Revelation 17:1-18

Revelation chapter 17, beginning with verse 1. And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talk with me, saying unto me, come hither. I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters. 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. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness, and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of the names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her handful of abominations, and filthiness of her fornication. And upon her forehead was a name-written mystery. Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. And the angel said unto me, wherefore didst thou marvel, I will tell thee the mystery, of the woman, and of the beast that careth her, which hath, they have seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawst was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition, they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world. When they behold the beast that was and is not, and yet is, And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings, five are fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come, and when he cometh he must continue a short space. And the beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. And the ten horns which thou sawst are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, shall give their power and strength under the beast. These shall make war with the lamb, and the lamb shall overcome them, for he is Lord of lords and king of kings. They that are with him are called and chosen and faithful. And he saith unto me the waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For the Lord hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, to agree, and to give their kingdom under the beast until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman which thou sawst is that great city which reigned over the kings of the earth. God blessed to us his sacred hand full of world. Now we have said that one of the difficulties of this book of Revelation is the identification of the main characters here. And here we’re dealing with. this third character, the harlot, and there have been many different views. Some have viewed it as organized religion in general. Some have viewed it as the Roman Catholic Church. Some as the World Council churches. Some as the one religion of the end times. Some have viewed it as ancient Roman. John’s Day. Some have viewed it as ancient Jerusalem of John’s Day. So you know, need to find a way to eliminate some of these so that we can narrow the field down. Thankfully, God has provided many characteristics here regarding the identification of Babylon, and all we have to do is try to match up the characteristics, and the one that matches the characteristics best certainly would be the one that we would think would be identified as the Babylon here in Revelation, Chapter 6. 17. Now, given the contemporary nature of the book, and I mentioned that the contemporary nature means that it relates specifically to John’s Day, and we mentioned how it was, the time was at hand, and things of this nature, that we have these kind of statements repeatedly in revelation regarding the time. That means that the beast, here, as we’ve also, already seen must represent someone in John’s Day. You’ll notice that the seven heads that he mentions here in chapter 17 and verse 9 and 10 here, he indicates to us that these seven heads are seven kings. There are seven mountains on which the beast sits, but there are also seven kings. Five are fallen. Now, he can’t say something future here. If this is all future, how can he say there? five of are already fallen, which means the beast is contemporary with John’s Day. And so the one is, is the one who’s on the throne. We have said that this represents the Roman Empire with Nero on the throne. So we can eliminate a lot of views with this. Babylon can’t be the World Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, or some end-time one-world religion. Babylon must exist. at the time that John wrote, because Babylon is writing on the beast, as we’re told here. They have to be in the days of the sixth king. Actually, there really are only two possibilities that. We either have ancient Rome or we have ancient Jerusalem. It will be my contention. to prove that Babylon is Jerusalem of John’s Day. Notice carefully that the harlot rides on the beast, and that indicates to me a separation from the beast. There are two situations here that are mentioned. She’s riding on it, but she’s not part of the beast, like the heads are, and the horns and so forth. So this is Babylon the Great. We talked about it. It is a great city. 17 here in verse 5 and verse 18 both mention it as the great city. In fact, chapter 14 mentions as a great city, chapter 16, chapter 18 mentions it a great city. Repeatedly, we went to chapter 11 and verse 8 and we saw that there is only one city here that’s mentioned as the great city, and it’s identified for us here as Jerusalem. The only time the great city is mentioned as something else is when we get to chapter 21 and 22, there’s one time it’s mentioned as the Jerusalem that comes down from above. But it’s identified for us, the one that gets destroyed, is certainly identified for us here in chapter 11 and verse 8, where the dead bodies of the two witnesses shall lie in the streets of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. So we know where Christ was crucified, and so it becomes clear to us that he’s speaking, I think, of Jerusalem here. Notice that since the great city is identified for us in Chapter 11, where we first have it mentioned, the great city is mentioned, we can follow all that through with the rest of these passages. Secondly, the great horror is Babylon, and she’s also called the mother. of harlots in chapter 171 and verse 5. Now we went to the Old Testament in our last study. We showed that Jehovah called Jerusalem a harlot repeatedly. And the Israel, harlot repeatedly in the Old Testament. We looked at Isaiah. We looked at Jeremiah. We looked at Ezekiel. And on and on we could go. This is very prevalent in the Old Testament. and I won’t go through all that again. We also wanted to focus on the idea