REVELATION 17

In Daniel 2 we saw the Great Image, where we have Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Pagan Rome and we saw Papal Rome in the feet of Iron and Clay as well as United States of America and the ten toes of United Nations. The stone that smites the image on the feet is the 144,000, whose description we see in verse 44, 45:

Without hands means without human help. In other words it is no human devising but is something that God has done. If we look at how the temple of Solomon was built and how God builds His spiritual temple we see a correlation.

The temple was not built on site but each stone was prepared prior to building it into the temple Ellen White comments on this telling us that this is the type of God’s spiritual temple and how each of us are hewn and squared for the building. The hammer and axe that does the hewing and squaring is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the One who produces the 144,000.

It is the Holy Spirit Who builds this spiritual temple and the time when this temple is set up is when the Holy Spirit is poured out without measure at the Latter rain and this is the time of the setting up of the kingdom.

The Bible says that God’s people are lively stones, likened unto the Chief Cornerstone, which is Jesus Christ. Then it says that those who reject Christ will actually be ground to powder by the Stone and on the image it is the Stone, the 144,000 that God uses to smite the image on the feet during the time of the Papacy. God uses His 144,000, His people on the earth to prove His power in many different ways.

You know we often hear people say, or maybe we say ourselves, ‘why did God choose me to hear this message?’ or ‘why did He choose me to do anything?’ I often think that He chose me because I am the worst of the worst, that’s why, because God looks down through the scope of time and if you take Hebrews 11, for example, with all the champions of faith, and yet when you look at their lives and realize that the Bible records sins in their lives and the list gets worse and worse. One of the last ones recorded is Rahab the harlot, and here she is mentioned as a champion of faith. Then it tells us that they cannot receive the promise without us. God looks down the scope of time and He takes the worst or the worst to make up the 144,000 to prove that Satan’s lie that someone can’t keep the law is a fallacy and that Jesus Christ hews us and He shapes us like unto Himself, a stone. It is beautiful as we think of all that this has to tell us.

We don’t want to say that the foundations of the past were not sound but we need to look more deeply for added information. When Wm. Miller and the Millerites came to their understanding, they looked at the last kingdom in Bible Prophecy as indeed making up ten. They thought that this was the last piece in the Image of Daniel 2 and then Christ was to come.

Our understanding is the same, it’s still ten, and there is still a kingdom that’s made under Christ but there is a present truth application. The Bible shows us that history is an example and type for us on whom the ends of the world are come. We see this is the first and the last, the beginning and the end. The Millerite history is serious sacred history that has laid our foundation at the first angel. That’s the foundation and if the foundations be destroyed—what can the righteous do. We need to understand our foundations.

Revelation 17:1-14

We are going to do a verse by verse breakdown and look at some of the intricate things there and tie it into Daniel 2 and 11:40-45.

When John was given this vision he is taken into the ‘wilderness’. As a student of prophecy we need to know what the ‘wilderness’ is. If we look back at Revelation 12 the wilderness is mentioned twice. There is something that is connected with the wilderness that we need to understand.

The ‘man child’ is Christ, Who was caught up to God in AD 31 and this was at the time of the power of Pagan Rome.

1260 days which represents the 1260 years of the Papal supremacy. In verse 5 it is Pagan Rome and in Verse 6 it is Papal Rome. God’s prophets want us to understand the dual aspects of Rome. Rome establishes the vision. Pagan and Papal Rome are mentioned and connected with the wilderness where the woman was taken is a time period, 1260 years of Papal supremacy.

This adds up also to 1260 days which are 1260 years. Same time period, the ‘wilderness’ time period has to do with the 1260 years of Papal supremacy. We know then that in Rev. 17:3, we know that John is carried to this time period, but is he at the beginning of the time period, in the midst of it or at the end of it? There is a mystery that is there that God has given us these clues to be able to decipher. If we don’t understand where John is in the vision we can get man wrong ideas.

Some men who have given us powerful principles of Bible prophecy go off here on this point by failing to use their own principles. So let’s find out where John is.

Notice that she is already described as being the mother of harlots; therefore the daughters that came out of Rome in this vision are designated already as harlots. Now when the reformation of 1517 was beginning, they were on their way—but was the reformation complete? No, it wasn’t a complete reformation and because they came to a place where they stopped—they became harlots, still retaining some of the doctrines of Rome. At this point in the game, she is the mother of harlots. She wasn’t the mother of harlots at the beginning of this period, it was towards the end, as the churches began to separate but never came all the way out. Now notice verse 6:

Here John sees this mother of harlots and she is drunken with the blood of the saints. We know that during that time period she was persecuting the saints, and we know that it is not just one drink that makes one drunken, it is a binge of drinking and at the end you become drunken. So it is not at the beginning of the 1260 years, or at the middle, but it is towards the end. Christ said that He would cut these days short for the sake of the righteous, so it is at the end of this time period that John brings us. It is at the time period of 1798. So John’s vision here is a vision of the 1798 time period.

Notice: ‘That thou sawest’—past tense

It ‘was’—past tense

It ‘Is not’—present tense it ‘is not’ in 1798

It ‘Shall ascend’—future

It ‘Shall go into perdition’—future finality

Ascend out of the bottomless pit—will come up again out of its circumstances.

