What makes you think that the “woman” is papal Rome? Actually in the New Testament, “Babylon” referred to pre-Christian (pagan) Rome, which persecuted and killed the saints for nearly 300 years prior to the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. You can tell this because Peter, in 1 Peter 5:13 calls Rome “Babylon”. If Rome was Babylon during Peter’s lifetime (before Rome was Christianized) then Babylon in the NT was pagan Rome.
What makes you think that the scarlet beast is papal Rome (besides the conditioning from your cult leaders)?
Paul
A woman in biblical terms/prophecy refers to a church. God’s true church is mentioned in Revelations 12…the one that had a son (Jesus) that the dragon (with seven heads, ten horns and seven crowns) tried to devour when it was born (by Herod, who was a Roman client king). It was clothed with the sun and had a crown of 12 stars. When Jesus died, he was executed by Romans, pierced by Romans, his tomb had a Roman seal on it and it was guarded by Romans.
The woman (church) in Revelations 17 was sitting on a scarlet beast that had seven heads and ten horns. Verse 9 says that the seven heads represent the seven hills where the woman rules. It also represents seven kings.
Rome is well known as the “City on Seven Hills”. Additionally, when pagan Rome fell, it was divided into ten kingdoms (hence the ten horns…). Seven of these kingdoms accepted papal Roman rule, but three…the Heruli, Ostrogoths and Vandals resisted. If you go back to Daniel 7:8, you’ll see prophecy on this (the “little horn” mentioned there is the pope). The Ostrogoths were the last to fall in 538 A.D. which is the start of the 1260-year prophecy mentioned in Revelations 12:6 (I have other posts explaining the day/year time prophecies). It’s during those 1260 years (538 A.D. through 1798 A.D.) that God’s true church fled into the wilderness while countless saints were murdered by the hand of the papacy.
In reading Revelations 13, you can see that this beast rose up out of the sea. In biblical prophecy, this indicates rising up from within many people (Europe)…again with the seven heads, ten horns and ten crowns (before the other three fell…these visions/prophecies were not all written in chronological order). It was a unique beast in that the papacy is the only “church” that is a religious and state seat with the Vatican being the smallest country in the world. This beast was given it’s power by the dragon (the devil). The wound is the pope being taken hostage in 1798 A.D. by Napoleon’s army, but was then healed (ultimately in 1929 with the Lateran Concordat).
There’s so much more to all of this, but I’m fairly sure you don’t believe it. If I’m correct and you don’t believe it, it’s because you don’t want to believe it…not because it’s not true.
When you look at all of the other time prophecies in the Bible that have been validated through history (Jesus birth, for one), you can’t dismiss these clues, friend. Your church wants to keep you in the dark on these matters because your church is working under the influence of the enemy of truth.
I’m not a fanatical zealot trying to spread hatred…if I had it my way, all churches would unite under the truth of the Bible and shed the man-made doctrines so many of us have adopted. But these things have to come to pass because God gave these prophecies to us, knowing that some would have hard hearts as he knows the beginning from the end.
Actually, in the end, that’s what it’s going to come down to…clear identification of who is serving God and clear identification of who is serving his enemy. The Bible holds the keys to helping you choose a side…not the Catechism or any other teachings that are not of the Scriptures.
Which side will you choose?
