So it's not confusing at all to see these heads as the dominant state power oppressing the true believers in God.

Five fallen by 1798
1. Babylon
2. Persia
3. Greece
4 Imperial Rome
5. Papal Rome

6. The sixth head is in control while the Papal beast "is not", the fifth head having been stripped of it's political power and its ability to use force over nations is now out of commission.
This sixth head is the one that removed the crowns from the horns, and took away the state power from the papacy to rule over religion.
It is depicted in Rev. 11:7 as the beast coming out of the bottomless pit, that fueled the French Revolution (and other revolutions) based on liberty, equality, fraternity etc. movement in its various forms. Government power in many countries was greatly changed.
The beast has just laid down its arms and shifted his method of attack from a more head on attack, to a scientific, philosophical attack on God's truths.

7. The beast regains power and once again takes up arms in a new world order, with the papacy leading the coalition -- papacy regains political power to enforce it's mandates, horns receive crowns for a short time and give their support to the beast, Protestantism gives their support to papal mandates, Babylonian religion is imposed upon the world. We've come full cycle from Babylon to Babylon.

8 The eighth is the power behind this whole system, that fully manifests itself in the end -- the power from beneath, the dragon himself -- the whole system was orchestrated by the dragon to bring worship to himself (Rev. 13:4) And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast..." whose aim from the beginning was to (Isaiah 14:13) "exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north." He will appear pretending to be Christ.

All unite in one massive coalition, to war against Christ,(true Christianity) but the Lamb will win! (Rev. 17:14) The Lamb shall overcome them for He is King of kings and Lord of lords.
And the ten horns find their new crowns are a deception, and they attack the whole Babylonian counterfeit religious system that has deceived them, they attack the harlot woman with a viciousness of agony. (Rev. 17:18) (See Great Controversy page 655)

I think this last was in agreement with what Kevin said, right?

The same general idea, Yes.

However, I don't see atheism as coming out of the bottomless pit. Though definitely a power controlled by satan.


Notice, "through the medium of the papacy". Meaning, the papacy is not the beast from the bottomless pit. Neither is the new "manifestation".

The beasts themself are earthly powers. The dragon is that old serpent the devil. Rev.12:9,
When the the beasts (earthly powers) give themselves over to the dragon to do his bidding they are working out the agenda of the dragon.

Revelation 12 tells us this whole war is being orchestrated by the DRAGON
But through Jesus salvation is brought to the world.


Revelation 12:4, 7-10 The dragon himself, is the one who started the war against Jesus before creation, taking a third of the angels to side with him, and it is the dragon himself with his angels, that was defeated by Christ at the cross. His defeat by Christ brings salvation for all who believe in Christ.

The dragon works through each of the heads to destroy Christ's plan of salvation and rob Christ of the ones He came to save --
Revelation 12:4 the dragon seeking to devour the child (Jesus) as soon as He is born -- he works through the power of imperial Rome in his attempts to kill Jesus at birth, and later crucify Him.

Revelation 12:6,13,14 Dragon, through papal Rome persecutes the "woman" 1260 years.

Revelation 12:16 The Dragon sends out floods of armies (crusades, etc) using the papal powers, against the woman,
but the earth beast helps the woman. Beasts can be good, because the beast of the earth swallows the flood and gives the woman a land where the flood of persecution doesn't reach her.

Now the dragon is loosing ground and comes up with new plans.

God is also very much at work to break the power through which the dragon is keeping the population in the dark. With the rise of Protestantism, the invention of the printing press, the renaissance, people weren't bowing to his fifth papal "head" as readily, people were reading God's Word and finding the equality and liberty God offers through belief in Jesus Christ. Resistance to the tyranny of papal and kingly powers is rising. The fifth head is loosing control, and a new land is sheltering people who seek to serve God.

So the dragon develops another beast (a European power) It believes in freedom, equality and fraternity but the dragon leads them to believe all the religious wars, all that blood shed and oppression in the years passed was due to the BIBLE and the God that inspired Bible. The Bible was proclaimed as evil and God was despised or declared non-existent. This beast was/is a human power but it's war on the Bible and God, was fueled by the dragon. It was largely implement by Jesuit influence, who had just been banned by the pope who was under pressure from kings to ban them. This beast of Rev. 11:7 is his sixth head.

In America the land beast was born with the same liberty/equality/fraternity concepts. But in America it was built on Protestant principles. America was raised by God to bring religious freedom to the world, so truth could spread to the world.
Yet as John Adams stated that: ?Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.?

