Bible Commentaries
Revelation 17

Verses 1-18

XV

THE WAR OF HAR-MAGEDON

Revelation 16:14-21, with a Brief Survey of Chapter 17

Ordinarily it would be out of proportion to devote a whole chapter to a few verses, but occasionally we find a single paragraph so pregnant with meaning that it cannot be unfolded in a few words. Particularly is there a call for careful and extended treatment when the imagery of the paragraph makes such an appeal to the imagination that the ignorant and unwary, without helm, chart, or compass, drift away into seas of fanciful interpretation, losing all practical benefit in the sonorous roll of words, or in the highly wrought figures of speech. Many a preacher, beguiled by the sound of words, has made shipwreck of a sermon and bewildered his congregation by attempting to expound, without understanding them, texts like these: "Garments rolled in blood," "Blood up to the bridles of the horses," "War of the great day of the Almighty God at Har-Magedon," "Multitudes, multitudes in the Valley of Decision," and certain people like to hear sermons on these blood and thunder texts. I am quite sure that none of Creasy’s Decisive Battles of the World, nor all of them put together, have taken such a hold upon the imagination of the people as the battle at Har-Magedon. Even Theodore Roosevelt, in a presidential campaign, insisted that he was fighting the battle of Har-Magedon.

2. My second observation is that, whatever the passage means, the context limits the application to the final struggle between the true church and the counterfeit church. It has no other application.

3. Whatever the passage means, it must precede the millennium, and prepare the way for it, and consequently it has no reference to Satan’s last struggle for supremacy as set forth after the millennium in Revelation 20:7-10. Nor is it a reference to the great judgment day described in Revelation 20:11-15.

4. Particularly I would have you know that this gathering of the nations together in the war of the great day of God the Almighty, at the place called Har-Magedon, results, as expressly stated, from the three unclean spirits that went forth out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. It is a gathering under their influence; another gathering under some other influence is not to be considered.

5. You must know, if there be any truth in the interpretation given in a preceding chapter, that the general purpose of sending forth of these three unclean spirits was to rally and solidify the Romanist hosts after they were shattered by the outbreak of the Reformation, and to establish a bar to the further progress of that Reformation, and to supply means of war with which to regain for Rome absolute supremacy over all states and all religions. That was the purpose. It is not, indeed, the last battle between Satan’s kingdom and the kingdom of our Lord, as we shall see later, but it is the last war between the true church and the counterfeit church. So stated and limited, it is a fight to the finish. And when this war is over, never more will the woman in purple and scarlet reappear in the history of mankind. Satan will come again in two more wars, but that harlot, drunk with the blood of the saints, will disappear forever.

6. The next observation is that while the imagery of war supplies the symbols, we must be careful not to interpret the symbol literally. It is a spiritual conflict, figuratively set forth in the terms of war and blood, as when Paul uses the terms of the Isthmian games and conflicts in the arenas of the Greek and Roman amphitheaters to set forth spiritual conflicts. No sane expositor would interpret Paul’s language literally.

The interpretation of the preceding chapters give us the wilderness period of the church, from A.D. 250-1510, and that the outbreak of the Reformation commencing early in the sixteenth century gave a severe and lasting shock to the papal hierarchy. And the sending out of these three unclean spirits now is to recover from that shock of the Reformation. If the nations are to be gathered together for that purpose, and if you lose sight of the end in view, you fail to interpret the three unclean spirits. We found in that chapter that three expedients were adopted by the Romanists to rally and solidify their own people, to bar the further progress of the Reformation and to re-establish their former claims to absolute supremacy over civil governments and all religions, and when we look in history to find some fulfilment of the work done by these unclean spirits, we find just three things; I confess I am able to find no other things as the result of their work.

First, the declaration of the Council of Trent, with its attendant profession of faith drawn up by the Pope, and its catechism on the doctrines, drawn up under his direction. That is the first thing they did to bar the further progress of Protestantism that broke out earlier in the century. Now in 1563 the first unclean spirit, the first frog, brought out his work.

Second, the dogmatic decrees of the Vatican Council, held in A.D. 1870, setting forth the infallibility of the Pope.

Third, the ex-cathedra utterances of the so-called infallible Pope, particularly in the various utterances concerning the virgin Mary, who is declared to be free from the taint of original sin, and second, from actual sin; third, her assumption in heaven; and fourth, her being made the Queen of Heaven. As the Pope expressed in one of his encyclical letters: "Mary is the fountain of all grace, and the only hope of salvation."

