Rev 17: Babylon’ Spiritual Judgment

April 19, 2023 at 1:16 PM Leave a comment

Audio/Video for this article here: SermonAudio.com/StudyGrowKnow

Revelation 17 deals with the judgment of Babylon’s spiritual or religious side of things. Revelation 18 deals with the judgment of physical Babylon in whatever form that takes place in the future. Could it be a city? Is it an economic system? It’s probably both just as Hollywood is an actual city and an industry. Wherever Hollywood is filming, that’s “Hollywood.”

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.

These verses are interesting because of what they reveal. We’re not sure completely what John saw but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that God showed John these visions in a way that he could understand them as much as possible. From what we see in the above text from Revelation 17, the imagery is presented in a way that allowed John to see the things that represented Babylon as a prostitute seated on many “waters” representing all of humanity (17:15).

This “woman” goes all the way back to Babel and to the empire we know as Babylon centuries later. The goal has always been to usurp God’s rightful place and put humanity in God’s place. Ultimately of course, this means that Satan dethrones God where people are concerned and installs himself as “god.”

What is interesting about the Scripture above is the description of the woman. She is adorned in purple, representing royalty. She also wear scarlet, possibly pointing to the fact that the system of Babylon has spent centuries exploiting people for its own benefit, including persecution and even martyrdom of saints. The kings of the earth or political heads of countries have joined in with her and become “drunk” with the power they gained from their association with Babylon.

This is of course, very true today. We have a small group of very wealthy and therefore powerful rich globalists who gain their wealth through wars and taking advantage of average people through excessive taxation and fees. This continues as we move ahead with more and more of a “climate change” structure being added to businesses. This in turn forces people to adhere to these policies, laws or mandates or pay the consequences. There’s so much going on due to the “climate change” scam that it is hard to keep up with it all. This also is done purposefully to keep people off balance.

Interesting as well is the way the “woman” sits atop the scarlet beast with 7 heads and 10 horns. This is virtually the same beast we saw previously, but now is scarlet in color. Could it be because of the war the beast wages on the saints of God, spilling their blood everywhere?

Thought he “woman” is adorned with jewels and carries a golden cup in the imagery John saw, this is the external way she comes across. Inwardly the “woman” is evil, corrupt and rotting. There is nothing good in her. Yet, people willingly chase after her because they too want to share in the wealth and power she expresses.

Revelation 17:5 – During John’s day, prostitutes wore their names on their headbands. This “prostitute” (system) includes all that is blasphemous and opposed to the One, True God. Her character is completely evil. Babylon represents the fountainhead of every false religion – paganism, false religions, ecumenism; perversions of Christianity and non-Christian religions.

Revelation 17:6 – Babylon represents the system that destroyed Christians and rejoiced in their deaths throughout the ages, but especially during the coming Tribulation. John “marvels” here possibly because this religious system claimed to honor God but killed His saints and/or John may have wondered why God allowed that system to exist and thrive.
In John’s day, the Roman Empire was the greatest manifestation of Babylon to that point so he had at least something to compare it to.

Revelation 17:7 – Because John “marveled,” the angel promises to reveal the mysteries of what he was seeing. It was difficult for John to understand the woman and the beast and the relationship between the two. Verses 7-14 explain more about the Beast and verses 15-18 explain more about the woman, which we will get to next time.

Revelation 17:8 – The beast who was, is not and would rise from pit is likely the Roman Empire in its various forms, as one method of interpretation. There really is a great deal of information and at least some uncertainty here so we need to proceed with caution and with humility.

It is possible that this verse speaks of a revived dead nation that would come back in a revised form. This is why Bible scholars often refer to the final portion of this beast as “Revised Roman Empire.” Again, there are numerous interpretations of this information. If it does connect to some type of revised Roman Empire during the coming Tribulation, one possible understanding of it is the way the Roman Empire changed and morphed through time.

First, the Roman Empire no longer existed as imperial Rome in the 5th century. If it is “resuscitated” by Antichrist, it will impress the world. Interestingly enough, Rome went through variety of stages before coming to full power and then began its dissolution:

Kings
Consuls (the two highest magistracies in the Roman Republic)
Dictators
Decemvirs (10 men commissions established by Rome)
Military Tribunes
Imperialism

Bible scholars point out that during the final global empire controlled by Antichrist, it will be absolute imperialism or imperialism on steroids. This makes sense if it is also the time that Satan reigns through his spiritual son, Antichrist, the son of perdition. We will deal with all of this in the next part of Revelation 17.

About the Beast:

It appears this beast (nation) rises from the abyss, the home of Satan and his demons
It rises at the request and work of the Antichrist
It is at this point it appears Satan will give Antichrist supernatural powers when he does this
Interesting that this world empire is not destroyed by any other empire but by Jesus Himself in Revelation 19:20 upon His return
The Antichrist’s resuscitation of “Rome” will seriously impress earth dwellers
They will deem him the savior but will actually be a slaughterer
He will deceive everyone except the elect (Matthew 24:24)

We seem to be moving to a time when the powers that Satan has ordained (and God has allowed), are gaining unimaginable power over the lives of average people (global society). There are major pushes to bring into fruition CBDCs (central bank digital currencies), to replace all other hand held money. Cash appears to be on its way out along with the US Dollar. If things continue as they are, there will be hyper-inflation and a complete devaluation of US currency. Leo Hohmann just published an article [1] about these situations that are occurring and the effect they may have on average people like you and me. It’s worth reading and if only half of what he says happens, many will be taken completely off guard.

To further cover things up, apparently the US Senate has declared “case closed” regarding the origins of CV. [2] Initially, we were told that some person got CV via a bat. Yet, we’ve been told that normally, diseases and illnesses cannot cross over from animal to human, yet in this case, we were told it did. Now however, more information is coming out that appears to support the original “conspiracy theory” of a lab leak that allowed CV out and into circulation. But now it appears that the conspiracy theory was right all along, yet the US Senate has withheld information from the American people surrounding the lab leak that actually occurred. Was it accidental or intentional? We’ll probably never know and anyone who believes it to be intentional will be labeled a conspiracy theorist.

Next time, we hope to conclude Revelation 17:9-16. This section deals with the 7 heads, the 7 kings, the beast as an 8th but belongs to the 7, as well as the meaning of the 10 horns, the 10 kings and more about the prostitute, Babylon. We will also address why the beast and the kings turn on the prostitute at one point and destroy her.

For a copy of the PPT used for the live presentation of this lesson, please click on the link at the top of this article.

[1] https://leohohmann.com/2023/04/17/when-the-house-of-cards-comes-toppling-down/

[2] https://leohohmann.com/2023/04/18/u-s-senate-declares-case-closed-on-origins-of-covid-effectively-whitewashing-the-crime-of-the-century/