THE HARLOT
THE HARLOT
(Revelation 17 & 18)
Preached by: Carolyn Sissom
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Rev. 17:5: “And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”
The Scarlet Woman (17: 1-18): “And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto you the judgment of the great harlot that sits upon many waters:
Similar descriptions of this demonic power are used to describe Nineveh in Nah. 3:4; Tyre in Isa. 23:15; Samaria in Ezek. 23:5; and Jerusalem herself is so portrayed in Ezek 16:15; 23:11. Most commentators agree that John is here describing Rome. My gift is to take the Word God and apply it to the “Now”. “In the same way that Israel, Tyre, Nineveh and Samaria played the harlot, the spirit has infiltrated our religious and political systems of today.
John reveals the announcements of judgment in Scripture referencing the empire that he knew best. –‘Rome was the whole world, and all the world was Rome.’ (Spencer) Since time began, imperial dominion does not endure. Any power which sets itself against the Lord and against his Anointed One signs its own death warrant. (vs. 14) there shall be war with the Lamb and the Lamb will overcome them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings; and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. They are described as ‘the armies of heaven dressed in fine linen, white and clean.’
(vs. 16) The beast and the ten horns shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God has put in their hearts to fulfill his will and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
The theme of great Babylon’s downfall changes in chapter 18 and is presented in images of the destruction of a great mercantile city. What is here portrayed is not merely the doom of an ancient city, but the sure collapse of all human organization, commercial, religious, political and otherwise, that leaves God out of its reckoning.
Lo all pomp of yesterday is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
The Harlot in Chapter 17 is sitting on two things: (1) “many waters” (2) “the beast”
“Many waters” is translated in verse 15: “And he said unto me, the waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, “are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
(Verse 3) “And he carried me away in the Spirit (this is the language of prophetic ecstasy, Ezek 31:1)…into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, have seven heads and ten horns.”
The beast is from the sea. We can safely identify it with the beast from the Sea of Rev. 13:1-18. This beast is the persecuting Roman Empire. However sea means more than this; the beast from the Abyss, as it is called in 11:7 is thrown up, like other chaotic forces of evil, by the cosmic deep (Dan. 7:2). The ten horns are derived from Daniel 7:7 where the fourth beast in Daniel’s vision of judgment is so equipped. The horns of Daniel’s fourth beast (Dan. 7:24) are ten Hellenistic rulers between Alexander the Great and Antiochus. The seven heads are derived from the dragon (12; 3) signifying that the beast’s authority is received from him.
In Chapter 17, they are further explained in terms of the Seven Hills of Rome and seven Roman emperors with ten crowns on his horns. Indicating their royal character, and a blasphemous name on each head.
So what does this have to do with us? The color of the beast, like the woman’s finery, bespeaks of Rome’s ostentatious splendor. She held a golden cup in her hand. Jeremiah 51:7 literal Babylon has been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunk; the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.”
Those of us who have eyes to see and ears to hear believe the nations of today have gone mad. The present administration has indebted our nation for trillions of dollars, taking over the banking institutions, automobile industry and now the health care system. These leaders are changing laws and have committed in 4-1/2 months every single abomination described in the Holy Bible. The present political system of the United States of America like Babylon the Great, is guilty of the same sins of Rome as a mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. Not only has the present administration committed these abominations, but many of our religious systems have come in to agreement with the abominations.
The month of June (a season) has been changed by Presidential proclamation as National Sodomy month. (changing laws and seasons)
This title was written on her forehead: Mystery Babylon: This indicates that the name she bears as Roman harlots wore their names on their foreheads is not to be understood literally, but allegorically. Babylon the Great is read, but Rome is meant. (Verses 9, 18)…mothers of prostitutes and of…abominations. A reference is made to the concentration of idolatry, superstition and vice in the imperial city. Tacitus’s description of Rome was the place where all the horrible and shameful things in the world congregate and find a home. (vs.6) drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.
This past week, we witnessed another abomination when David Letterman verbally abused the Palin family by degrading a young 14-year old girl. Even if he meant the 18-year old daughter, it was still a slur and abomination. “Drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus. David Letterman was the harlot, not the Palin daughters. The harlot is neither male nor female. It can take either form. Any man who makes sexual slurs against any woman is not a Man of God.
This verse is a reference to the persecution of Christians in Rome, beginning with Nero’s assault on them after the great fire of A.D. 64. (Verse7) I will explain to you the mystery of the woman: In apocalyptic, revelations are made in symbols which remain mysteries until the appropriate interpretation is supplied. (Dan. 2:18; 4:9; 5:5. (Verse 8) The beast, which you saw: the beast is described as in 11:7; 12: 3,8. While the beast is the empire and its personification in the persecuting emperor who after his mortal wound comes to life again as the last Antichrist (v. 11) And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition.”
This is a profane parody of the divine name of Rev. 1:4: “from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne.