of being the mother of Harleys. What relationship did Rome have with God as a heathen city? How could she be said to be of Harlot? And then how could she be the mother of Harlots? Jerusalem had great spiritual influence. And her apostasy led others astray. And that’s the constant. that we have here. Ezekiel speaking directly under Jerusalem in Ezekiel chapter 16 verses one to three as we looked at in our last study. Jehovah said this, she played the harlot and later on in the chapter in verses 48 and 55 she has daughters. These are the various villages, towns about Jerusalem in Judea that followed the practices in the wicked ways of Jerusalem itself. And now in the New Testament, Jerusalem’s influence is even greater than it was during Ezekiel’s day because they had just gone into captivity, because we’re going to see that she has influence over many peoples and nations and so forth, as the text indicates to us. So here she is the mother of Harlet. She’s the original Harlet. There’s nobody else that. can match this heart. The third thing is, she’s drunken with the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus. 17, verse 6. If you look at 18 and verse 24, we read this. And in her was found the blood of the prophets and of saints and of all that were slain upon the earth or upon the land. So Babylon is responsible for all that were slain on the land. The prophets? the apostles, the saints, chapter 18, verse 20 mentions apostles as well. The Roman Empire under Nero certainly persecuted the saints. But Jesus said, it cannot be said that a prophet perish outside of Jerusalem, Luke 1333. The Jewish leadership was often responsible for using the authority, their authority to kill the prophets. And Jesus indicates that the ultimate blame for all the righteous blood that was shed on the earth or the land from the very beginning. He goes all the way, you know, back to Abel. And then he concludes with Zachariah. It rests upon Jerusalem, as he tells us in Matthew chapter 23. In chapter 17, verse 6, we have the fourth identification here, and that is, it’s destroyed by the beast. The ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast shall hate the whore and shall make her her desolate and naked, shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. Jerusalem rides upon the beast. It uses the beast, authority, and power, to persecute her. and to kill the people of God. We saw it with Jesus when he was taken before Pilate. They didn’t have the right to put him to death, but they went to pilot so that he, as the Roman governor, would put Jesus to death. Paul has to go before Nero because all the accusations of Jews against it and trying to get him kill. And ultimately, it seems that they succeeded in having him beheaded. So if this city represents rules, Rome, then Rome is hated by her own providential rulers and destroyed by the Roman Empire. That seems contrary to fact. If Jerusalem is the heartlet, then the beast on which he rides turns against her and destroys her. This is according to history. I am prepared to argue the Roman Empire, which one, once enjoyed a good relationship with Jerusalem, did eventually make her desolate, naked, and burn her with fire. And I think that fits it very well. Josephus, and I was going to quote some information from him, but I won’t quote him, but he talks about how they set fire to the city, how they burned the city and so forth. Did you see that word? desolate here? Make her desolate. Do you think where that word might be used somewhere else in prophecy? Yes. Yes. And if you look with me in Daniel in chapter 9, look at verses 25 to 27, we have it even more clearly, I think, stated. If you look at Luke’s Gospel with Matthews, you’ll so notice that the abomination and desolation is actually the Roman army that comes and desolates them. You’ll have to compare those two passages together. We’ll look at the one in Luke a little bit later here. But look at verse 25 of Daniel 29. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem. Notice we’re talking about the city of Jerusalem. Until the Messiah of the Prince shall be seven weeks and three score and two weeks. These are weeks of years, and so we have 69 weeks here mentioned. The street shall be built again in the wall, even in troublous times. And after three score and two weeks, shall Messiah be cut off, this is speaking about Christ’s death, but not for himself, and the people the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and sanctuary. word. And the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war, desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week. In the midst of the week, he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. For the overspreading of abominations, he shall make it desolate, even under the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. I take it the prince that shall come is speaking of Christ, and his army will end up, you’ll be using the Roman army to destroy the city here of Jerusalem. He’ll make it desolate. I see, I think this word desolate here is used with reference to this prophecy and also to the reference to the prophecy that you find that Christ gave. Look at Matthew 23, if you would. Versus 37 and 38, Matthew 23. Jesus says this, O Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often I would have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens, under her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you, desolate. Now, he will also burn her with fire, the Bible says. Back up, we just one chapter, chapter 22, of the book of Matthew. And here you have the parable of the marriage feast. And you’ll remember that Jesus says in verse 2 that the kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son. He sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding, but they would not come. Again, he sent forth other servants saying, Tell them which are bidden. Behold, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen, my faxon, my father, the fatlings are killed and all things are ready, come under the marriage. But they made light of it. They went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise, and the remnant took his servants and treated them spitefully and slew them. But when