It is true that many ideas advocated by the Enlightenment philosophers were not objectionable but worthy of pondering. Many of their thoughts and proposals for social reform addressed the great social inequalities and evils, oppression of the poor and marginalized groups, and the vile, unjust, and superstitious practices of the dominant church. However, the fundamental problem of these thinkers consisted in their complete reliance on human reason for all social and moral reforms. Jean Jacque Rousseau (1712–1778) is often called the father of modern democracy. Rousseau argued that man is by nature good, and has only been corrupted by his social and political institutions. This view contradicts the biblical view of man’s fallen nature. The salvation of mankind, for Rousseau, is not the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, but a return to nature.

The so-called French “philosophers” (e.g., Voltaire, D’Alembert, Diderot, Montesquieu) represented the intellectual leaders of the nation who seriously undermined every trust in divine, supernatural revelation. The so called Encyclopedists (Diderot and D’Alembert) and particularly Baron D’Holbach in his Parisian salon, openly promoted atheism and mocked the Christian religion. Even the Enlightenment philosophers who were considered “moderate,” like Jean Jacques Rousseau, expressed in their works the ideas (like “general will” by Rousseau), that later served as an inspiration for the various forms of tyranny and terror of a supposedly “enlightened group” that carried out the “general will” for the common good of the masses (e.g., adopted by Robespierre in the French Revolution). As we have seen before, the French Revolution, especially during the Reign of Terror, brutally implemented dechristianization of the entire nation, desacralized churches, burnt Bibles and Christian books, introduced blasphemous and immoral cults of Reason and of Supreme Being, and ruthlessly murdered, imprisoned, exiled to overseas penal colonies, or chained to galleys, thousands of its victims. The overwhelming evidence shows that our Lord was indeed crucified in that great city, the revolutionary populace of France.

The French Revolution also fulfilled another apocalyptic prophecy. The Revolution dealt a mortal blow to the head of the apostate church that opposed and persecuted the “two witnesses”—the scriptural witness of the Old and New Testaments and of the faithful people of God—during a long period of 1,260 years (Revelation 11:3). When Napoleon’s general, Berthier, took Pope Pius VI captive in February of 1798, the Papacy lost the control over the Vatican City and the Papal States (particularly from 1870) and consequently its power in temporal, political affairs. Figuratively speaking, the temporal, secular head of the Papacy received a deadly wound. Although the new Pope (Pius VII) was elected two years following the death of Pius VI, and notwithstanding the Concordat which the Pope Pius VII signed with Napoleon I in Paris July 15, 1801, the Papacy remained mortally wounded in its capacity to exercise major political influence. Napoleon I signed the Concordat with the Papacy not because he wished to empower the Papacy. He did it rather to make peace with the Roman Catholics in France and thus to consolidate his own hold on the power. Napoleon did not restore to the church the vast church lands and endowments seized during the revolution. Further, the emperor selected bishops and supervised church finances which demonstrated that the balance of church-state relations tilted firmly in his own favor.

The church-state affairs began to change when, on February 11, 1929, Mussolini, acting on behalf of the kingdom of Italy, signed another Concordat (the Lateran Treaty), this time with the Pope Pius IX. That Treaty recognized Vatican City as an independent state under the sovereignty of the Holy See and entitled the Roman Catholic Church to a monetary compensation for the loss of the Papal States in 1870. From the time of the Lateran Treaty onward, it could indeed be said that the deadly wound inflicted to Papacy by the Revolutionary France has begun to heal.

It is remarkable to discover on the pages of the sacred Bible that the 18th century deadly combat between the humanist, atheistic, liberal France and the apostate Christian church was predicted with an amazing accuracy in the first century A.D.! Chapter 13 of Revelation portrays a dreadful monster with seven heads and ten crowned horns rising out of the sea. Then John, the author of Revelation, sees something unusual: One of the heads of that beast coming up out of the sea appears to be mortally wounded, but to John’s surprise, that deadly wound was healed: “And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast” (Revelation 13:3).

What follows next in the vision indicates that the resurrected head of the seven-headed sea beast will exert a major influence on the world affairs and on the lives of the inhabitants of this planet. That this power claims religious authority is obvious from the fact that it demands and receives worship: “And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” (v. 4). The dragon in the apocalyptic prophecies represents primarily Satan and derivatively spiritualistic and pantheistic demonic forces. The beast coming up out of the sea in Revelation 13 is none other than the apostate Christian church which received the deadly wound during the French Revolution, but which would begin to heal with the restoration of temporal power to the Papacy.

