Revelation 17
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Important messages
Chapter 17
1. Then one of the seven angels who had the
seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the
great prostitute who is seated on many waters,
2. with whom the kings of the earth have
committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers
on earth have become drunk.”
3. And he carried me away in the Spirit into a
wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of
blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.
4. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet,
and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup
full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.
5. And on her forehead was written a name of
mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.”
6. And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of
the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled
greatly.
7. But the angel said to me, “Why do you marvel?
I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and
ten horns that carries her.
The prostitute and mother of prostitutes
One of the seven angels of the bowls of wrath reveals the
fall of Babylon to John, therefore its fall takes place during the time of the outpouring of the
bowls. Verse 19 of the last chapter points us to a spiritual principle,
concerning God’s measurement of sin. In that verse, Babylon the great has
measured up to the full and the time of her judgment had come. Zechariah, in
his seventh vision, brings the same principle to our attention, illustrated by
an ephah, a Jewish measurement of
about one bushel of dry material (Zech.5:5-11). He sees a receptacle which
contains that amount and symbolically, it represented the collective sins of a
people in Zechariah’s land that had come to its fullness.
The sins of the people in the time of Noah reached this
point and in Genesis 15:16, God tells Abraham that the sins of the Amorites was
not yet complete. That would happen in another four generations. Daniel told
King Belshazzar, “You have been weighed
on the scales and found deficient” (Dn.5:20, 22, 27). Belshazzar’s ephah is
full of deficiency! Jesus said to the Jews of His day, “Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers” (Mt.23:32).
In the ephah is a woman representing the sin of the
people and it is carried into Shinar, originally Babel, and later Babylon. The “ephah
people” are taken into the land of false religion and idolatry. This woman
becomes a part of the great Babylonian harlot. Scofield comments, concerning Babylon in
Revelation: “The professing Gentile
church at that time, condoning every iniquity of the rich, doctrinally a mere “confusion”,
as the name indicates, and corrupted to the core by commercialism, wealth, and
luxury, falls under the judgment of God.”
The harlot has great popular influence, which is
symbolized by drunkenness (v.2). People enter into an unreal, fantasy world,
which holds them bewitched and deceived. Truth is an unwelcome intrusion
into this atmosphere of falsehood and is met by violence. This is a mystery
and John, as well as his readers, must be in the Spirit in order to interpret
this wonder (v.3). On her forehead is her title: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations” (v.5).
Babylon is a system that is, in the first place,
religious, then financial and political. The title of a prostitute and of
sexual fornication is symbolic of a greater evil… idolatry, compromise with the
world, and false doctrine. This symbolism will find a fulfillment in any period
of church history. The symbol of the true church is that of a virgin (2
Co.11:2) and false religion is harlotry, which has abandoned holiness and
truth. False religion is the chief persecutor of the saints and works in
conjunction with people in high places. In John’s day, Judaism combined with
Rome to fight against the church and false “Christians” were corrupted. They
have been carried out of the beautiful atmosphere of purity into a desert of
sin and compromise.
As well as being the enemy and murderer of the true people
of God, the prostitute is the epitome of self-indulgence and has gone to the
top of the world to attain it. She is dependent and enriched by high society
and secular government. She comes onto the scene, seated on many waters and riding
a scarlet beast. The waters symbolize her popularity among the people of the
world. She is elegantly attired and bedecked with jewels.
The church in Thyatira was plagued by the doctrine of
Jezebel, which called for compromise with the world system (please review the comments of David Barnhart on Revelation 2:18-29 in my blog). The spirit of
Jezebel has continued its influence throughout church history. Do we realize
how strong its influence is in our day? How many churchgoing people today deny the virgin birth of Christ and His deity? How many church members
believe in the supernatural emphasis in the Bible? We might be surprised at the
percentages. This all relates to the power of Babylon working in our day,
preparing people for the entrance of world religion allied with the spirit of
antichrist. Heed the warnings of Paul: 1 Timothy 4:1-16; 2 Timothy 3:1-17.