There is only one ‘Beast Power’ that fits this description and that is the Papacy. It is the ‘Mother of Harlots’, ‘Great Babylon’.

Note: "and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world" here is another key point. The Bible gives us so much information that we can understand its message. Compare with Revelation 13:8 "And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

Now notice the end of verse 8— and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder . . when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is." First it said "and is not"—then it says "and yet is".

This "and yet is" repetition tells us something more here. In the period that the Beast Power was not; 1798-1840s, Protestant America was still carrying the woman in their hearts. The Reformation was not complete—the Woman still lived in her daughters, who held on to Sunday Worship the mark of the Beast’s Power. She was still there and yet they did not know it. This is why God had to separate a people and this is the whole cleansing period—first and second cleansing—that took place in the Millerite movement to prepare a people separated from Rome and complete the reformation.

There are many confused presentations of these verses and we have to look carefully not to wrest the meaning here. The Bible here is NOT talking about individuals here but kingdoms in prophecy. Kingdoms; not seven popes. We will take it point by point:

Five Kingdoms have already fallen when John sees this vision.

The Fifth one here is the Papacy as it is finished also at the time of 1798. Notice these five agree perfectly with the prophecies in Daniel 2, 7, and 8. This is important because the prophets are subject to the prophets and prophecy is all one whole, no part is to be interpreted in a way that does not agree with the rest. All of these five had fallen by 1798.

Which kingdom was now on the stage of action in 1798? It is United States of America.

At this time we are told the "other is not yet come", and when he would come he "must continue a short space", a short period of time. Notice verse 11:

11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.

This is the Papacy that ‘was and is not’, and it goes on to say he will come back as the eight and is of the seven and go into perdition. So we know that there are seven and there is an eighth one that comes and it is the Papacy again.

Notice that there are seven heads on this beast, there is not an eight head on this beast, so we know the number eight is symbolic.

The number eight in prophecy is symbolic of resurrection, and the Papacy always appears as a number eight. Notice these examples:

Daniel 7:7, 8 – Rome divided into 10 kingdoms, the papal horn was a separate power, it (the papal horn) uprooted 3 of the first horns leaving 7 with itself being the 8th but of the 7 (it was in Italy one of the remaining horns).

Daniel 8:3, 5, 8, 9 – 2 horns on ram, 1 horn on the goat, and 4 horns divided to the four winds, the little horn is the 8th

Revelation 13:1, 3 – 7 heads on the beast, 1 receives a deadly wound and then is resurrected as the 8th but of the 7.

Bible prophecy’s number for the Papacy is eight.

The first day of the week is mentioned 8 times in the New Testament; reminding us of the resurrection of Christ (see Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19; Acts 20:7; 2 Corinthians 16:2).

Circumcision was to be performed on the 8th day a symbol of baptism or the new birth (see Leviticus 12:1-3; Luke 1:59; Acts 7:8; Philippians 3:5; Colossians 2:11-13; Romans 6:3, 4).

The eighth in this prophecy refers to resurrection—when the deadly wound is healed.

Let’s look at which power comes into the picture between the USA and the resurrected Papacy.

This ‘one who has not yet come’ is a kingdom made up of a confederacy of ten kings. So the ten horns match with the ten toes in Daniel 2 which represents the United Nations of the world also known as the ‘New World Order’. (NWO)

A ‘woman’ in Bible Prophecy represents a church, a religious entity.

Seven heads: horns, kings, kingdoms. Vs. 9 These heads are civil powers, the woman sits on these civil powers. It is the woman who is in control.

Seven mountains: churches. Vs. 9 These are symbolic of churches; she sits on these religious powers. The number seven represents completion—she sits on all the churches of the world. She is the leading moral authority in the world. Is she that today? Yes, she surely is.

This is referring to the last days when God is going to cleanse away the filth of Zion and raise up a pure people to serve Him. In this time the seven—or all of the women–or religious powers want to take the name of Rome. This is a last day situation, seven women under one man.

"A woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast." Vs. 3 She sits here on a symbol of world civil power, and she is in control. If you are riding a horse, you are the one in control. She has the reigns and the beast has the muscle power.

"I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters." Vs. 1 Here she sits upon many waters, which stand for peoples, nations, and multitudes.

"The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues." Vs. 15

Seven heads: horns, kings, kingdoms. Vs. 9

The seven heads represent civil authority. Pagan Rome was the symbol of civil power. Pagan Rome disintegrated into ten kingdoms, and then seven. The seven European kings gave their militaries and civil authority to the papacy, while also changing their legal religious profession from pagan to Catholic. The seven heads represent one part of what the whore rules over at the end. That part is the state. A beast is also a symbol of civil power.

"A woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast." Vs. 3

"Are seven mountains": churches. Vs. 9

In the verse she also sits upon seven mountains. Mountains represent churches.

King of the North – Papacy (Beast)

Glorious Land – U.S.A (False Prophet)

Egypt – World / U.N. (Dragon)

See Ezekiel 29:3 Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.