Messiah and His disciples embodied the principle, “he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.” The rejection of this message and the messengers by the remnant of Abraham’s descendants caused their spiritual desolation, followed by the second destruction of Jerusalem, all cryptically foretold in the pictures given to Daniel. And these events, in which the Eternal Word gave witness to His select people in a small locality in Palestine, foreshadowed the same process that would occur globally. As the message began to spread to the world, there arose another Judas, the son of perdition, a system combining religious and political forces. It was part of the inner circle, which like Judas refused to be cleansed of the principle of self-exaltation. Keeping some of the forms of Messiah’s religion, but incorporating the essence, concepts, and forms of proud paganism, it became the greatest expression of a desolating power, at least in terms of deceit, arrogance, persecution, and longevity. It carried the fulfillment of Daniel’s fourth kingdom to a new high. So horrendous was this power that it was described at length not only in Daniel’s visions but also in the amazing overview given to the disciple of Messiah who wrote the most about self-sacrificing love. John was shown it as the continuation of the spirit of Babylon at its worst. The severity of the situation occasioned within the prophecies multiple, time-agonized cries of “How long?”, breathtaking descriptions of the horrendous destruction “till…”, and corresponding, amazing sets of time prophecies, the greatest the world would ever be given. Most who were confronted by this power were captured by the deception or crushed by its coercive force, but the foundation laid down by Messiah and His disciples survived this worst of all assaults, as a remnant continued to receive a love of the truth, and rejected this latest and greatest version of the lie. They were thus enabled to keep the commandments of God (the codifying of self-sacrificing love seen most clearly in the tables given to Moses) and have the testimony of Jesus (the witness that He Himself has given, in person and through His messengers, of the covenant of selfless love).