Revelation 17

A WEDNESDAY NIGHT BOOK STUDY
EDGEMONT BIBLE CHURCH
FALL 2009- SPRING 2010
APRIL 14, 2010
THE SEVENTH TRUMPET, A PARENTHESIS - Part 12
REVELATION CHAPTER 17:1-18
THE GREAT HARLOT, BABYLON, DESCRIBED, EXPLAINED,
AND DESTROYED

I. THE GREAT HARLOT, BABYLON, DESCRIBED
Introduction: Chapters 17 and 18 are not in chronological order with the bowl judgments but are an aside to bring John (and therefore us) up to speed on more biblical history and what has created the need for these judgments. This same type of occurrence took place just after the sounding of the 7th trumpet. Between the trumpet's sound and angel's announcement and the bowl judgments had been a parenthesis in chapters 12, 13 and 14 to give us greater detail on the background of the events going on that are important to the judgments. We have been using the illustration of a news station with several video screens going at the same time capturing news from several different parts of the world since they are happening simultaneously.
A. John is called to a desolate place (wilderness) to see the judgment of the great harlot. Babylon of John's day was a ruined place like this area.
1. She sits on many waters
2. The kings of the earth have committed fornication with her
3. The inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication
B. Appearance
1. A woman riding on a beast
a. The beast is scarlet in color (picture of wealth and power as well as metaphorically for sin)
b. The beast is full of the names of blasphemy
c. The beast has seven heads and ten horns
d. (See below for a discussion on his identity)
2. The woman's apparel
a. She is dressed in purple and scarlet
b. Wearing lots of jewelry of gold, precious stones, and pearls
c. Holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication (Jeremiah 51:7)
d. She has a name written on her forehead
MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER
OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF
THE EARTH. (NKJV)

*Mystery - heretofore unknown but now revealed that she has been around for a long time, has been universally influential, the source of all such abominations and that she is both the system of unbelief and a city (as seen later)
*Babylon - location of the beginning of idolatry after the Flood Genesis 11:1-9
*Mother - the source of
*Harlots - those who profit from illicit and therefore evil relationships i.e. moving men away from their relationship to God to a relationship with demons, idols, false philosophies and religions. This is both natural and spiritual pornographic activity
*Abominations - blasphemous activities detested by God that bring about judgment and destruction. Abominations are natural things that have been so twisted from their intent as to abuse them, pervert them and change them into something hideous. Abominations is the word used most are poisonous or destructive to natural health. They may even carry their own destruction within themselves
e. She is drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Her opposition to God has found its venting in the death of those who have loved God and therefore opposed her and her evil ways. It has been her delight to kill as many of these saints (believers in God in spite of the culture they were in) and those who after His coming believed in Jesus. So passionate has she been about this that it is compared to being drunk - a little calls for more!
3. John is stunned with wonder - interpretive possibilities ~
a. At the wonder of the sight itself; a thing not seen before in this way; that such raw, gross wickedness could exist at all given God's perfection
b. Wonder that such a beautiful, wealthy and attractive one could be associated with such a hideous beast; could have such murderous lust as to be drunk on the wine of her fellow believers; could be so foully corrupted. Disgustingly gross and amazing. She is like a ring of gold in a swine's snout. Prov. 11:22
c. Wonder as the announcement had been made by the angel that Babylon is fallen and instead of fallen this is what he sees. Instead of fallen she looks spectacular, wealthy, drunk but exalted!

