The Four Beasts

Daniel the Prophet - In chapter 7, Daniel gets a vision. He sees four animals, a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a large and terrible animal with ten horns! Some time later, a small horn appears. This is probably the same story that we find in the dream in chapter two. But, in this reference there are even more details.
The explanation Daniel gets, is that the fourth beast will be different. The other kingdoms had been pagan kingdoms, the fourth kingdom, the Roman Empire, began in the same way, but changed character when Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity.
Later the king of the Franks, Clovis, converted to Catholicism. He united France into a kingdom, and made his army available to the church. The church was then able to take up the fight with the three horns that had to be pulled up to prepare room for the little horn that had eyes like human eyes, and a mouth that spoke arrogant things!
It was God who showed the prophet what was important, the problem arose when the "prophet" did not declare what God had said, but his own view. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah lamented their distress, for those who were the shepherds of God led the people astray. Isaiah says that they slept, that their eyes were closed, that the heads of the prophets were covered.
This is probably the Laodiceans' problem in the Revelation 3:14-22 as well.
The word “bishop” means overseer, one who has the overview and conveys the truth of God. The little horn on the fourth beast had eyes like a human. And, as the text shows us, it was not God's law, or God's truth, that it held high, but instead it was the church’s truths that were at the center.
The problem with the little horn on the fourth beast is that it has eyes like a human, it acts like a seer, a bishop, but it does not have the word of God. It is not “a lamp for our feet and a light on our path.” It replaces the word of God with human thoughts and traditions. The Bible says that it would speak words against the Most High and “think to change times and laws”.
King Nebuchadnezzar had tried to change the image of God, and put up his own image.
But history will repeat itself. There is a power in history that has oppressed the Most High, for one time and times and half a time (3 ½ years), or 42 months, or 1260 days! In Bible prophecy, one day represents 1 year of actual time. And the Bible marks the beginning of this particular prophecy as 538 AD. That puts the end of the prophecy at 1798 AD. What happened at these two “end points”?
In 538 AD, the current pope added military power to his arsenal! In 1798 AD, the pope was taken captive by French general Berthier, by order of Napoleon Bonaparte!
The Catholic church had become a persecuting power. The word “heresy” literally means “to make up one’s own mind”! The Catholic church did not want anyone to “make up their own minds”, but to blindly follow the teachings, not of God’s Word, but of their own popes’ fantasies! The little horn on the fourth beast, with eyes like a human, made himself God, and set aside the word of God and changed the 10 Commandments, the Law that God had written with his own finger!
This church power throughout history has been arrogant and has pitted itself directly against God! Will the Catholic church change? The Bible says it will not change, but will “make war with the saints” and will “overcome them”. (For the full context read Revelation 13:1-8)
But God’s court is ready to make a final ruling!