1917_The_Finished_Mystery_Text

That was red.— The color of sin—imperfection. "Though your sins be asscarlet."— Isa. 1:18.And power was given to him that satthereon.— The same rider, the Antichrist.To take peace from the earth.— To embroil incontroversy those who were under religiousrestraint— in other words, the entire professedchurch of God.And that they should kill one another.—Depose and destroy one another as teachers, byinveighing the Roman power against alloffenders.And there was given unto him a greatsword.— As the Lord has a great and powerfulsword, the Sword of the Spirit, which is theWord of God (Eph. 6:17), and as itFM107is represented as coming out of His mouth, so thePapacy has a great and powerful sword, inopposition to the Sword of the Spirit, and it, too,comes out of Papacy's mouth. [The word here isdifferent from Rev. 1:16 and refers to the butcherknife— Gen. 22:6, 10.] "The pope (each pope inhis turn) is the head of the false church, which ishis body, even as Christ Jesus is the Head of thetrue Church, which is His Body. Since the headis the representative of the body, and its mouthspeaks for the body, we find, as we shouldexpect, this feature of Antichrist prominentlyreferred to in the Scriptures. In Daniel 7:8, 11,25, and Rev. 13:5, 6, the mouth of Antichrist isbrought specially to our notice as a leadingcharacteristic."— B304.This period, beginning with the year 325 A. D.and extending to the year 539, was the period offormation of creeds. "Come near, put your feetupon the necks of these kings." (Josh. 10:24.)Once they were very powerful, but they are quiteharmless now. The Lord (Joshua-Savior) hashumbled them all by His own Sword of the Spiritin the hands of Pastor Russell.