Although we have on previous occasions mentioned much of what we imagine to be the conditions and events leading up to the “Great Storm”, we had not yet focused on the true element which will prove instrumental in the total destruction of the present order, the wrath of man himself, i.e. the Beast which comes forth from the bottomless pit.
“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.” (Rev 17:1-3)
“The beast that thou saw WAS, and IS NOT; and IS ABOUT TO COME up out of the abyss…”
“All students of Revelation know the enormous complexities of Verses 8-13. These verses will remain complex no matter what we do to simplify them. Nevertheless, it is important to try to identify the players in this saga as clearly as possible, and the Revelator supplies enough clues to make certain conclusions secure. By identifying the players, a great deal of the difficulty of interpretation is eliminated.”
Before going any further it is important here to remember that the Beast itself (the scarlet beast) consist of FOUR PARTS:
1) The rider: (the “Woman”) the apostate Roman Catholic Church, which has, indeed, by harlotry controlled the direction of the beast.
2) The body of the beast: The People who either have nominally supported, or have by coercion been functionally a part of the arrangement.
3) The horns: The supportive powers (governments, nations) which, throughout the age, have fluctuated in identity.
4) The heads: The forms of authority, which have acted as kinds of umbrella philosophies over this complex entity.
In Verse 8 we are introduced to a BEAST, which we were told we “SAW” earlier.
Point # 1: The Beast here spoken of is NOT the ENTIRE 7-headed, 10-horned beast, spoken of above in Verse 3.
How do we know this?
Because Verse 8 says that THIS “beast” (which we saw) IS NOT, (read the Verse again carefully), while (at the same time in history) we learn from Verse 10 that the WHOLE beast IS that is, it EXISTS at this same time WITH ONE HEAD (the 6th) which it CLEARLY STATES “IS” (in existence).
THEREFORE: This beast IS (Verse 10) and IS NOT (Verse 8) AT THE SAME TIME!
This seems like double-talk, but it is not. The expansion of Point #1 is this:
SOME FUNCTION (some characteristic, some form, some aberration, some historic identity or peculiarity) of the beast USED TO EXIST, but does not (now) CURRENTLY exist — EVEN THOUGH THE BEAST AS A WHOLE DOES NOW CURRENTLY EXIST. By currently, we mean at the time of the angel’s ministry up to the present, (Thus the importance in understanding who particularly the angel or messenger who spoke to John was and at what time in history his ministry took place. Our understanding is that this was the Seventh Messenger, the Laodicean Messenger.)
Verse 8 gives a further clue. When it says “The beast that you saw,” it clearly refers back to Verses 3-5 — the “wilderness” period (A.D. 539-1799). THEREFORE, whatever aberration of the beast we are looking for should be found DURING THAT TIME.
NOTE: There WAS one particular and peculiar (and scripturally noted) instance during that period (A.D. 539-1799) when the BODY of the beast had an UPRISING, and that was during the French Republic, when the PEOPLE (the body of the beast) rose up against head, horns, and harlot rider. This is when 1/10th of *the city” fell (Rev 11:13). Apparently this beast (NOT a WHOLE beast, but only the people constituting its body) will ONCE MORE appear for the destruction of the other 9/10ths of the “city.” (Verses 8, 11-13, 16, 17, Consider Rev 11:7-13 CAREFULLY)
NOTE ALSO: The French Republic WAS NOT A HEAD!
It DID NOT work with or under the Roman Catholic Church (which all the heads do; thus she “rides” them.) It was contemporaneous with the yet- existing Holy Roman Empire, which was the contemporary head. Napoleon’s overthrow of the Holy Roman Empire (A.D. 1806) created the NEXT head — the Napoleonic Empire, which was the 5th head, which DID work with Papacy.
We will take a look at the second point which we would like to make in our next post.
