was different from all the others, exceedingly dreadful, with its teeth of
iron and its claws of bronze, and which devoured, crushed, and trampled
down the remainder with its feet...Thus he said: 'The fourth beast will be a fourth kingdom on the earth,
which will be different from all the other kingdoms, and it will devour
the whole earth and tread it down and crush it."
Dan 8:9-12, 22-24
"And out of one of [the four horns] came forth a rather small horn
which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward
the Beautiful Land. And it grew up to the host of heaven and caused some
of the host and some of the stars to fall to the earth, and it trampled
them down. It even magnified itself to be equal with the Commander of the
host; and it removed the regular sacrifice from Him, and the place of His
sanctuary was thrown down. And on account of transgression the host will
be given over to the horn along with the regular sacrifice; and it will
fling truth to the ground and perform its will and prosper.
"And the broken horn and the four horns that arose in its place represent
four kingdoms which will arise from his nation, although not with his
power. And in the latter period of their rule, when the transgressors have
run their course, a king will arise insolent and skilled in intrigue. And
his power will be mighty, but not by his own power, and he will destroy to
an extraordinary degree and prosper and perform his will; he will destroy
mighty men and the holy people." |
It is clear from the Scriptures that the individual
"man of sin" or Antichrist will be an icon of
the empire he will control, the two both being referred to interchangeably
in the Scripture in the same way we might say either 'Hitler' or 'Nazi
Germany' did this or that and mean the same thing. The
point is that through the personality cult following the Antichrist develops, the
spirit of his dominion will be a reflection of his own decidedly
anti-Christ spirit. Thus, an interesting correlation
appears between the symbolism of Schwarzenegger's movie characters and
lines, his real life ambitions and personality, the Antichrist of
Scripture, and the imagery of the dreadful fourth beast of Daniel's
vision.
Daniel saw an image of a kingdom that would appear first under the rule
of ten powerful leaders who conspire to break the power of Babylon
(America, in my estimation), then fall
under the control of the Antichrist and proceed to launch all out
genocidal war against the saints. The kingdom itself is illustrated
as a dreadful beast unlike the other three (which were illustrated
primarily by a
lion, bear, and leopard, respectively) that had large iron teeth, bronze claws, and that
stomped everything with its feet that it didn't devour and crush first.
While Daniel didn't have any trouble finding ways to describe the other
three beasts, he knew of nothing comparable to the fourth, so he just
described what he saw instead. Daniel
never saw a Terminator movie, though (or did he?), and Arnold
Schwarzenegger's most famous movie character is in many ways both a close
visual representation of Daniel's vision and a personification of its
essence.
It is fundamentally flawed logic to evaluate a person
based on words, imagery, and actions known to be fictional, but the actor
himself lends considerable credibility to the comparison.
For one, he quite openly casts his own public image as a virtual collage
of attributes from the movie roles for which he is internationally famous.
By his own diligent efforts, It is practically impossible to discern where
the actor ends and the roles he plays begin. Obviously, the images
of his fictional character roles are intended to convey how he WANTS to be
seen by others. Though it will be covered separately, it should be
noted that both Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Antichrist of Scripture are
given to succeeding at whatever they do: If Arnold wants to be seen as a
Greek god like Hercules, a Barbarian like Conan, a Terminator (sent by the
gods?) from the future to save the world he formerly helped destroy, or
whatever, then it isn't unreasonable to conclude that significant elements
of these fictional personas actually represent him, especially with regard to the
characteristics held in common by several of them (strong, violent,
independent, aggressive, determined, etc.).
That said, my point here is regarding appearances only, and I think it sufficiently obvious to not belabor: If Daniel had lived in our time, he could easily have said the fourth beast looked like the Terminator in the same way he drew upon a lion, bear, and leopard to describe the first three...and virtually everyone in the world would know exactly what he meant. Maybe that was the point all along...to communicate to us, those living in the days when Daniel's prophecies would be unsealed so the saints of that time could understand their relevance?
What's even more freaky about the symbolism lacing Schwarzenegger
movies may be yet to come with the production of Terminator 4.
Reports are that now Governor Schwarzenegger's role will largely be
"played" by computer-generated digital imaging since he's too engrossed in
the state of California's business to play a major part himself.
Imagine that! A realistic, digital representation of the humanoid
machine destroyer-turned-savior from the future that can even talk!!
Something tells me that this movie will somehow wind up being a MAJOR
media event.
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