Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #8 of Revelation, chapter 17, and we are going to be reading Revelation 17:9-10:
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.
I will stop reading there. We have been talking about Babylon and the “beast” and the “woman” who sat upon the beast. These are the pictures God is giving us to typify the kingdom of Satan throughout the history of the world. He showed us the beast that had “seven heads and ten horns,” and now God is explaining it in Revelation 17:9:
And here is the mind which hath wisdom…
It is interesting that God says this and it reminds us of something God said earlier in Revelation, as the word “mind” is the same word we saw earlier. The Greek word translated as “mind” is “nous” and it is Strong’s #3563. It is translated as “mind” or “understanding” in the Bible. For instance, it is translated as “understanding” in Luke 24:45:
Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
This is speaking of Christ who opened up the understanding of the two disciples He was walking with, as He was telling them the things written in the Bible concerning Himself. Then he opened up their “understanding,” or it could be translated as “Then opened he their minds, that they might understand the scriptures.” Again, this word is translated as “mind” or “minds” and it is translated a few times as “understanding.”
In Revelation, chapter 13, there is a verse I mentioned earlier which relates to our verse in Revelation, chapter 17. It says in Revelation 13:17:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
The “beast” is Satan and the “beast” is the name God assigned for him during the “little season” of the Great Tribulation.
Then it says in Revelation 13:18:
Here is wisdom…
This is just as we read in our verse in Revelation 17:9: “And here is the mind which hath wisdom.”
Then it goes on to say in Revelation 13:18:
…Let him that hath understanding…
And this word “understanding” is the same Greek word that was translated as “mind,” where it said in our verse in Revelation 17:9: “And here is the mind which hath wisdom.” Or, it could be said, “And here is the understanding which hath wisdom,” so we have the same elements in Revelation 13:18. We have the word “wisdom,” which is the same Greek word for “mind” or “understanding.” Also, the beast is in view, as God goes on to say in Revelation 13:18:
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
We have looked at this and we realized that this is a number that God applies to unsaved mankind that are within the kingdom of Satan and ruled over by the beast during the time of the end. It requires “wisdom” to understand these things because God hid the information in the Bible. He hid the identity of the beast and He hid what the number “666” represents. Just think of all the errors theologians have made concerning that number, as they thought that it was the number of “a man.” They applied it to Hitler and Stalin and other evil men down through history. So it required “wisdom” that God must give. Wisdom is to understand the will of the Lord and when Christ, in Luke 24:45, granted these two disciples wisdom and opened up their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures, it enabled them to understand these kinds of statements.
Here, in Revelation 17:8, it goes on to say:
And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
So this requires spiritual understanding of what God is saying and, first of all, we have to understand that this beast with “seven heads” needs to be understood to represent Satan. Then the “seven heads” which are “seven mountains,” we must spiritually realize to mean seven kingdoms of Satan or seven periods of rule.
When we look at the Greek word translated as “heads” in the Bible, we learn in Ephesians 1:22-23:
And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
Christ is the “head” over all things to the church. What does that mean? It means He rules. He has dominion and power and He is the King of the church. He is the king of the kingdom of God. The word “head” is used as a synonym for “ruler,” denoting authority.
It says in Ephesians 5:23:
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
In the marriage relationship, God has established authority. There is a structure. The husband is the “head” and the wife is to be in submission to the husband and the children are to obey both their parents. So the “head” means the one that makes the final decisions and the one that is in authority and has the rule. It is that way in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. Many verses could be referenced, but let us go to Numbers 1:16:
These were the renowned of the congregation, princes of the tribes of their fathers, heads of thousands in Israel.
Also, it says in Deuteronomy 1:15:
So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes.
To be the “head” points to being a “prince,” a “captain” or a “ruler” and that is what God is saying in Revelation 17 concerning the “seven heads” of the beast (Satan) and it points to Satan’s overall rule. He had gained dominion over mankind back in the Garden of Eden when he deceived Eve and then Adam into partaking of the fruit of the forbidden tree. When mankind disobeyed God and obeyed the lie of Satan over the truth of God, they were defeated by Satan and they became subservient to him and entered into a position of serving sin and Satan. Satan took them captive at his will and he ruled over the unsaved all through history, up until May 21, 2011. On that day he was defeated and the Lord Jesus Christ took the kingdom and He is exalted to rule over all that Satan had previously ruled over; all the unsaved people are now in subjection to Christ and He is ruling them with a rod of iron.