Fourth, another one of these documents, issued by the Pope in 1863, entitled the "Syllabus of Errors," that which he called errors in the teaching of science) errors in statesmanship, errors in doctrines, enumerating them and denouncing them with anathemas. Then, again in 1885, he sent out another encylical letter concerning the Christian constitution of states, making all states and all governments subordinate to the Pope. Then another encyclical letter in 1888, in which he expressly condemns what he calls "modern Liberties": liberty of worshiping according to the dictates of the conscience, liberty of speech, liberty of the press, the liberty of teaching by the states – for instance, having a free school system – the liberty of conscience – that your conscience must be put under the guidance of the Pope and the confessors. These are the distinguishing characteristics of modern Romanism, commencing in that Council of Trent held in 1563 and culminating in 1888, I say, that make modern Romanism, to wit: Papal infallibility, Mariolatry, supremacy over nations.

Fifth, the worship of Mary, making her, instead of the Holy Spirit, the mediator between the sinner and the Saviour. They have drawn pictures of Christ in the background, angry, with Mary standing between him and the sinner, and softening his wrath toward the sinner. I repeat: The decrees of the Council of Trent, the dogmatic decrees of the Vatican Council, and the various papal encyclical letters whose authority rests on his own declared infallibility, these did rally the Roman forces; they did bar, in certain states, the progress of the Reformation; they did make the battle line upon which Rome seeks to regain absolute supremacy over all states, religions, and all consciences.

We have seen in a previous chapter that for quite a while the Inquisition, established long before this time, was a mighty factor in enforcing these decisions. And we have found that the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits, was the next mightiest factor in the propagandism of this new declineation of doctrines. Now, I say that the object of all these expedients was to gather the nations in hostile array against what has been set forth as the true church and the pure gospel, and the result is a conflict, not a single battle, but a war. The Greek word is not "battle," but is "war," called here the war of the great day of God the Almighty, at the place called in Hebrew Har-Magedon.

The interposition of God is said here in our lesson to be a coming of the Lord: "Behold, I come as a thief in the night" (Revelation 16:15). It is not his final advent, but it is his coming in judgment upon this counterfeit church. Now, your lesson shows that the expression of his judgment in this outpouring of this seventh bowl of wrath, and the symbols which set forth the decree of the wrath are various: Lightnings, voices, and thunders, a great earthquake such as was not since there were men upon the earth; a great hail, every hailstone weighing about a talent (a hundred pounds). Maybe some of you think that is too big for a hailstone, but I will tell you that hailstones have fallen as big as a small house) weighing many tons. Hailstones fell near Lisbon, one of which would sink a ship in the harbor. So you need not get scared at a hundred pound hailstone.

Now, the results of the wrath are said to be:

First, the utter overthrow of the mystic city of Babylon the Great. When the Reformation broke out it received a shock, that was the earthquake, and a tenth part of the city was destroyed. But here ah the parts fell away from each other; that is total destruction.

Second, the downfall of the cities of the states of the supporting nations.

Third, the falling away of every island and mountain stronghold.

I am just giving you the symbols here. The completeness of the overthrow is expressed in a voice from the throne: "It is done." "He said: Let there be light, and there was light." Or they recall the words of Christ on the cross: "It is finished"; the expiation is finished; nothing more to be done to it throughout eternity. So, when this last bowl of wrath is poured out on this mystic city of Babylon, it is done; that lightning never has to strike again. Our paragraph puts into compact sentence the downfall of the mystic city of Babylon, but both of the following Revelation 17-18, are employed to identify this great city, what it is, and then to give the detail of its destruction. We may look to the exposition of these chapters for many things omitted here, and content ourselves for the present with this observation:

First, the lightning, the thunders, the earthquake, the hail, are all natural phenomena used figuratively to express the overpowering spiritual forces.

Second, the weapons of warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of the strongholds.

Third, the blood and carnage are symbols of spiritual results; it is a war of light against darkness, of truth against error, of a pure gospel against a false gospel.

Fourth, the inner meaning of the whole paragraph is that no millennial triumph can ever come to this earth until that great apostasy, in its persecuting union of church and state, in its persecuting idolatrous hierarchy) in its blasphemous assumption, has passed away.

