The eighth head of the beast power

What is the meaning of the wilderness in , “I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters…. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast….” (Rev. 17:3)? Is this description:
1) a follow-on to Revelation 12:16, or
2) filling out the picture of Neo-Babylon as a city literally set in the desert over a huge Euphrates, as seen in Revelation 17:18, in 18:1-24, and inferred in the sixth plague, Revelation 16:12-16?

“The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.

And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.” (Rev. 17:8-11).

If the wilderness Beast were
1) a follow-on to the Revelation 12:16 dragon account, then the beast that “was” could refer to the Papacy, and the 8th king’s perdition would be a rebound of Vatican persecution.

If the wilderness Beast were
2) picturing the ancient city sitting on the Euphrates, then the beast that “was” could refer to Babel, and the 8^th king’s perdition would be worldwide Babel spiritualism.

Why can’t the Beast be both a persecuting power and the world’s primary source for dark occultism? Does occult spiritualism lead to righteous actions or to lawless and unconscionable actions?

And, if the wilderness Beast were literal Babel on the Euphrates River, then why make one of its literal clues, “The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth”? Babylon is clearly a symbolism for total animosity and rebellion against heaven. Didn’t Peter refer to his church in Jerusalem as being in Babylon? (See 1Peter 5:13). Babylon need not necessarily refer to the literal historic city-kingdom. The impregnable Vatican City sitting on the Necropolis should be proof enough that it is the Babylonian lightning rod of the occult, while the seven “kings (kingdoms)” are ancillary empires that the god of this world has used for his blasphemous and heinous purposes.

The angel’s interpretation to John would mean that Rome, pagan and papal—and not ancient neo-Babylon or prehistoric Babel—is unquestionably the Beast prophesied of in Revelation 17. And specifically, being that the setting is the wilderness, the “was” phase must be the 1,260 year period of papal persecution; the “is not” phase must be the wounded phase, with Protestant Britain and America taking away its world dominion; and the “yet is” phase is the restored papal persecution that, I believe, has recently begun with never-before-seen fireworks (9/11).

The Church of Rome is the current phase of an on-going world power, “the beast that was, and is not, and yet is”. So that Medieval Rome is where “the woman sitteth” now (“now” being in the wilderness, according to Revelation 17:3 prophecy). Isn’t the Roman Church the phase that temporarily no longer ruled the earth after 1798, and “is not” because the vision showed the Beast in the wilderness helpless to destroy her primary nemesis—Protestantism—when the American continent opened up for a refuge? And today—I’m going to say beginning in 2000—the seventh king has been already the next head that was “not yet come” (or the 7^th kingdom from John’s standpoint)—which would “continue a short space” as apparently the lull before the storm, awaiting the eighth, that is, a supra-venomous Jesuit Papacy. This eighth kingdom, the final eighth head—the original head of the Beast power that ascended from the bottomless pit of hell—that will be today’s aggressor seventh kingdom on steroids, bringing the whole world down to animal lusts, addiction to enslaving vices, and inhuman savagery, leading to a world of dizzying perdition. The only exceptions to that eighth empire New World Order, the only ones who won’t receive the mark, or character, of the Beast power, will be those who were being sealed. Every moral, ethical, “good enough” person, the “ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance” (Luke 15:7), who never hear the angels’ joy over them (see Luke 15:5,7,10) or heaven’s “harpers harping with their harps” (Rev. 14:2), will never be soundly repentant, deeply converted, sanctified, and sealed—all by the Spirit of the Son. Surely will heaven reiterate:

“Hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it. And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled: but the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness. Then shall the lambs feed after their manner.” (Isa. 5:14-17).

Are the 7 heads not integral to the beast? Seeing that the Beast’s head (the eighth head) is among the seven heads, therefore its existence and life is separate from the 7 heads existence and lives. Don’t the 7 heads play their part in history for the Beast, while the Beast exists no matter what they do, i.e. verses 10,11? That would then indicate that the Beast is spiritualism, or it has been Satan’s manifestation all during and all over his apparently eternal, lone world fortress. Satan gives the lie that his kingdom is the oldest and only kingdom on planet Earth. But, the King of kings, and God of gods, has something to say to this puny destroying angel. “The Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness.” Revelation 19 and 20 have given Satan fair warning of what coming for him.

Ekkehardt Mueller from the Biblical Research Institute May 2005 has something to say about the eighth head, but I must differ from his conservative stance [I have used blue font for my emphasis].

“A natural understanding of Rev 17:10, “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” seems to imply that at the time John wrote the Book of Revelation five kingdoms had fallen and the sixth was ruling. We are not told that John was transported into another time. Obviously, John lived during the period of the sixth head. In addition, the Book of Revelation was primarily ad­dressed to Christians living in the first century. Probably they would have understood verse 10 in such a way that the sixth head referred to the time they were living in. If we assume that the sixth head was not ruling when Revelation was penned and John had been taken to another time, then we are not able to come up with any definite interpretation of Rev 17, because there is no way to determine in which time John was transported, whether he was in the first centu­ries A.D., the medieval ages, directly after 1798, or at an even later time. But then such a prophecy containing chronological statements would be meaningless. Jon Paulien has stated:

In a vision, the prophet can travel from earth to heaven and range back and forth from time past to the end of time. The vision is not necessarily located in the prophet’s time and place. But when the vision is explained to the prophet afterward, the explanation always comes in the time, place, and circumstances of the visionary.10

According to this principle the explanation of the heads is crucial. It locates the sixth head in the first century A.D. Kenneth A. Strand writes about the beast and the heads:

To seek a fulfillment in history, for example, for the ‘is not’ phase of the beast of chapter 17, when that phase is obvi­ously a view of judgment, is illogical. Or to treat the whole chapter 17 as having historical, rather than eschatological fulfillment is to miss the very point of the chapter and of the whole second part of the book of Revelation in which it occurs.

