Shawn,
Thanks for the note.
I see it happening at the very point of Christ's time and I believe it will happen all over again just before He comes back except to the church rather than the Christ.
At Christ's time you had the world government (Rome in Pilate) and the chief priest (Caiphas) shaking hands and really liking each other for the first time when they were treating Christ with contempt and killing Him.
You see it in the Catholic Church where the Pope was shaking hands with government officials all over the known world killing real Christians (and other non-conformists)
The Anglican Church with Henry the VIII persecuting brothers
Here's a guy that did some research.
Revelation is impossible for me to understand but I can say fairly confidently that when John speaks of the "beast" he is speaking of a Caesar-like figure and his right hand man is a false prophet. And these two terribly persecute the brethern.
We are living in an age where the world religion is inclusivistic to a greater and greater extent except for US! We are exclusivistic because Christ is the way! So, homosexualty (remarkably accepted in Roman culture and increasingly so today), abortion, (same thing), divorce among Pharisees (Christian-culture folk of our day) to me speaks of history repeating itself all over again with the King showing up (again) except this time with a sword rather than crucifixion.
Where did I pick this up? Man I don't know. It may be a fanciful idea I have cultivated based on an erroneous view of what Revelation says with an eye to what we humans tend to do with religion and government (our way or die!) and a remnant that stays the course unto salvation at the expense of their lives.
I do not like the church and state working together. It speaks of death to believers and doctrine repeatedly. Now, you who know Revelation and history better, please put me to task on this because it effects my entire view of how we Christians are to relate to government. I am "hands-off" laissez faire in regards to Christians and the government (though I know the confessions see no ill in it)