The confusion among the commentators in their interpretation of the war of the great day of God the Almighty, arises largely from a disregard of the context. Our interpretation puts into one section everything from Revelation 12:1-19:10, and the theme of that entire section is the conflict between the true church of our Lord, regarded as an institution, and Satan’s counterfeit church, regarded as an institution. This conflict does not last until the end of the world, but its culmination does prepare the way for the introduction of the millennium. The wrath of God poured out on the apostate church, while complete in itself, is not the wrath which falls on Satan and his followers after the millennium (Revelation 20:7-10), nor is it the final wrath of the general judgment (Revelation 20:11-15).

In general terms this book discusses four wars conducted by Satan against the kingdom of God. First, he uses the pagan Roman Empire by its persecutions to drive the true church into the wilderness, culminating about A.D. 250; and he was defeated because, as you will recall, the pagan Roman Empire like a burning volcano was turned over into the sea. His second war was from the same center, the city of Rome. He constructs a so-called Holy Roman Empire, a politicoreligious persecuting empire, with a Pope instead of a Caesar as the head, and with the woman in purple and scarlet as the counterfeit church.

Now, we followed that war in the first campaign, up to the Reformation in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the second campaign commences with our lesson here with the sending forth of the three unclean spirits to break the force of the Reformation and to gather together the nations against the true church. By looking into history as I have told you, we are unable to find but three expedients that those three unclean spirits or demons could have devised for that purpose. These three I have described to you as the so-called ecumenical Council of Trent, the dogmatic decrees of the so-called ecumenical Vatican Council, and the several papal utterances whose authority rested on the claimed papal infallibility. These are the three things in history that constitute modern Romanism; nothing else in history can be found to fulfil Revelation 16:13-14 about the three unclean spirits going forth.

What, then, is the war of the great day of God the Almighty culminating at "the place called in Hebrew Har-Magedon"? Laying aside all figures of speech, it is the war against the declarations of the Council of Trent, against the dogmatic decrees of the Vatican Council, against the various papal utterances embodied in various encyclial letters, and in the Syllabus of Errors.

In Schaff’s "Creeds of Christendom," partly in Vol. I, but mainly in Vol. II, you may find both the history, the exposition, and the text of all these documents, and they do define modern Romanism. They draw the line of cleavage, and statesmen of Europe and America recognize them today &a the hardest problems of statecraft. Bismarck found it so; Gladstone found it so, and wrote one of the most remarkable books of the age, to wit: "Vaticanism." Our presidents find it so, and in my opinion our last two presidents tripped right on that point, as I think I could prove. These United States, with all their territorial possessions, are today at the place "called in Hebrew Har-Magedon."

The war is now on, in the press, in the schools, in the municipal, county, state, and national elections, in the pulpits, in the Congress and before the courts. There can be, I repeat, no millennium until the war, on these definite lines drawn by Romanism, is fought to a finish. The preacher, the politician, the statesman, who has not these books that I have named should sell his coat, if need be, and buy them, and when he has bought them should study them profoundly, should study Vol. I of Schaff’s "Creeds of Christendom" from page 83-191, and Vol. II from page 96-271, and then from page 555-602. It would take up twenty chapters to go over and give you the details of it, and you will never understand HarMagedon, you will not even know the nature of the war, you will not know the chief obstruction in the way of the coming of the millennium, unless you study them.

The issue of that war closes up the second war of Satan. I told you that our book treated of four wars; that is the close of the second war. The third one will be found to commence with Revelation 19:11, and going on through that chapter. And in that war there will be fulfilled the remarkable prophecy of Isaiah 63:1-6; Ezekiel 36-37; Daniel 11:45-12:1; Joel 3:1-21; Zechariah 12:1-13:1; Romans 11:11-31. And we must have a chapter on that because in it is involved the conversation of the whole Jewish nation in one day, which must come before the millennium.

Now, the fourth and last war of Satan in this book is the one described in Revelation 20:7-10. Will you keep those wars distinct in your mind? First, the war using pagan Rome as a persecutor; second, the war using papal Rome as a persecutor; third, the war culminating in the salvation of the Jews; fourth, the war after the millennium. They are all in this book.