This beast with lamb like horns was a thorn in the dragon's program. So Satan developed the counterfeit liberty/equality/fraternity beast, taking God and the Bible out, and the nation that took the bait hook line and sinker was France. Take God and the Bible out of that government style and it will utterly fail.

In America, with which upheld Protestant freedom and moral standards, the "freedom, equality, fraternity style was a success. (Not perfect by any means, but still great and blessed) Religious freedom and the ability for individuals to pursue their goals, flourished. The dragon has been working for a good 200 years to take down America and get it under the control of his papal beast. He couldn't stop the spread of the Bible, the Bibles were multiplying everywhere.
So the sixth head as the dragon's alley is this European beast from Rev. 11:7.
America is infiltrated hugely both by the papal beast working to regain it's influence and the athiest beast, working to destroy it's government, and America is about to fully repudiate it's constitution and give its power to the papacy. When they merge we will find ourselves under the seventh head -- the papal led coalition.

Then the dragon's full fledged war (Rev. 12:17) using the earthly papal led powers merged in the seventh head, will rage against those who have the testimony of Jesus and keep His commandment!

The eighth is the dragon (the power behind the whole thing) who appears pretending to be the long expected Messiah.

But if nothing can be understood with everyone all over the place, then its not much use to give to the world, its a confusion of nothing, a dead end for any understanding of prophecy. I dont think God would send us into a boxed canyon with no purpose or way to proceed in the timeline..

I agree, unity of understanding of prophecy is ideal. But we must agree on truth, not just because a professor at Andrews University writes an article in the Ministry Magazine.

Is Ranko Stefanovic (the author of the article Rick posted) the final word? Is his view here giveing the understanding of the majority of Adventists on this particular subject? Yes, there are some who do promote it. But there are some pretty big hurtles to accept the position Stefanovic gives, Not to denigrate Ranko, he has some good ideas and studies, but on this point I think he steps out of the correct lines of prophecy.

Nor do I understand why you think following the prophetic outlines as given in Daniel and Revelation (two books that compliment each other) would be seen as leading into a "boxed canyon with no purpose or way to proceed in the timeline??????? It is when we go outside the prophetic outlines in Daniel and Revelation that I find we end up in a "boxed canyon with no way to proceed". It runs out of heads by 1798.

The 1Egypt, 2Assyria,3 Babylon, 4Media/Persia, 5Greece, 6Imperial Rome, 7Papal Rome, interpretation not only puts all the heads in the past before we even enter the time of the end. It adds nations that Dan&Rev don't talk about?

So does John also see the woman riding the beast before 1798, as the scene opens with him seeing the woman on the beast.

But for now let's just see if the interpretation of the seven heads being powers starting with Babylon is accepted by many Adventists?

George McCready Price (1870-1963) devoted most of his work to a defense of creation and a worldwide Flood, yet he also wrote two well respected books on the prophecies of Daniel (The Greatest of the Prophets 1955) and Revelation (The Time of the End 1967) Chapter 3 is where he talks about the seven heads.
Read his book TIME OF THE END

ROY ALLAN ANDERSON (1895-1985)
Unfolding the Revelation.

Henry Feyerabend (1931-2006)
Revelation Verse By Verse


Mervyn Maxwell (1925-1999) in his book: "God Cares" comments there are several interpretations out there. He, however favors the, Babylon, Media Persia, Greece, Roman Empire, Christian Rome, as the five fallen. Christian Rome Wounded as the "one is" and Christian Rome Revived as "the one is coming" and gives many reasons why he belives this to be the best interpretation. p. 473-476

Having read George Price's comment


I was curious as to why he thought this "Catholic interpretation" was dangerous?
There doesn't seem to be any clear definite interpretation in their writings.
The one thing they emphasize is that the Papal church is not part of the prophecy. Definitely not one of the heads, etc.

But what I found:
Some of their scholars believe the text
17:11 The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
17:10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
means, yes, the seven heads are seven mountains (kingdoms)
"and" there are seven kings"
The prophecy is enlarged to say there are seven mountains AND seven kings.
According to some the seven kings are an added feature, not another symbol for heads.
So even though the seven heads are seven empires
there are also seven kings.

So according to that interpretation, then, the seven heads are kingdoms supposedly Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, thus the prophecy's sixth head and "NOW" is Rome
When the Barbarians sweep down then Rome is "NOT"
The seven kings, some Catholic writers said, were seven emperors of Rome. Different ones named including Nero, Vespasian, Titus, Domitian. Often ending with Hadrian who gave Israel a real death blow.

