Ques. During what time of Daniel's Seventieth Week, the Tribulation period, will the 17th and 18th chapters of Revelation be fulfilled?
Ans. You have asked a most difficult question. As we have heard one say,
“It is a comparatively easy thing to get an outline of prophecy, but it is an entirely different matter to fit in the details.”
The 17th chapter of the Revelation introduces us to Babylon in her mystic religious character, the false bride of Christ. This includes, or will include all of Christendom,-Catholic and Protestant as it will exist, Christless, after the saints have gone to meet the Lord in the air.
This time being at the beginning of the week, the Roman beast finds it to his interest politically and diplomatically to work in conjunction and fellowship with this great religious octopus. Later on, as he gets the reins of western supremacy more firmly in his hands, he casts discretion aside, and with the all too willing aid of his ten confederates, they confiscate the wealth of Babylon and render her desolate.
This is God's providential judgment on this abominable apostate system. When the Lord returns in the clouds with His assembled hosts, there remains no apostate church to judge. She has already been judged providentially through the instrumentality of the beast and his confederate kings. What the Lord does find on His return is apostate Judaism.
Now as to the 18th chapter of Revelation. Here we have the judgment of Babylon viewed as linked with world affairs, commercially and politically. The sudden rending apart of these Siamese twins, an apostate religious system, from a great covetous, complex, commercial and mercenary system, results in the fatal ruin of the former, and universal sorrow and lamentation in the latter. I judge this final burning with fire of the whore, and the destruction of that great city, Babylon, will occur near the end of the week.
As to the worship of the second beast in the city of Jerusalem and surrounding territory, this, I think, is the form the Jewish apostasy takes in Jerusalem. Antichrist is not a universal character, but distinctly a Jewish one, and his diabolic demonstrations are carried on in the midst of this guilty people who rejected their "Christ," and now receive a false Christ.
As to any inconsistency in Babylon worship and beast worship existing at the same time, this will present no difficulties to apostates, void of conscience Godward. If Rome can now canonize for worship departed men, it would be no great step to canonize one while living. But as to details on this kind of points, the Word leaves us pretty much in the dark as far as I see. When the time arrives, seeming inconsistencies and impossibilities will vanish overnight, and all prophetic events fall into place like a "Jig Saw Puzzle.”
The solemn and yet blessed part of all these considerations is the evident nearness of these long predicted events. We can now lift up the head, for the day of our redemption draweth nigh.
A young believer writes asking some information about the compilation of the Bible. This is too large a subject to be handled in these columns, but we would refer him to the following excellent volumes on the subject, any one of which can be obtained at the Bible Truth Depot:
“All About the Bible," Sidney Collet.
“Our Father's Will.”
“The Story of our English Bible," W. Scott.