As the whole of the following chapter simply identifies and defines the scarlet woman, and the next chapter gives the details of the downfall, I will put the questions:

1. Who is the woman in purple and scarlet riding upon the beast in this chapter? That is the Roman hierarchy, the counterfeit church as an institution.

2. What is meant by the many waters upon which she sits? The last of the chapter tells you that the waters mean many nations, tongues, kindred, and people.

3. What is the meaning of this woman being found in the wilderness? We found that radiant woman in the wilderness several chapters back, and this woman was not in the wilderness. It is the scarlet woman that is in the wilderness now. That means that her power is taken away, and she is ready to receive her doom.

4. What is meant by being full of the names of blasphemy? In a previous chapter I described them: It is blasphemy for a man to assume to be infallible; it is blasphemy for a man to claim to be the head of the church; it is blasphemy for a man to claim to be Christ’s vicar on earth; it is blasphemy to say that the prayers and manipulations of the officiating priest actually create God in changing the bread and wine into the real flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; it is blasphemy to worship the wafer as it is carried along in a procession, called the "Procession of the Host"; it is blasphemy to address a woman as the "fountain of all grace and the only hope of salvation," and so I could go on for hours telling you the blasphemies.

5. What is meant by the cup of abomination, the unclean things of her fornication? I have told you that fornication, spiritual fornication or adultery, means idolatry. It was idolatry for the national Israel, claiming to be the wife of Jehovah, to worship idols. Now this woman mixes in her cup various abominations, and she makes the kings of the earth drink out of this cup.

6. What is the mystic name of this woman? "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and the abominations of the earth." As there was a historic Babylon on the Euphrates, here this woman in the last verse of the chapter is expressly declared to be a city. There is a mystic Babylon, this woman in purple and scarlet, who is also a city.

7. What is meant by her being drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs? It means that from the constitution of that hierarchy to the present time she has used the thumbscrew, the rack, the dungeon, and the ax, and other forms of torture in putting to death the people who worship God according to the dictates of their consciences. The bloodiest pages in the annals of time record the martyrdoms done under the directions of this church. When on St. Bartholomew’s Eve, Admiral Coligny of France and so many thousands of other Huguenots were put to death in the city of Paris, as soon as the news got to Rome the bells of the Cathedral were set to ringing, and the whole city was full of the chimes because the streets of Paris were reeking with red blood of the martyrs. They sang a "Te Deum Laudamus" to celebrate this atrocious wholesale murder.

8. What is the beast upon which she sits? I told you that beast was the new government that Satan caused to rise up to take the place of Pagan Rome, the Holy Empire. That is the beast.

9. What is meant by saying that the beast had seven heads? The explanation is this, as you will see lower down, that five of these heads have fallen, one is, and another is to be, and the eighth will be of the seventh. Now, what are these seven heads? I have already given them to you, Egypt and Assyria, that had passed away before Daniel’s time, and then four, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. As he saw them, that makes six. Five of them had passed away, but in John’s time the sixth had not passed away. When it did soon pass away came the seventh, the union of church and state in the Holy Roman Empire, and the eighth was of the seventh, that was the papal head, which was part of the seventh.

10. What is meant by the ten horns? The chapter tells you that the ten horns are ten kingdoms that had not yet risen in John’s time. Pagan Rome was not yet disintegrated, but it will be disintegrated in a few centuries, and out of its ruins will come up the ten kingdoms. And these kingdoms for quite a while will support the woman in purple and scarlet and then these kingdoms will turn and rend the woman in purple and scarlet.

All the latter half of this chapter tells exactly what the first half means and in the next discussion we will take up the details of the fall of Babylon.

QUESTIONS

1. Why devote a chapter to the paragraph Revelation 16:14-21

2. Does the paragraph describe a war or a battle?

3. What is the name of the war?

4. What was the cause of the war? (Read Revelation 16:13-14.)

5. What was the date and occasion of the beginning of the war?

6. What the expedients devised by the three unclean spirits to restore Romanist supremacy, and in what books do you find the history, exposition, and text of these documents, giving volume and pages?

7. What, then, is this war?

8. How do you account for the confusion of commentators in interpreting the paragraph?

9. What the symbolic name of the place of the conflict, and why that name chosen as a symbol?

10. Is it on in this country, and if so in what arenas?

12. What, then, the real place of conflict symbolized by Har-Magedon? Answer: Anywhere in the world where the battle rages.