Who do they say the woman represents?
Quote: The woman is not Rome, what city does she represent? The answer, I would suggest, lies in the fact that Jesus was killed in her. That can only refer to one place, Jerusalem, and the rest of the book confirms this for us. For example, if we turn back to the passage that mentions the seven hills, we find that it perfectly fits Jerusalem?s political situation before the city was destroyed by Rome in 70 AD. Just as the woman in that passage is propped up by the beast, so too were the rulers of Jerusalem supported by the Roman authorities. They ruled by Rome?s permission and with their backing. Their city was destroyed by Rome. End quote.


Well, though the above is a confusing bits and pieces of what I gleaned from their writings, and by far not the only ideas they express, the one thing that is obvious, their views are part of the counter Reformation. No way must any of this point at the Papal church, any alternative interpretation is better


So why was George Price warning against that method of identifying the seven heads?
Seems it was the putting of it all back into John's day, and thus inadvertently supporting the preterist interpretation. Only the seventh head was not named and it could easily be pulled into the preterist interpretation.

Everyone of these views have issues, and you can be sure the devil knows it, and it was the first thing that is brought up when you try to present the Mark of the Beast/Mystery Babylon understanding. So its a problem at the least.

It seems to me, that the only safe way to interpret the seven heads/seven kings/seven mountains, is to follow the rather obvious pattern in Daniel and in Revelation 13. It is a pattern oft repeated in these two books, why would we deviate from it in chapter 17?



The composite beast of Revelation 13 reiterates the prophetic symbols of Daniel 7.
Three kingdoms preceded Rome (Babylon, Media Persia, Greece)
The culture and religions of the conquered empires were absorbed into Rome.

The apostle John, in Rev. 13, simply picked up the prophetic symbolism of Daniel 7, and basically tells us this is the fourth beast of Daniel 7, then proceeds with advanced information on future events.

We understand that the throne of ROME passed from the emperors to the papacy. That's the little horn in Daniel seven, but in Revelation 13 it is presented as another head that receives a deadly wound and the beast is put out of commission for a time. Yet, it is not the Roman church that is out of commission, it is only the POLITICAL element to enforce by the sword of the land their mandates, that was removed from the papacy.
THE BEAST (not religion) was fatally wounded. The church could not be a beast, without political power.

Now -- we have five heads, and when the beast receives it's deadly wound, all five of those heads have fallen. Babylon, Media Persia, Greece, Imperial Rome, Papal Rome.

Now to Revelation 17
When can it be said "THE BEAST IS NOT"

Rev, 17:8 The beast that you saw was, and IS NOT; and shall rise

There is no way, if one follows the sequence of Rev. 13, can we say that verse describes things in John's day. The "beast" was in full armor and strength in John's day.
The beast received it's deadly wound back in 1798. That's when its "IS NOT" phase began.

THE SIXTH HEAD

So five heads fell by 1798, the beast is fatally wounded he Is NOT.
Yet one head "IS" (a sixth head)
What head is operating without the "beastly power to enforce religion with the sword" but is still an agent of the beast?
What head "IS" while the beast "IS NOT"?

It has to be part of the European beast. Ignoring that is where confusion in interpretations come in.
Because it is not logical to jump the ocean and call America the sixth head in this sequence.
And when people try to put America in as the sixth head back in 1798 it just doesn't fit.

But there is another beast (mostly ignored) that comes up in Europe exactly at the same time the fifth head receives it's deadly wound. That beast is found in Revelation 11: 7. It arises during the French Revolution. It's position is not to enforce a religion but to destroy trust in God and the Bible. The Papacy tried to keep the Bible away from the people. But now the Bible was available, so another power came up to destroy people's faith and trust in the Bible and in God.

This sixth head is now -- in our time pretty much in control of things. The nations that once were looked upon as being "Christian", are now mostly secular, putting very little value on the Bible or on faith. Secularism, immorality, a culture called Sodom and Egypt, crucifying the Lord afresh.

BUT THERE IS A SEVENTH HEAD.
The head that EGW has pointed out all along.
The beast being healed! Papal political power restored,
The beast, regaining "the sword" of civic authority to enforce religion.
I see Christians even Adventists thinking the sixth head is a "new" final crises, and EGW was too much influenced by 19th century thinking --
No -- the seventh head will come suddenly, with a big backlash against the sixth head.

It will be only for a short time.

THE EIGHTH
He's not a head.
It is the dragon himself, the power behind all seven of those heads.