the king heard thereof, he was wrothed and sent forth his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned up their city. Then, of course, the servants are sent out to the byways, the highways, because the Gentiles are going to be. He’s talking about the Jews in particular. He’s talking about Jerusalem as the city here, and it will be burnt with fire. And God will use the Roman army to do it. Any questions on this before I move on? I’m not trying to, I don’t want to drag this all out, but I wanted to hit some of these highlights here as we go along. All right. The fifth thing is, God’s people are told to come out of her. Look at Revelation 18 and verse 4. Still speaking of Babylon here, the great, and I heard another voice from heaven saying, come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, that you receive not her plagues. When, if ever, did God tell his people to flee or come out of the city of Rome? Remember, Romans called the Eternal City, because it survived being destroyed down through history. Although God’s people could be living in any city of the Roman Empire, God makes it clear there’s one particular city. If they are the flee from, which city is that? Russell? It’s exactly right. Matthew 24 makes it very clear, during the Great Tribulation, they are to full. flee the city of Jerusalem. Don’t stay there, Jesus said. I’m going to look at Matthews, or Luke’s Gospel, because I think it’s a little clearer as to the abomination of desolation. If you look at Luke 21, beginning with verse 20 through 24 here, he says here, Jesus, when you shall see Jerusalem come pass with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Notice the desolation word is used again here. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains and let them which are in the midst of it depart out and let them not let them let not them that are in the countries enter there into. For these be the days of vengeance that all things which are written may be fulfilled. Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days. For there shall be great distress in the land, wrath upon the people, and they shall fall by the edge of the sword and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem shall be troddened down to the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be. Now friends, if the early church had been dispensationalist and they had remembered, remembered Christ’s warning, they wouldn’t have fleed because they would have said, well, that’s for the future. That’s for the end times. As one commentator put it, if they had been good dispensationalists, they would have said that verse is not for us. That’s for Christians, two or three thousand years from now, and they would have all died. Jesus is talking to his disciple, when you see this, he sees that it’s coming to pass before that generation passed away, flee. Get out of the city. Don’t even go back to get your coat. Get out as soon as possible. And so there’s one city that they’re told to flee, and that is Jerusalem. Now let me make a quick comment on a couple other thoughts. Some other brief observations ascribed to Jerusalem. In chapter 11 and verse 18, which we read earlier, Jerusalem is called Sodom. Remember, that was totally destroyed by God. It’s called Egypt, which received all the judgments and root was ruined by God, by all the plagues that were brought upon it. And here it’s called Babylon. So these pagan names are given to it, and Babylon was totally destroyed too. So the idea is this is a city doomed to be destroyed by God. And so therefore, these names are given to the city. We could talk about the demonic possession that takes place. If you look at chapter 18, a revelation. In verse 2, we read here and he cried mightily with strong voice saying, Babylon the Great is fallen, is fallen, has become the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful burn. We see the demonic possession here coming upon those in the land, if you look at chapter 9 of Revelation in particular, because they worship the beast. And how all these locust demons are released and what influence they had and so forth. Jesus talked about how that a man who has the demons in him, he may for a time be able to clean up his life, and so forth, outwardly. But then the demon comes back and he brings other demons with him and is worse off than he was. Well, that’s the way Israel was. They have rejected the truth, and Satan is really in control. I was going to quote some quotes from Josephus. I’ll just give you one quick one from his wars. I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly that neither did any other city suffer such miseries nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful and wickedness that this was from the beginning of the world. And so I won’t go into all the things that he says about the wickedness of the city and how vile that they were. But demonic possession. prevails here. Notice Babylon’s divisions. Chapter 16, excuse me, that should be chapter 18 and verse 19. I got chapter 16, I’m sorry. Chapter 16 and verse 19 is correct. And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Neither the Roman Catholic Church nor ancient Rome match such a description. In fact, some of the commentators are hard pressed to understand how the city can be divided into the three parts. Jerusalem, however, perfectly matches this three parts. Politically, Jerusalem was divided into three warring factions during the war with the Romans, often at odds with one another. If you read Josephus, you’ll see that the city itself was divided under three leaders that were fighting with one another before the Romans attacked. Eliezer. the leader of the zealots, John of Giscala, the Galian leader, and Simeon, the leader of the Dydumians. Is there any other view of Babylon can explain the three parts as well as that? And then Babylon sat on many waters, chapter 17, verse 1, and also verse 15. This has nothing to do with its geographical location on the the waterfront. That’s not what he’s telling us, because you’ll notice in verse 15, he explains what it means the citadel no. He means by waters here, many peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues and tongues. So Jerusalem extended its religious influence over a vast area, over many people. That’s the concept that’s being explained. In Acts chapter 2, verses 8 through 11. It describes those who came to Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost, being from all over the Roman Empire. It mentions all the names, and I won’t go there at this point. You can look that up for yourself. But people from, you know, Babylon, Syria, Cyprus, Asia Minor, Rome, Egypt, all the different places all over the empire, they all came to Jerusalem. Remember what Jesus said in. condemning the Pharisees. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, if you come pass sea and land to make one proselyte. And when you make it, make this proselyte, he’s twofold more child of hell than you yourself. Indeed, the Jews had spread their religion, their corrupted form of it, across the entire Roman Empire. In fact, we have knowledge from the book of Acts that wherever, Paul went, the first thing he did would go into the city and he’d go to the synagogue, right? There were synagogues in every city. In fact, in Acts 15, we read for Moses of old time, hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath, in every city. So in this sense, the idea of great influence, Jerusalem sits on many waters. Verse 5, or the 5th, the 5th, thing I’d mention here briefly here is the reigneth over the kings of the earth. Verse 18. The harlot is positively identified. We have said it’s the great city, and there’s only one identified as that it’s really Jerusalem. The kings of the earth here, I think, should be understood as the kings of the land. The phrase is used in the New Testament, because when Peter quotes Psalm 2, about the kings of the earth and them rising up with the people against Christ, against God and His anointed, against Christ. We have the attack. And then in Acts chapter 4, verses 26 and 27, Peter says that this describes Herod and Pilate, they were the king. of the land. He sees it being fulfilled with those men. And so I’ll let you think about that because of Jerusalem’s greatness, its vast religious influence, the Roman rulers were often trying to appease the Jews. Remember how they imprisoned Paul and didn’t let them go because they wanted to please the Jews? How that killing James pleased the Jews, so they imprisoned Peter and so forth. They’re always trying to find a way to sue them, keep them under wraps, keep them pacified. So Jerusalem and our religious leaders had dominance. They heavily influenced the Roman governors and political leaders. Earthly kings rule through the power and authority of their position, but Jerusalem ruled by virtue of its religious influence over the people were they were, wherever whatever city they were in, so forth. So Babylon the Great, here I believe, is Jerusalem. There are many views as to the identification of Babylon the Great. But if we narrow down the evidence, look at all the evidence, I think it points it to one direction at speaking of Jerusalem. I think that’s clear. Looking carefully at the layout of Revelation, look at the contrast. In Chapter 17, and 18, you have the whore. You have the harlot, Babylon. And then in chapter 19, 20, and 21, you have the Holy Bride, the Church of Jesus Christ. They are contrasted. The Jerusalem, earthly Jerusalem, heavenly Jerusalem, which is now in bondage with her children, and the Jerusalem that is above, which is the mother of us all. Those are the two Jerusalems that we see. That’s all I have to say on this particular subject. And Lord willing, we’ll start looking now at chapter 1 next week and begin working through the book briefly. But any comments or thoughts about this? Yes. Did you say the name of the three? You have Elie Azar, who is the leader, of the zealots. You have John of Gishala, G-I-S-C-H-A-L-A. He is a Galilean leader. He was more from the northern part, but they all ended up in Jerusalem. And then Simeon was the leader of the Idumians. And we were talking about this, but the city of Jerusalem, and I hope to have a chart or a map for you to see this. It is, not only is it walled on the outside, but it’s walled on the inside, but it’s walled on the inside, sections so that you could have someone controlling different sections and they’d have like a walled area that they could protect and they could hold. And so there were three different sections of the city. And these different leaders had different sections. And they were fighting with one another, burning their supplies. Well, I’ll give you a quote from this past you. And he said he waited. He didn’t even attack the city right away because they were. were killing each other. He says, I think we ought to wait. But let them fight, you let them kill each other off for a while, then I’ll attack the city. They thought they were going to have a really hard time capturing the city, and they did, but it would have been a lot harder if they had all worked in unison. But because they were fighting with one another, with all this infighting, it actually weakened them. And they actually destroyed their own supplies and so forth, and ended up only the people in power, these leaders. had all the supplies and they divvied it out to their soldiers and too bad for everybody else it was in the city. The problem was that they were in, we were in rebellion, they were in rebellion. Israel was in rebellion from 66 through 70. 70 AD is when we finally have the city of destroyed. He had Titus, under Vespascian, his father, the two of them, had conquered the land first. Then there’s a part. Because Nero commits suicide. Ms. Paschian goes to Rome. He marshals his forces, becomes the new emperor. Then he gives orders to Titus, okay, we’ve got to finish this job. We’ve got to put down this rebellion here in Jerusalem and get this finish. And so he goes back to Jerusalem with new armies and begins to attack and finishes it off. So they were in rebellion. So they were people that fought against the Rome. Romans earlier lost, like the Galilean leader that I mentioned, they lost Galilee. They got overrun. So they kept, everybody kept coming down south. And of course, Jerusalem was the fortified city at the time. I hope that helps. Anything else? All right. Let’s close with a word of prayer.