This is not to say, however, that there are absolutely no historical reflections in chapter 17. The explanation of the seven heads and ten horns, for example, must be from the viewpoint of John at the time of his writing. After all how else can an explanation be given than in terms of what exists, even though the vision itself is from the perspec­tive of eschatological judgment when the beast ‘is not’? In other words, though John sees the vision from the ‘is not’ phase (judgment), the heads and horns are historical entities belonging to the ‘was’ phase.11”

Ekkehardt Mueller believes that John lived during the 6^th head (king, kingdom, empire), based on the message of the angel, “five kings have fallen”. And he believes that The Revelation was addressed primarily to the church of John’s day. If we don’t accept this view “then,” he says, “we are not able to come up with any definite interpretation of Rev 17, because there is no way to determine in which time John was transported, whether he was in the first centu­ries A.D., the medieval ages, directly after 1798, or at an even later time. But then such a prophecy containing chronological statements would be meaningless”. That last statement makes SDAs follow preterism.

I believe by making the wilderness setting the key to situating the prophecy we can come up with a definite, historicist interpretation that shows “the judgment of the great whore” (Rev. 17:1). Clearly, Revelation 17 is the segway into Revelation 18, Revelation 18:6-24 giving the details for the last three verses of Revelation 17. And equally clear is Revelation 18 segwaying into Revelation 19, Revelation 19:8 giving details for Revelation 18:6, and ultimately Revelation 19:1-3 adding details to the final demise of Babylon seen in that chapter’s verse 20 at the Second Coming of Jesus. Therefore, historicism says we must set Revelation 17 at 1798 when Protestantism gave the Medieval papacy the deadly wound, and then historicism lets Revelation 17 show the apostatizing of Protestant America, as it joins the rest of the religio-political world to drink the wine of the Mother of harlots by accepting her corrupting, spiritualized Christianity.

At first I had confusion on the 7 or 8 heads (kings) because I was trying to fit into Revelation 17:8-11 the Daniel chapter 11’s seven kings of the north. In 2 Thessalonians 2 Paul warns the church of the seventh king of the north. We know that Paul quoted from Daniel 11, which also brings in the Daniel 8 vision. The vision of Daniel 11 sits over the vision of Daniel 8. Daniel listed 7 kings of the north in the Daniel 11 vision. The final (the vile) king of the north of Daniel 11 has two phases (verses 21-39 and 40-45). So there are not 8 kings of the north in Daniel’s chapter 11 vision, unless one arbitrarily makes the second phase of the 7^th king of the north the eighth head/king of Revelation 17:8-11. But that would be forcing biblical prophetic interpretation—not a good practice.

But now, I see more clearly that, for his expounding upon the church’s future to the Thessalonians, Paul was led by the Spirit to focus on Daniel 8 and 11. Then, later the same Spirit would have John focus on Daniel 7 for his expounding upon the church’s future. There is no conflict between Daniel 7 and 8, or between Paul and John. Neither is there any conflict between 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 and Revelation 17:1-18. Revealing God’s future primary villain—Satan’s baptized spiritualism, by both apostles elaborating on two different visions and very different symbolisms of the same event, Paul and John simply speak of the same event from different symbolic perspectives. That is what gives the Bible such depth!

So, for understanding Revelation 17:1-18 we see that Jesus’ angel uses Daniel 7, in particular verses 2-6, 7-11, 17-26 (especially verses 2-8), and for his Revelation 13:1-8. Below  you can see for yourself.

Dan 7:2  Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.

Dan  7:3  And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.

Dan 7:4  The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it.

Dan 7:5  And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh [see Isaiah 13:6-9,17-22; 14:3-27; 44:27-28,45:1-3; Jeremiah 25:12; 50:1-3,9-16,21-32,35-46; 51:1-4,8-18,24-44,47-49,52-58,61-64].

Dan 7:6  After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.

Dan 7:7  After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.

Dan 7:8  I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.

Dan 7:9  I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.

Dan 7:10  A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.

Dan 7:11  I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.

Dan 7:17  These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.

Dan 7:18  But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.

Dan 7:19  Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet;

Dan 7:20  And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows.

Dan 7:21  I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them;

Dan 7:22  Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.

Dan 7:23  Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.

Dan 7:24  And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.

Dan 7:25  And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

Dan 7:26  But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.

Rev 17:1  And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:

Rev 17:2  With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

Rev 17:3  So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

Rev 17:4  And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

Rev 17:5  And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

Rev 17:6  And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

Rev 17:7  And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.

Rev 17:8  The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

Rev 17:9  And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

Rev 17:10  And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.

Rev 17:11  And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.

Rev 17:12  And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.

Rev 17:13  These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

Rev 17:14  These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

Rev 17:15  And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

Rev 17:16  And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

Rev 17:17  For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.

Rev 17:18  And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.