Revelation 17:1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:
2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
"Horns, on the other hand, are the symbol of might, strength, and power. The beast carrying the harlot has seven heads of authority and ten horns of power! Seven and ten are both complete numbers. Seven is a sacred number in this respect, that it generally is used of the perfection of spiritual realities and the completeness of God’s purposes and kingdom. It denotes fullness in the things of God. In our text, however, it is used with a negative application, signifying the fullness of that authority which purports to be, claims to be, pretends to be the authority of Christ, but is in reality the fullness of the carnal mind usurping the place of Christ’s authority in the church!"
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"If these ten symbolical kings cannot war against the Lamb in the flesh, if you confess that He is exalted high above all principalities and powers, then do not such war against Him in His life, and against Him in His light, and against Him in His purpose, and against Him within His people? Indeed, the powers of the flesh and the carnal mind warring against the spirit of Christ, and against the spiritual mind, and against the spiritual life, bringing a man into captivity to the flesh, and to the fleshly mind, and to the fleshly life, with its law of sin and death — just there the battle rages! Obviously these kings are not outward kings of literal nations on earth! Obviously they have nothing to do with the outward warfare of military machines! Nearly all expositors of the book of Revelation assert that they are earthly rulers — either historical characters, or future rulers still to arise at the end of time. Many have been the efforts to identify them historically, or to speculate who they will be in some future “end-time” scheme of things. The revealing fact is that there are as many opinions about their identities as there are expositors!"