The world has known the Babylonian influence almost from the
very beginning. Nimrod, the founder, was a hunter
of men (Ge.10:9), and that term has produced the end-time scene that we are
witnessing. Babylon appeals to men by false teachings, a promise of riches and
power and hunts down and kills all opposition. The Babylon religious system has
given birth to all false religions. It is the mother of harlots. The Babylonian
emperor, Nebuchadnezzar, made room for a special spiritual department in his
government. Experts of history tell us that early Babylonian religion had an
amazing similarity to Christianity. They even provided the image of a Madonna
and son, worshiping it, and allowed for a death and resurrection to the son.
As I write to you, I have been closely following Warren
Wiersbe’s comments on Babylon, since he reflects most of my own viewpoints on
the matter, and he states: “Today,
some believers see ‘the harlot’ and the Babylonian system in an apostate ‘world
church’ that minimizes doctrinal truth, rejects the authority of the Word, and
tries to unite professed believers on some other basis than faith in Jesus
Christ.” Later, he writes: “Perhaps
Peter was using Babylon as a ‘code name’ for Rome when he wrote his first letter
(1 P.5:13),” I believe also that that which Wiersbe suspects in the last sentence is very possible.
There is no question that John, taught by the angel, in
the present tense, saw the woman as Rome, “The
seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated (Rome always had the fame of being situated on seven hills)… the great city
that has dominion over the kings of the earth” (v.9, 18). In John’s day, Rome was the center of a
religion, which was derived from Babylon, and because the Caesar was a fanatic
proponent of Roman religion, he saw John, the last and only living apostle, as
a threat, so he exiled him to the isle of Patmos.
Do we not see the same characteristics in the Rome of our
day? She is now the proponent of an ecumenicalism, which even reaches outside
of Christianity to other major religions of the world. The modern professor of
Christianity tends to ignore history. The Roman Catholic Church, which has
approximately 1.3 billion members as of 2017, has achieved her wealth, power
and popularity, since the Fourth Century, at the same time that she persecuted
millions of true believers. Never forget, she is drunk with the blood of the
saints!
8. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and
is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the
dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from
the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is
not and is to come.
9. This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven
heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated;
10. They are also
seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and
when he does come he must remain only a little while.
11. As for the
beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it
goes to destruction.
12. And the ten
horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but
they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast.
13. These are of
one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast.
A scarlet beast plus ten kings
The scarlet beast has all the marks of Satan, including
his typical color and the ascension from the bottomless pit. He comes straight
from the devil’s realm and he is the antichrist. Chapter 17 adds more detail to
the description of the same beast in chapter 13; you may want to read that
chapter again and refer to my comments.
It is convenient for the beast to allow the prostitute to
take advantage of his authority in the end times, as she has done with
governments throughout history. His motive is to unite the religions of the
world behind his reign. In spite of the religious exterior, the world in his
day is typified by blasphemy and a lack of the fear of God. The antichrist must
create this atmosphere, in order to bring about universal acceptance of anti-God
man-worship.
The beast existed at an earlier point in history, then
disappeared off the map, and returns via the bottomless pit, a supernatural
plan from hell. In the mind of the sovereign God, he reappears for his own
destruction. The population of
earthlings are intrigued by his reappearance, recognizing his prominent place
in past history.
Besides symbolizing seven mountains, according to the
revelation given by the angel, the seven heads of the beast show the history of
world empires (v.9-10). A dream of Nebuchadnezzar depicted these empires from
his day forward (Daniel 2), just as Daniel’s dream of four beasts did, at a
later date (Daniel 7). However this is a fuller revelation that takes us back
to the Egyptian civilization. Five kings have fallen: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon,
Persia, and Greece. The Roman Empire is now in power in John’s day and the last
is still future for John and for us. It will only rule for 3 ½ years
(Rev.13:5).
