14th Meeting Continued Revelation 17:6

The beast mentioned in verse 8 is the same as mentioned in 17:3. Once was, now is not and will come out of the Abyss and go to his destruction; this part of the verse threw me last night, it was the part about the Abyss that confused me. You remember that the third part of the demonic trinity comes out of the Abyss. Now we will look at verse 8 closely and hopefully this time we will be able to say without question this is the anti-christ number 2 of the demonic trinity. Once was, points to the fact that the anti-christ at this time has come to power (still future to us now); he will be wounded by a head wound and seem to die, signified by now is not. And will come out of the Abyss and go to his destruction if you look back at Revelation 16:10, the fifth angel poures out his bowl on the throne of the beast and his kngdom and the beast is plunged into darkness, this is the symbolism of the Abyss. The beast is broken and subdued but not yet cast into the lake of fire, which is how he will come up from the Abyss and go to his destruction. Verse 8 concludes with the inhabitants of the earth whose names are not written in the book of life being astonished when they see the beast, because he once was , now is not, and yet will come. Those of you who read my blog and don't come to class, missed a discussion at this point. I write on the Board a zero, and tell people that that is the number God would like to be in hell. The people who find themselves in hell can not blame God for their being there. They themselves have put themselves there by their unbelief. The class thought they had me, when they raised this question. "If God predestined these people to be not written in the Book of Life, God couldn't want zero people in hell." Sounds good, but this arguement makes the point of free choice. Remember in Genesis 3:15 when God curses the serpent and the woman; God said that the seed of the serpent would find enmity between his and her seed. Enmity means hatred; the seed of the woman are the God fearing ones and the seed of the serpent are the ones who follow Satan.

I see that I have run out of posting space and will take Revelation 17:9 on next post.