Of special interest to the students of the apocalyptic prophecies is the second part of Revelation 13 that introduces another beast coming up out of the earth that looks like a two-horn lamb but speaks like a dragon. That earth beast works in close cooperation with the first beast: “And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed” (Revelation 13:12).

Many Bible students have identified the second beast of Revelation 13 as the United States of America. The Bible clearly teaches that the religious body whose deadly wound was healed and the world’s leading superpower, the United States, will create a political alliance and that the United States will lend their support to the Roman Church by enforcing her religious dogmas and compelling worship to that religious power.

Having identified the major players on the religious-political scene of the Bible apocalyptic prophecies for the end time (since 1798), we would like to briefly survey the movements, alliances, and conflicts from the French Revolution until today. We will also quickly observe the position and the role of God’s people in the same period.

There is no question in our mind that the humanist, rationalist, and predominantly agnostic or atheistic forces rooted in the Enlightenment philosophy have been in ascendancy ever since the French Revolution. Without any further elaboration let us only point to the major events, movements, ideas, and ideologies which prove unquestionably that the seeds sown by the so-called Enlightenment philosophers have resulted in an abundant harvest.

While a successful political revolution that would parallel the French Revolution did not materialize in Europe during the 19th century, revolutionary movements and ideas did not cease to plague Europe throughout that entire century. It was nothing short of miraculous that the political and social turmoil of the year 1848 did not result in more deposed monarchs and new revolutionary creations. An anti-monarchial, anti-traditionalist, anti-religious spirit was present everywhere.

That same spirit gave rise to the socialist and communist movements of the 19th century. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the founders of the communism and dialectical materialism, adored the intellectual stars of the French Enlightenment and the heroes of the French Revolution. That same spirit and the same ideas were behind the Paris Commune of 1871 which Marx carefully studied as an object lesson for refining and perfecting the methodology for a successful revolutionary overthrow of bourgeois regimes. Well, it did not take long for Marx’ and Engels’ disciples to put their masters’ ideas to work and succeed in their enterprise. The October Revolution of 1917 in Russia under leadership of Lenin and his associates is both a splendid and sordid example of the effectiveness of the Marxist ideas, depending on your worldview. It should not escape our attention that the October Revolution shared the most salient features of the French Revolution (a group of “enlightened” revolutionaries seizing the power for the benefit of the masses and imposing the dictatorship of the oppressed class, the reign of terror resulting in a bloodbath and the wanton death of countless people who were deemed enemies of the revolution, war against Christianity and Christian moral values. . . .

Communist revolutions and regimes are in the living memory of the author of this article and presumably of some of its readers. They spread in the first half of the 20th century like mushrooms after rain, some unsuccessful, but most quite successful (China, the countries of the Central and South-Eastern Europe, North Korea, Cuba, Indochina, some in Africa and South America.) In the middle of the 20th century it appeared that more than half of the world population lived under the communist grip and that communism will rule the world. Communism and the communist bloc of countries presented the Western democracies (primarily the U.S. and the West European countries) with a formidable opponent. Christian churches and many faithful Christians suffered immensely under the yoke of communist and atheist dictators. To an unbiased observer it appeared that the pendulum was swinging further and further to the left—in the direction of the French Revolution.

Then, suddenly, from 1989 onward the communist regimes began to crumble, totter, and fall, one after another. The speed of their demise was of such a rate that the non-communist world was taken by surprise. Well, perhaps not all in the West were that much surprised. The primary cause for the downfall of communist regimes is certainly to be found in the inherent deficiencies of the political and economic system on which the communist regimes were built. But this was not the only cause for their collapse. For years, the United States Government and Vatican had done careful planning and worked behind the scene and in public forum to undermine communism in Central Europe (Poland). They found in each other a strategic partner that had a common foe—the Soviet Union and its communist satellites.2

Many of us have been the witnesses of this amazing political and social change and of a major strategic realignment on the world stage. The United States emerged from 1990s as the world’s only superpower and that feat was accomplished through the aid of the Roman Church! Could a Bible prophecy receive a more accurate and reliable verification in history? The final act of the prophesied church-state alliance and the supremacy of church over state has not yet taken place. This portion of the prophecy of Revelation 13 is still in the future, but not in the distant future. When the church and state will legislate worship on a particular day (Sunday) and take away religious freedom to worship God in accordance with one’s conscience, then the pendulum will reach its final point—in the direction of the apostate church. But then, Jesus Christ will enter the battlefield to defend His people! “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” (Daniel 12:1).

