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the largest religion on earth in number of adherents today.
Notice, this "woman" was drunken with the blood of the
saints--just as Daniel's"little horn" persecuted the saints of
Christ--and prevailed against them until the coming of Christ to
rule the world (Dan. 7:21,22). This, incidentally, is not
referring to the Roman Empire persecutions, where professing
Christians were thrown to hungry lions as a "sport" in the Roman
Coliseum. This is speaking of a medieval persecution.
Then (verse 8) the angel in this vision explains to the
apostle the time element. Remember, this whole seventeenth chapter
prophecy is thrown in--as an inset into the sequence of prophesied
events of the book of Revelation, just at the point where world
events had come to the very time of Christ's return in POWER. So,
we know the time of events shown the apostle in the seventeenth
chapter is shortly before Christ's Second Coming.
Verse 8 explains that John is seeing this "beast" at a time in
world events when the "Holy Roman Empire" was, and is not, and
shall ascend (be restored) out of the bottomless pit--that is a
state of virtual nonexistence.
Notice the latter part of verse 8. The whole world will be
shocked in wonder, when this final revival of the "Holy Roman
Empire" occurs. It is "the beast that was," and (at the
time-setting of this vision) "is not, and yet is." That would
place the time when the vision John saw this church riding over the
governments of Europe, at approximately 1935 and up to our very
present moment.
It was in 1935 when Mussolini declared he had restored the
"Holy Roman Empire" yet, as stated, I do not remember that it was
regarded as sufficiently newsworthy to make the front pages of
newspapers. I did read the dispatches--but it was not given big
headlines. Probably only a few even noticed it. It was such an
insignificant revival of the Holy Roman Empire that the world in
general considered the empire "WAS NOT," and yet it was. This was
the sixth "head" of the "beast".
Verse 9: the seven heads of this medieval-modern empire are
symbolized as seven mountains on which the "woman" sat. I have
already explained there were "valleys" in between the times when
this European empire rose to its greatest heights.
Verse 10: Revised Standard Version,"They are also seven
kings" or kingdoms--eras--five of whom have (at the time of the
vision) "fallen ...one is" (1935), "and the other is not yet come."
Verse 11: And this beast "is the eighth and is of the seven."
That is, it is of, following after, as part of, the seven heads of
the thirteenth chapter "beast"--and it is the eighth. The seven
were Babylon, Persia, Greece with four heads, and the Roman Empire
of 31 B.C.- 476 A.D. This is a continuation of the same Gentile
system. It is the final stage of the entire system dating from 604
B.C. to Christ's Second Coming, when it shall go into perdition!
(Utter destruction!)