C. Explanation
1. The angel questions why John is marveling
2. The angel explains this wonder to John
a. The Beast
*Carries the harlot. He is supporting her, aiding her, using her to accomplish his ends. She is the trap he uses as he himself might not be appreciated in his ugliness. He is unattractive and she is appealingly attractive
*He has been around longer than she has and has a mystery
existence: he was and is not now, yet will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition(Hades).
*There are two beings described with this appearance:
*Satan - Rev 12:3
*The Beast that comes up out of the sea. Rev 13:1 This is a powerful demon summoned by Satan out of the bottomless pit (Rev 11:7; 13:1; 17:8) to inhabit or take over the human anti-christ at the middle of the tribulation. This will be the result of a mortal head wound received by the human anti-christ. This new inhabitation by the demon will appear as a resurrection. He is the image of Satan. He has been the spiritual power behind the kingdoms of this world. We are not told why, when or how he was put in the bottomless pit. He is not in power right now but will be when he is summoned out of the bottomless pit.
*Note on the human anti-christ: Daniel pictures the human antichrist in Dan 7:19-25 as one of the horns or kings that arise out of the fourth beast (Roman empire). He is an 11th horn rising after the 10 horns, which are the kings of the fourth beast, dominating 3 of the original 10 horns. His activity during the first half of the tribulation is described for us in Daniel 9:27; 11:36-45. He is not pictured as being a beast until the middle of the tribulation when he is inhabited by the demon out of the bottomless pit apparently after his assassination.
*All the unbelievers will marvel at him
*His seven heads are seven mountains or seven kings upon which the woman sits. Five have fallen, one is and one is yet to come. The last one continues a short time. An eighth head will arise who is of the seven. This is the beast out of the sea who was, is not and will be. The seven heads are seven nations that have had some kind of influence over or against Israel: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persian, Greece, Rome (the one that now is at the time of the writing) and a seventh which is yet to come. There is an eighth but it is the demonic extension of the seventh one. He is the resurrected 7th one.
*The 10 horns are 10 kings who have not received power as of the writing of Revelation. We believe they are still future. They will reign only a short time. They will give their power and their authority to the beast
*The 10 horns will make war with the Lamb and will lose to Him "Rev 17:14 "... for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful." (NKJV)
b. The Harlot
*Sits on many waters. Civilizations must have adequate
water to survive. After the tower of Babel, God spread the rebels out across the earth. Taking their languages and their rebellious unbelief with them (the harlot, Babylon) they settled wherever water was adequate. With them unfortunately went their Babylonian abomination. She sits on many waters or she occupies many places of civilization. Where civilization goes, she goes and is relaxed with them
*consequently many religious systems are almost identical in the gods and goddesses they worship, in the darkness of their ceremonies, their magic, their priesthood, their matriarchal makeup
*Traveling along with her system has been the drunkenness of immorality (uninhibited lust-filled sex) as well as sorcery, known in the Scriptures as pharmakeia. It usually involves some form of drink (wine, honey, flour mixed with a stimulant or mind-altering drug) and a ritual in which the altered state of reality allows demonic activity to create a twisted reality and power. He has always controlled people through esoteric experiences, frenzy, fervor, fanaticism, mind altering drugs, confusion, ritual, high-sounding knowledge, asceticism, paranormal and psychic experiences. She is the mother of them all, the tool he has used to control the masses and blind them from God.
*She is identified as that great city which reigns over kings. Kings have used this spiritual power gained from her to dominate others, to produce fear in the hearts of adversary and follower alike, to brutalize, to persuade, to captivate. But she has used them and gets her will done through them. She is a harlot so she too is used by the very beast which carries her! That great city is Babylon itself from where the original perversion came.
*Babylon is that great demonic religious system that has
blinded the world from the days of Nimrod at Babel. Men are made to worship; it is inherent in them. Sin makes men hide from the true God. Hiding from him and finding her they find their satisfaction to worship
met in her intoxication, perversion, ritual, sorcery and power. Babylon will be the world-wide unified religious system the devil will use to bind all people together in controllable spiritual blindness.

II. THE GREAT HARLOT, BABYLON, DESTROYED
A. Satan's goal has always been to be like the most high. Isaiah 14:12-14
B. He has been willing to keep men from their innate desire to worship the true God by offering them many power substitutes (for which see above)
C. No longer content to be worshipped through the many substitutes he used with the harlot, he prepares to get rid of her. He wants all the worship himself. His methodology has always been to get someone else to do his dirty work. Now that he is done with her he releases the 10 horns who have hated her to finish her off.
1. They are going to violently take away her wardrobe and riches and expose her. She will be seen for what she is: a fraud and no god at all. She was a creation of the devil. She had used people who had used her and the devil gave her a little power for a while. They are removing from this religious system all of its beauty and promises of power.
2. Now that she has been exposed, they begin to pick her apart. She is powerless without the beast's help. Her doctrines are picked apart and "eaten" (destroyed). The belief system is ridiculed. Idols have no power; they are lifeless objects. They will begin to show that her rituals were all just theatrics without the real power behind them. Her ceremonies and visions were the product of another power, not hers
3. Liberating the people from slavery to her, they burn her in the fire. This gets rid of every last vestige of what she plied. They are free now from her fraud and bondage.
D. In this spiritual vacuum, the beast can now introduce his "flock" to the real power, the real mastermind, the real "wizard of Oz" that gave the harlot power, wealth, riches and beauty; his own boss. He gives them the beautiful 7-headed, 10 horned scarlet dragon! The devil himself. No more pretense, no more substitutes; just raw devil! He is worshipped at last!