Heaven sees these seven representatives of man’s rule and
authority as one. The antichrist is one of them, becoming the seventh empire,
completing the number of heads on the beast. However there are ten horns on the
beast, as well, and these form a rule, which is unique and different, a
manifestation that appears in the end times
(v.11). They unite with the antichrist after the Abomination of Desolation . The ten horns are contemporary kings in Daniel’s 70th Week,
ruling together and giving their authority over to the beast (v.11-12). They
all have the same mentality, which I think will be a display of a kind of
humanism, at its highest level with supernatural power, supplied by Satan.
In the book of Daniel, we learn that these ten kings
actually extend from the fourth kingdom seen by Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel, that is,
the Roman Empire (Dn.2:40-41 and Dn.7:7-8, 11-12). It will be separated in time
by many centuries, but it will reappear as a revival of the fourth empire. We may
well be experiencing the beginning of its rule in the form of the European
Union. We must leave the details in God’s hands, but at the same time, we should
be attentive, as it unfolds.
Please read again comments from Warren Wiersbe: “Recall that at the opening of the first
seal (Rev.6:1-2), Antichrist began his ‘peaceful’ conquest of the nations. He
organized a “United States of Europe”, brought peace to the Middle East, and
appeared to be the great leader the troubled world was seeking. But in the
midst of the seven-year period, this ruler broke his covenant with Israel
(Dn.9:27) and began to persecute the people of God as well as the nation Israel…
In this way, ‘the beast’ was both ‘one of the seven kingdoms, but also ‘the
eighth’. His kingdom was nothing but revival of the Roman Empire (one of the
seven), but it was a new kingdom (the eighth).”
14. They will make
war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and
King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.
15. And the angel
said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are
peoples and multitudes and nations and languages.
16. And the ten
horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make
her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire.
17. for God has
put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and
handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are
fulfilled.
18. And the woman
that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.”
Hatred against the prostitute
Ultimately the ten kings and the antichrist will make
open war against the Lamb and they will fall, as we will see in chapter 19. We
will also see His absolute authority in the same chapter as King of Kings and
Lord of Lords. No one on earth or from the bottomless pit can stand against
Him. He is the mighty, undefeated Champion and His followers are chosen by God
for their faithfulness, because they have been called out of the world and
empowered by the Holy Spirit. There has never been an army like His and they
follow Him in chapter 19.
In verse 15, we have a clear definition of the water upon
which the prostitute sat. They are from the four divisions of the population of
the world, of which we have read on other occasions… peoples, multitudes,
nations and languages. This is why the beast needed an alliance with her, in
order to gain the backing of the people. They are characteristically religious
and Babylon has known how to capitalize on that fact. She has found a way to
make all the religions one, through a powerful ecumenical movement. It’s
already taking place in the 21st Century.
The prostitute and the beast work in harmony during the
first 3 ½ years of Daniel’s Seventieth Week – as a convenience, religion and
government unite. However, a tremendous change takes place, when the antichrist
assumes his seat at the Abomination of Desolation, in a devilish quest for
full, unchallenged worship. Already, the enemy has placed a disdain for all
religion at governmental levels. We see it taking place around the world where
that, which relates to God, is being removed from public attention. At the same
time, free rein is given to blasphemy, perversion, and the destruction of human
life. Religion must still be tolerated in our day, but there is an underlying
hatred for it.
It is this hatred that will cause the destruction of
Babylon. The 10 kings and the beast will strip her of adherents and leave her
desolate and alone. They will take away her possessions and riches and finally
burn her to the ground. The great harlot will exist no longer.
The Scripture teaches time and again that God is
absolutely sovereign. Even these events are in His hands and in fact, he has
sown the seed in the hearts of all involved in order to bring them to pass. In
the end, it all serves His purpose. It all fulfills prophecy, which He is even
now revealing to us, as we study this final prophetical book. These things will
happen, exactly as God says that they will.
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