Beast of Revelation.pdf - Friends of the Sabbath Australia

The Beast of Revelation
world. She is not to commit spiritual “fornication” in some premarital
church-state arrangement. She is prophesied to remain a “little flock”
(cf. Luke 12:32)—persecuted by the world (Matt. 5:10–12; Luke 6:26).
So the fallen woman in Revelation 17 is clearly a false church
“with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication” (v. 2). Like
an ancient temple prostitute, she grants favors to various rulers in
exchange for their support of her false religion—only the favors are
now political. Rather than a persecuted little flock, she is a huge
church, “great” in influence, which is doing the persecuting! Just how
great? Decked in royal garb, she rules over “peoples, multitudes,
nations, and tongues” (v. 15)—most directly the Roman Beast.
According to Scripture, the seven heads of this Beast are
“seven mountains on which the woman sits” (v. 9). Aside from
meaning seven successive kingdoms, as the next verse shows, this
also clearly points to the City of Seven Hills—Rome! Verse 18
says the woman “is that great city which reigns over the kings of
the earth.” The next chapter reveals that city to be “Babylon,” but
its current manifestation from the time John wrote until now has
been Rome. As a continuation of Babylon, Isaiah 47 calls her the
“daughter of Babylon” and the “Lady of Kingdoms” (vv. 1, 5).
This is clearly the same woman (cf. v. 8; Rev. 18:7).
Who else—or what else—could be meant but the Church of
Rome? Is not this an exact parallel to the little horn of Daniel 7
that persecutes God’s true Church? What other church has conducted
an “Inquisition” through which multitudes—including
God’s faithful people—were slaughtered? Only the Roman
Church has presided over such butchery.
The system is labeled “Mystery, Babylon the Great”—a perpetuation
of the pagan Babylonian Mysteries, now grown great
and powerful. In the next chapter we will see how it has mixed
pagan elements with corrupted biblical themes to form mainstream
“Christian” doctrines. Is there another “Holy Mother
Church” that so perfectly fits the description of the “Mother of
Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth”?
Only the Roman Church has ridden the Beast. She first rode
it during the Late Roman Empire, in the days of Constantine and
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