In our search for understanding about the book of Revelation, it will help to understand for what we are looking. What are the two great “beasts,” “Mystery Babylon” and the “Great Harlot?” These are obviously great evils that come upon the earth, but are they connected? Could these be speaking of the same thing? How do these relate to God’s ultimate purpose, bringing His city that He has built to the earth?

       Answering these questions will help us to understand history and the present in a much deeper way. In these two “beasts” we have portrayals of man’s religion, which is basically the worship of man in place of God. We have man’s church, which was initiated and built by mankind for God, but as it matures it becomes man’s temple to worship the god man has made in his image. It’s in this temple that man ultimately seeks to take God’s place, the conclusion of man’s ultimate folly of thinking he could run the world without God.

       The conclusion of this is called the “man of sin,” which is the personification of the sin of man. This evil takes its seat in God’s temple-—the church—and declares itself to be God. Most of the earth is deceived by this. After this ultimate folly of man is fully exposed for what it is, the Lord will consume it with “the sword which came from the mouth of Him,” which is His word (see Revelation 19). His word will prevail over all of the sins of man, even man’s ultimate worship of himself.

       It’s noteworthy that in studying the writings of the early church fathers who were direct disciples of the first apostles, those who mentioned John’s Revelation never mentioned the rebuilding of a temple in Jerusalem where this “man of sin” would take his seat and declare himself as God. They all saw the church as the temple of God and believed this evil would manifest in the church and try to present itself there as God. However, they thought it would be of the opposite spirit, reflecting man’s greatest sin, self-worship. Those who know history tend to verify that this is what resulted in “the Dark Ages,” during which the church fell into its deepest darkness and depravity.

       The above is a brief overview of the universal eschatology, or doctrine about the end times, of Protestants until the 1844 Advent Movement. After that, almost all biblical references to these things were taught as future events. But John was told in Revelation 1:1 that the things “must soon take place.” There is abundant evidence that many of the teachings and practices of the church that would lead to this terrible time of darkness began shortly after John had the Revelation. We will examine these later.

       Even though God did not build the church that institutionalized Christianity and changed even some of the basic teachings of Jesus, much good also came from it. How? As we’ve covered, God will bless many things He did not initiate, but He will not inhabit them. If we’re after His blessings more than Him, we can be easily deceived by them.

       We also must understand how the fruit of the “good” side of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is just as deadly as the evil side. More people have been deceived by this “good” than by evil. We may think its fruit looks so good and has done so much good. Yes, but does that good lead to life—and the Path of Life—or to death by separating people from the Lord Himself? We will see.

       As the Lord will bless many things He will not inhabit, we can appreciate His blessings, but we must not be deceived by thinking they are His ultimate goal, or the fulfillment of His purpose to dwell among men.

       We need to question why many prophecies seem to have been perfectly fulfilled in history but are considered future events in modern eschatology, which tends to completely omit all that was done in history. We will do so in this study. However, this is not to just debunk modern eschatology but to seek the truth.

       If, as John was told, these things did come to pass right after he had the Revelation, then it is possible we should be preparing for events that are very different from what we see now. We should be getting ready for the greatest ingathering of people into the Lord that the world has ever seen, and we should be preparing the way for the Lord and His kingdom by building a “highway,” as we are exhorted in Isaiah 40.