We should not live in delusion that the spirit and the ideology of the French Revolution are dead because communism suffered such a humiliating defeat end of the 20th century. Humanistic, rationalistic, and atheistic worldview that animated Enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century is alive and well in our time. That view was greatly strengthened by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. As John Hallowell says,

“The popularity of Darwin’s theory is to be accounted for, at least in part, by the fact that it suited the times in which it was formulated, it confirmed many individuals in believing what they already wanted to believe.”3

Darwin’s ideas had a tremendous impact upon nearly every area of human thought, including sociology, political science, economics, psychology, history, and religion. Darwin systematized and popularized the theory of evolution as it pertained to the physical development of plants, animals, and human beings. But the application of Darwin’s thought to the various disciplines mentioned above was due in large part to the work of Herbert Spencer (1820–1903). Spencer’s influence, particularly in the United States, and even broader, cannot be overestimated.

Academia, media and news agency, government officials, judiciary, popular culture and arts, almost any area of public discourse in our time appears to be under the strong influence of the same ideas that served as the guiding lights of the Enlightenment philosophers. Man—and not God, human reason—and not divine revelation, is the final arbiter and the highest court of appeal for any statement of fact and for any moral value. Never in the living memory have the United States been as polarized over the fundamental issues and moral values that are central to any free society, as they are now. The social and moral agenda set by the liberal rationalistic and humanistic philosophers of the 18th century has almost been exhausted. There is hardly any social institution or societal convention that has not been redefined and restructured in the 20th and 21st centuries. In some areas, modern society has made progress; in most areas, however, it is in an open rebellion against God and His laws. The modern, traditionally Christian nations are in our time probably as dechristianized as was revolutionary France.

The pendulum is still in motion, it has always moved back and forth—only the amplitude and the speed of motion changes from time to time. In the history that we have surveyed, we have discovered how the dark force has oscillated between blind religion to boastful atheism, and back. The church of Christ gradually apostatized and became a corrupt, oppressive, unjust institution. She ruled the Christian world for more than a millennium, but ultimately in the home of her “oldest daughter”—France, she nurtured her bitterest enemy—revolutionary France, which inflicted to her mother a deadly wound. How different could have been the history of France and of the Catholic Church in France if the leaders of the church and the state acted differently toward Protestant Reformation. By teaching the parishioners and citizens to denounce, arrest, torture, exile, and murder heretics (Huguenots, Albigenses), the church reaped a grim harvest. A bad lesson was learned too well. As Philip Schaff, the noted American church historian observed: “France rejected the Reformation—and reaped the Revolution.”4

Scripture tells us that the wound will heal and that the church will reassert her dominance, with vengeance. With the help of the state on which she has always relied, the church will strike again against her enemies, and it will strike hard. But before God would intervene with His judgments upon the enemies of His people, please note that disillusioned nations which the apostate church shall use for her ambitious goal of world dominance, will ultimately destroy the great prostitute (the “whore” depicted in Revelation chapter 17) and burn her with fire. Then the pendulum will stop because Satan will lose the cosmic war and his army shall be defeated.

“And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.  And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth” (Revelation 17:16–18).

God wins, Satan loses. That is the final score. But God does not win alone; His faithful people win also. Let us close this survey of the Bible prophecy and history with the prophetic words from Revelation 11. When God’s two witnesses were overcome and killed in that great city, the inhabitants of the city were joyful because the testimony of God’s witnesses made them uncomfortable and tormented their conscience. “And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth” (Revelation 11:9, 10).

But, to their dismay, the murderous and idolatrous peoples saw that the two witnesses came back to life and continued their testimony. “And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them” (Revelation 11:11, 12).

Following the notorious French Revolution and all its ideologues and henchmen who waged war against the word of God, that word truly returned back to life immediately after the revolution and became translated and spread, and taught as no other written document in the world.

The word of God is indestructible. It will survive all its enemies, and it will judge them all.

“The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:7, 8, NKJV).