SPECIAL PROPHECY UPDATE NUMBER 240ASeptember 10, 2005
Armageddon – Not in the Far Distant Future – Part 4
An Exposition of Revelation 16:13 to 18:24
Revelation 16:16 – And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
Ezekiel 33:3-6 – If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; [4] Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. [5] He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. [6] But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.
The primary Scripture, among those on which I will be expositing in this series, specifically warns those setting under false teachings to break away from the religious “her” that is teaching them today.
Revelation 18:4 – And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
This Scripture lets me know there are saved men and women who are in the “her” of this verse, because it calls them “my people.” The primary purpose of this series is to specifically identify the “her” and to implore those “in her” to come “out of her”, and to warn those “not in her” to stay “out of her.”
Now, I shall continue expositing from where we left off in Part 3.
REVELATION 17:6 – And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
Verse six requires little comment – hundreds of volumes have been amassed by countless writers attesting to horrible killing and torture of true believers by the Catholic Church before and during the Reformation. One day she will answer for the long trail of blood of the saints.
The “woman” represents the great apostasy from worship in spirit and in truth. She rides on the Antichrist because he will support her after she confirms his phony resurrection as genuine. When he makes his claim to have returned from the dead, the leader of the apostate church, who will be the false prophet pope of Rome, will recognize his resurrection as a true miracle, and the followers of this apostate church will believe it. The world religious leader will be the false prophet of Revelation 13. After this event, all of the great world religious leaders, living in the known world of John’s day, will fall into line one by one.
REVELATION 17:7-14 – And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. [8] The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: 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, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. [9] And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. [10] And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. [11] And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. [12] And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. [13] These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. [14] These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.
The best way to explain Revelation 17:7-14 is to exposit on Revelation 13:3,4.
Revelation 13:3 – And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
The seven heads of the beast represent seven evil empires that that have, or shall, persecute the nation of Israel. They are, from the first to the seventh – The Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, Roman, and the soon coming seventh empire of the antichrist, which is the wounded head on John’s beast, but represents the little horn that arises from the midst of the ten horns on the fourth beast of Daniel.
Daniel 7:8,21 – I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things. [21] I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;
John symbolizes antichrist as a bleeding head on his first beast, while Daniel pictures him as the eleventh horn on his fourth beast.
Revelation 13:3 – And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
The word “deadly” is “thanatos.” It is an adjective used as a noun. It simply means “death.” A deadly wound is a wound that renders someone dead. A deadly wound, unless miraculously healed, is a wound from which the recipient dies stone, cold, dead. Some say that this represents the fourth beast of Daniel, which would be the sixth beast of John, but this same bleeding head on John’s first beast later becomes a non-bleeding head on John’s second beast.
Apparently, the antichrist, who is represented as being the king of the seventh head, suffers a wound from a weapon of war that would kill an ordinary man, but he miraculously recovers. This would explain the last two sentences in the next verse.
Revelation 13:4 – And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
The world, as a whole, has never been privy to a confirmed, visual, return of a man from the spiritual world. We accept the resurrection of Christ by faith. The world has long sought for absolute proof of the resurrection of a stone cold dead human. They may finally receive it in the return to life of antichrist from a wound that would kill any other man. Who on this earth could be said to be “like unto” such a man? And how would one be able to win a war against someone who could keep coming back from the dead? In Revelation 13:12 he is again referred to as “the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed,” and in 13:14 as “the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.” When John wrote the Book of Revelation the first five kings, which pictured the “mountain” empires of Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and Greece, had already fallen, and he was writing during the “one is” Roman Empire, which was the sixth. He indicated that one was yet to come, which will be the seventh empire of antichrist. But if the antichrist, as the king of the seventh empire dies from a deadly wound, and then returns as a resurrected man indwelt totally by the spirit of the dragon, he would, in reality, have been the king of both the seventh and eighth empires. He would be the king of an Islamic Empire that would last for three and one-half years.
Revelation 17:10-14 – And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. [11] And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. [12] And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. [13] These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. [14] These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.
“That was” means the beast was previously alive. “And is not” means the beast died. “Even he is” means he came back to life to be the eighth. It is difficult to follow the personification changes of the antichrist from his rise to power to his fall. At times he is represented as a dying head on the first beast that comes back to life on the second beast. Sometimes he is a part of the beast, and sometimes he is the beast. However, in most of the cases in Revelation 13, 17, and 18, he is identified as the entire beast.
Revelation 19:19-21 – And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. [20] And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. [21] And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.
Daniel 7:11-14 – I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame. [12] As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time. [13] I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. [14] And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.