192    The Bible and the Future of the World 

    Peace will be given to the world, to a degree and only for a limited time, 

after the Forty Years. This time of limited peace will begin in the year A.D. 

2040. 

    This saying also applies to the end of the nearly seven years of the 

Church's great suffering (during the 25th century  A.D.). The Millennium, 

the time of great holiness on earth, begins only after a large number of 

sinners repent and are forgiven by God. Even some of those who have 

committed very great sins will be converted back to God. Conversion 

precedes peace. 

 6. `Afterwards this peace will be disturbed by the monster.'   

    After the Forty Years, there will be a time of peace and rebuilding. The 

Church will have great success in preaching the Gospel. However, following 

some years of relative peace, people will again slip into sin. Their sins will 

become worse and worse, generation after generation, until God punishes 

them again with wars and other sufferings. Then, after many years of sin, 

war, violence, and turmoil, Antichrist will come to power. The monster is 

Antichrist. Antichrist is human, but he behaves like a monster. His self, his 

being, becomes so distorted by sin and evil that he will be more like a 

monster than a human. 

    This saying also refers to the time of the Millennium, a time of true peace 

and true holiness which will last for over a thousand years. At the end of 

that time, again, the devil will deceive people and stir up revolt against God 

and the Church (Rev 20:7 8). This revolt will fail completely. The monster 

also refers to the devil. 

 7. `And the monster will arrive at the end of the nineteenth century or at 

the latest at the commencement of the twentieth.'   

    The Virgin Mary gives two different centuries when the monster will 

arrive. Mary knows when the monster arrives; she does not give two dates 

from lack of certainty about the future. She gives two dates in order to give 

more meaning to her words. 

    The monster referred to here is Adolf Hitler, who was a foreshadowing of 

Antichrist. He was not Antichrist, but was like him in his evil deeds, and in 

the terror and destruction which he brought. Hitler was a foreshadowing of 

Antichrist. Hitler was born in the 19th century, but he came to power in the 

early part of the 20th century. The meaning depends on when you consider 

him to have arrived, at his birth or when he takes power. 

    The Virgin Mary is referring to Hitler as a way of explaining what 

Antichrist will be like. Antichrist is rightly referred to as a monster, for he