13. Are the weapons carnal or spiritual?

14. Between what two institutions the war, and to what must the interpretation of the paragraph, whatever its meaning, be strictly limited?

15. How is the divine interposition represented, and does that refer to our Lord’s final advent? (See Revelation 16:15.)

16. What symbol represents the divine wrath?

17. What is meant by "the air" on which the wrath is poured? Answer: The air represents general public opinion and thought concerning the expedients devised by the unclean spirits, and implies that the judgment of the world condemns and rejects them.

18. What symbols express results of pouring out the bowl of wrath on the air? Answer: (1) Lightnings, voices and thunders; (2) a great earthquake such as the men of earth never saw before; (3) a great hail-storm.

19. What one symbol expresses the wrath on the mystic Babylon, or counterfeit church? Answer: "The cup of the wine of God’s wrath."

20. In the first campaign of the war between the two ecclesiastical institutions, what the result of the earthquake to the counterfeit church occasioned by the Reformation, and the result of this earthquake? Answer: (For answer compare Revelation 11:13 and Revelation 14:13, first clause Revelation 14:20.)

21. Concerning the hailstones, how much avoirdupois weight each hailstone?

22. What the largest hailstones known to history?

23. Where the true church when the counterfeit church commences the war on it, and where the counterfeit church at the close of the war, just before the final judgment falls? And what does this imply? (For answer consult Revelation 12:6 and Revelation 17:3, which imply a complete reversal of public opinion concerning the two institutions.)

24. Describe the counterfeit church. Answer: A great harlot (Revelation 17:1 and all of Revelation 17:4-6).

25. What the meaning of the symbol "a harlot"? Answer: One claiming to be the spouse of the Lamb, who turns to the worship of idols.

26. What the meaning of "mother of harlots"? Answer: Her children also worship idols.

27. What the meaning of "abominations"? Answer: Another name for the perversions of the true worship of God.

28. What the meaning of the "golden cup in her hand"?

29. What the meaning of her gorgeous array in Revelation 17:4? Answer: This implies the great wealth occurred from the world, by Peter’s pence, gifts of the states, bequests of the dying, sale of indulgences, charges exacted for services at birth, marriage, death, and purgatorial intercession, etc., and her pompous state and imposing ritual.

30. Relate a pertinent and illustrative incident. Answer: It is related that one of the popes, after exhibiting his treasures to a friend, remarked: "Great change this from Peter’s day, who said, ’Silver and gold have I none’ "; to whom the friend replied: "We have the gold which Peter had not, but have we Peter’s power to make the lame walk?" (See Acts 3:6-7.)

31. What the meaning of "many waters" on which the harlot of Revelation 17:1, sitteth? (For answer see Revelation 17:15.)

32. What the meaning of the beast on which the woman rides in Revelation 17:3? Answer: The governmental union of church and state, with the church on top.

33. Cite historical proof of the blasphemies of the names of which this beast (Revelation 17:3) is full.

34. Explain the historical seven heads of the beast (Revelation 17:3), why Daniel mentions only four, how five had fallen before John’s time, what the seventh and what the eighth, and how the eighth is one of the seventh.

35. Explain the first clause of Revelation 17:8. Answer: Pagan Rome, the sixth, was but will soon cease with its Caesar head, but will re-appear as the Holy Roman Empire with a Papal head, and it too will go into perdition.

36. Explain the "ten horns," Revelation 17:3. (See Revelation 17:12.) Answer: These are the ten kingdoms formed out of the disintegrated elements of Pagan Rome, but all united in supporting the union of church and state.

37. How do you account for the change of attitude in these kingdoms toward the counterfeit church as set forth in Revelation 17:3; Revelation 17:13; Revelation 17:16? Answer: Kings are willing to support the beast, i.e., the union of church and state with the king on top as head of church and state in his own realm, but will resist a Papal head of state and church in his realm.

38. What the mystic name of the harlot?

39. What the real meaning of the woman? (See Revelation 17:18.)

40. What classic authors refer to Rome as the "seven-hilled city"?

41. These historic seven hills on which Rome is built symbolize, according to the interpretation, seven world-empires: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Pagan Rome, Papal Rome. Why connect so far back in interpretation? Answer: Because all fought the kingdom of God and the underlying principles were the same in every case; because our lesson tells us that in John’s time five had fallen.