So, in Revelation 17:9, it refers to the “seven heads” and it means the “seven periods of rule.” It is not seven different rulers, but it refers to Satan. He is not a man that dies, but he is a spirit being and that is one of the ways we were able to identify the “antichrist.” It speaks in 1John, chapter 4, of the antichrist already being in the world at the time that Book was written in the 1st century AD and, yet, it also spoke of him as he that “would come.” Only Satan qualifies and fits that description in being able to exist for these 2,000 years and, actually, he has existed since the Garden of Eden. We know that creation occurred in 11,013 BC and the fall of man happened not too long after that, so Satan has been ruling over the kingdoms of this world almost since the beginning. That is over 13,000 years ago. The Book of Revelation is the last Book of the Bible and it was being written, as far as we know from secular records, toward the end of the 1st century AD in about 91 AD.
As we go on, it says in Revelation 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.
When we look at this verse, we have to realize that this is being said in the 1st century, after the cross, almost at the end of that 1st century and at about the time the Bible was about to be completed. There are “seven kings.” The previous verse had said there were “seven heads,” which we know identifies with rulers and the “seven heads” are “seven mountains.” In the Bible, “mountains” identify with kingdoms and kings rule over kingdoms, so verse 10 is confirming that we had a proper understanding of the “seven heads” which are “seven kingdoms” because now there are “seven kings” mentioned. All seven kings represent Satan and the number “seven” would point to the perfection of Satan’s rule over this earth since the fall of man. Then God says that “five are fallen,” as of the time of this writing in the 1st century. Then it says “one is,” and that would be the sixth king and he was actively ruling at this time toward the end of the 1st century AD.
When we look at Satan’s rule, we realize it was very consistent up until the time of the cross. In the Old Testament he was active and he could bind the hearts of men in a very big way. That is why very few people were saved in the days of the Old Testament. Again, the Old Testament period up until the birth of Christ was over 11,000 years. It was 11,045 years from creation to the cross and up until that point Satan’s rule was fairly consistent. Yet, God designates “five kings” or “five mountains,” which are five periods of rule, to represent the 11,045 years until the cross. When God says “five are fallen,” it means that this time has passed. However, it is interesting that the Greek word translated as “fallen,” Strong’s #4098, is the same word used in regard to Babylon’s fall: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” And Babylon is the kingdom of Satan, but it does not fall until the end of the Great Tribulation and we will see that is the “seventh” and final period of Satan’s rule. No wonder God highlights the fall of Babylon so well and makes sure we do not miss it by “doubling” it in several places where Babylon’s fall is mentioned: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” Finally, the seven kingdoms of Satan that have stretched from almost the point of creation will end after over 13,000 years. In 2011, the 13,023rd year of earth’s history, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen,” and the last kingdom of Satan is past.
That is what the word “fallen” points to in our verse: “And there are seven kings: five are fallen,” and that is the same word used of Babylon being “fallen,” so those periods of rule are past, never to be seen again. And “one is” at the time of the writing of Revelation and this would be the rule of Satan that was dramatically changed at the cross when Satan was bound. When Christ went to the cross, it bound Satan and he was cast into the figurative “bottomless pit” and bound for “a thousand years.” That “thousand years” represents the completeness of the church age, so it was actually 1,955 years in which Satan was bound. This “sixth king” or the sixth period of Satan’s rule is from 33 AD until 1988 AD, but he ruled in a much different way than the five prior periods of rule or the last and “seventh” period. For 1,955 years, Satan had to suffer being bound in a way he had never been before and that is the period of rule spoken of as the Apostle John is being moved by God to write the Book of Revelation.
Then it goes on to say, in Revelation 17:10:
…and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
Five are past; one is (the sixth) and now it speaks of the seventh king, or seventh kingdom, or the “seventh head” of the beast. The beast only had “seven heads” and there were only “seven mountains” to represent seven kingdoms or seven kings. That last and final rule of Satan would be His greatest. It would be the time of his “loosing.” Satan was loosed in 1988, the 13,000th year of the earth’s history at the end of the church age. Now he was free. The Lord Jesus, who had the key to the bottomless pit, opened the pit and set Satan free and Satan began to rule like never before. It was an unprecedented reign over the hearts of men, as God lifted His hand of restraint upon the sinful hearts of men more and more over the course of this final period of rule. Now Satan ruled in the world and in the churches, something he had never been able to do completely in the past. His rule over the world was enormous and, yet, it was limited to just a “short space,” or a “little season,” as the Bible declares in Revelation 20:3:
And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
Satan was loosed for that “little season,” starting on May 21, 1988 and ending May 21, 2011. This 23-year period was the time of Satan’s loosing and the seventh and final period of rule for the beast; and then “Babylon is fallen, is fallen,” and the last kingdom of Satan ended. Never again does he rule. The Lord Jesus Christ is presently ruling, but not for the benefit of those that were ruled over by Satan. He is ruling to punish them, as He rules with a “rod of iron.”