Seven kings and a Polarizing Message.
“This will be the last challenge of earth’s history for the people of God. Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains upon which the woman sits, and they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. The beast which was, and is not, is himself also an eighth and is one of the seven, and he goes to destruction. – Revelation 17:9-11 NASB.
Note that first line in our text for today, “This will be the last challenge of earth’s history for the people of God!” WOW
In Greek, the word for hills and mountains is the same. So, the author may have had Rome, the city of seven hills, in mind as a model for this beast. The hills in our text represent secular and political power in support of Babylon. With these “kings” behind her, the Babylon woman will have great power in the End.
The pedigree of this end-time beast is in the seven kings. The basic principle to follow here is that God meets people where they are. When a prophet gets an explanation of a prophecy, it is always given in terms of his time and place (Dan 2:37-40; 7:19-25). The one who “exists now” would, then, be the Rome of John’s Day.
The five who “have fallen” were the great empires of the Old Testament: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Greece. Each of these functioned as an enemy of God’s people for a time. The “king” that is “yet to come”, the seventh from John’s perspective, would be a future power that would become an enemy of God’s people after the fall of Rome. But the seventh “king” is not the last. Beyond the seventh is an eighth, who is from the seventh!
The seventh head is the sea beast of Revelation 13.
It too came up after the time of John and the Roman Empire (Rev 13:2). It too is resurrected for the final conflict (Rev 13:3, 12). The “eighth head” then would be the final manifestation of political power in support of Babylon at the End (17:3). The “was & is not and is to ascend” 7th(V:8) is resurrected as the 8th.
If the 8th King is a resurection of the 7th then what we have is the beast of the Middle Ages again taking control of politics, but now in the very closing scenes of earth’s history. What we have in this passage is the pedigree of a world-wide end-time political power. It functions at the End the way the seven previous powers in earth’s history did. Worldwide political union was a reality in John’s Day and previous to it. Such a worldwide union is not a reality at the present time but will be restored in preparation for the battle of Armageddon (Rev 16:14-16). This will be the last challenge of earth’s history for the people of God.
Revelation 17:1-11 has described the end time apostate religious system that will bring the whole world under its control. It is giving us descriptive insight into the beast of Revelation 13:1-8 whose mortal wound was healed – here we are seeing “the healing.” It is another short-lived union of religion and politics as per the middle ages.
We have previously noted these four points that will clearly identify the bad woman, or church, that Revelation 17 is describing:
Firstly, it has to be a worldwide power (17:2). Secondly it leads the world astray from God’s word (17:3). Thirdly it unites church and state (17:3) and fourthly it is a persecuting power (17:6). So, we cannot be looking for a church in the corner somewhere. This has to be a church that has been involved in world politics, for she has been in bed with the Kings of the earth, “with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication” (17:2). Fornication is an unholy alliance.
Her teachings do not line up with the Bible, and all the world is drunk with the wine of her beliefs, such as the immortality of the soul, eternal torment, and worshipping on Sunday in place of the seventh-day Sabbath. Babylon the Great is a system made up of paganism, Catholicism, and apostate Protestantism that holds all these beliefs in common.
A beast in Bible prophecy has always represented political power. Therefore, a woman riding on a beast is the uniting of church and state. The harlot sits on many waters and on a scarlet beast, meaning she is in control. The water in Bible prophecy represents people, nations and languages (tongues.) “And he said to me, “The waters which you saw where the prostitute sits are peoples and multitudes, and nations and languages.” (Rev 17:15.)