(Verse9) “And here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sits”. This calls for a mind of wisdom. 13:18 “Here is wisdom, let him that has understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man.” The proverbial seven hills can not be mistaken. Rome was at first a conurbation of seven hill-settlements on the left bank of the Tiber. The principal settlement was on the Palatine hill. “They are also seven kings:” Seven Roman emperors. (Verse 10) Five have fallen: If we reckon from the first emperor, these would be Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius and Nero. “AND ONE IS” This is probably Vespasian; the three emperors Galba, Otho and Vitellius who ruled in quick succession at Rome during the 18 months between Nero’s death and the capture of Rome by Vespasian’s troops hardly come into the reckoning. Josephus predicted two years prior that Vespasian was destined to fulfill part of the messianic prophecies. “THE OTHER HAS NOT YET COME…HE MUST REMIAN FOR A LITTLE WHILE: Titus, Vespasian’s successor, reigned for only two years. (Vs. 11) The Beast who was once, and now is not, it is an eighth king. At the end the power of the persecuting empire will be embodied in the imperial Antichrist, who belongs to the seven. John is describing a demonic potentate, GOING TO HIS DESTRUCTION (19:20) Antichrist is designated the man doomed to destruction in 2 Th. 2:3. “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there be a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.
(12) THE TEN HORNS have a different significance from that of their prototypes on the nameless beast of Dan. 7:7. They represent ten kings who are yet to arise as allied dependants of Rome in making war against the Lamb, but who subsequently, in concert with the people of the empire itself, turn and rend her. (16) They cannot be identified with known historical characters. The city of Rome was indeed sacked in 410 by the Goths, who had entered into alliance with the emperor; but it is doubtful if John would have regarded that event as a fulfillment of his vision. By that time Rom had long since capitulated to the sovereignty of Christ. Particular announcements of judgment in Scripture are regularly liable to be averted by repentance. (Jer. 18:7)
John reminds us, with reference to the empire that he knew best, that imperial dominion does not endure.
In chapter 18, a mighty and resplendent angel announces the fall of Babylon in language drawn from Isa. 21:9 and Jer. 51:8, where the desolation of Babylon on the Euphrates is vividly portrayed. I believe the Babylon of Rev. 18 is identical with Babylon of Ch. 17. Another voice from Heaven calls upon the people of God to leave the doomed city in language drawn from Jeremiah 50:8; 51:6, 45; Isa. 48:20; 52:11 lest they share in her sins and receive her plagues. (Vs.5) for her sins are piled up to heaven and God has remembered her iniquities. (Jer. 51:9) (Vs.6) Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works; in the cup which she has filled, fill to her double.” This is a statement of the principle of retribution in human history which recurs throughout the Bible, with special reference to Babylon, (Ps. 137:8; Jer.50:15, 29. (Verse 7) I sit as a queen; I am not a widow. This is a third seating of the Harlot in the Book of Revelation. (Verse 8) Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judges her.
Here again John transfers older prophecies from Isaiah and Jeremiah to suit new conditions. In our Judicial system, this is known as precedent. John establishes the precedent in dealing with the spirit of Babylon by the Judge of the whole earth. This same precedent is applicable to those of us in the 21st century. (Verse9) The kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning.” Well, we are seeing this happen in the U.S.A. today in the automobile industry. I read an article that entire cities will be bull dozed. If they are bull dozed, then there will also be smoke of burning.
(vs24) In her was found the blood of prophets and of the saints, and of all who have been killed on the earth.” Our Lord had similar words about Jerusalem’s impending expiation of the blood of the prophets…shed since the beginning of the world. (Lk. 11:50; Mt. 23:35).
It is not for her wealth and commercial enterprise that the great city is doomed. If prosperity is no proof of divine approval, neither does it arouse divine envy. But godlessness brings on its own nemesis, and where godlessness is conjoined with the unconscionable exploitation of the underprivileged and the persecution of the righteous, nothing but timely and wholehearted repentance can avert the death sentence.
When the sins of a civilization reach their utmost limit and there is no further room for repentance, the judgment falls with the decisiveness of the large millstone of verse 21.
I heard the roar of a great multitude in heaven. (19:1-5) the collapse of godless rebellion and oppression on earth gives rise to jubilation in heaven. For mortal men the vindication of God’s righteousness is a sobering spectacle, even when it is most welcome, for there is none who is not liable to His judgment in some degree. If you, O lord, kept a record of sins, O lord, who could stand? But saints and angels in heaven with purified vision see the lower world in the light of God’s Glory.
As ministers of the Gospel, we must not water down or compromise the truth of the righteousness of the Lord and the call to “Come out of her my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.” Yes, we are under New Testament Grace. However, the Book of Revelation is a New Testament book.
The enemies of God rage against His people and His Son like savage beasts. Great Babylon exults in her insolence. He remains supreme, keeping watch above His own, and ready to call His foes to account when their rebellion has passed the point of no return.
Yes, Letterman gave a weak apology last week, but it was steeped in insolence.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
Scripture is from K.J.V and the text is gleaned from F.F. Bruce, F.F. Bruce Bible Commentary. Comments are my own