“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, 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.’ 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. 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. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.’ 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. 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 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. This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; 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. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction. 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. These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast. 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.’ And the angel said to me, ‘The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages. 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, 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. And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.’”

Last week we read in Revelation 16:17,

“The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, ‘It is done!’”

 We saw the aftermath of this statement from the Lord – the flashes of lightning and rumblings of thunder, the earthquake that shook and dismantled the very foundations of the world, and the massive hail, saved up for the day of wrath that pummels the survivors on the earth. Before that, we saw how under the seven bowls that creation suffered and those who had made themselves rebels before God suffered along with it – those bearing the mark of the beast covered in sores, the water turned to blood, the burning sun, and the terrifying darkness – and we saw how the people in their suffering cursed God. In Job 1:9–11 Satan says to the Lord,

“… Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.”

And after failing in his first attempt, Satan later appeals saying in Job 2:4–5,

“… Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.”

Satan was wrong (shocking, I know), in his claims that Job’s suffering would break his faith in God. Despite losing his children, his home, his livelihood and his health, Job did not turn from the Lord. What is displayed across the book of Job is that Job, while not a precisely perfect man, is sincerely devoted to the Lord. We get a picture, from how he responds to his suffering, to the accusations of his friends, and to the Lord’s response to his questioning, of Job’s heart, of his spiritual condition. The opposite is show about the people of the world, those who have taken the mark of the beast, who have persecuted the saints, celebrated when the two witnesses were slain, and assembled their armies to stand in opposition before the Lord. We’ve seen their actions, and we’ve seen their responses to suffering, but as we go through the next two chapters we get a deeper understanding of their broken spiritual condition. This week as we look at chapter 17, we’ll see the thing to which they’re utterly devoted, the thing with which they’ve sought to replace God. The next two weeks, we’ll see how this thing is destroyed and what the response is of a broken world that dearly loved its sin. As we’ve read through Revelation we’ve seen the glorified Christ, we’ve seen inside the throne room of heaven, we’ve seen the might, and power, and judgement of God. We’ve also seen the enemy, the sick and twisted cunning of ancient evil, and we’ve certainly seen the suffering of mankind – both the righteous suffering of the saints, and the justified suffering of the unrighteous. But chapter 17 peels back the curtain in a different way and lets us see the true brokenness of what the world prizes above all else – the thing that is primed and all too worthy of destruction.

The Ruin of the Kingdom of Man

1. The Broken Image of the Kingdom of Man

“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, 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.’”

In the aftermath of the outpouring of the seven bowls of wrath we see one of seven angels approach John and afterward there follows a lot of imagery. As with symbolic things we’ve discussed before, people can be very quick to try to pigeonhole Scripture into either being hyper literal or hyper figurative, and this can cause a lot to be missed. The Word is a living, breathing text, it is constant and unchanging, yet it’s not static, or one note, it holds layers upon layers of meaning. One of my favorite examples of this is Jesus walking on water. Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, the flesh and blood incarnation of God that came into the world, literally walked across the sea of Galilee, meeting His disciples as they fought against the wind in their boat. That is actually a thing that happened, it wasn’t just figurative language, it wasn’t just a metaphor, it was an actual account of a historical event. But, we’re missing something huge if we don’t see the symbolism that is present in this event as well. The sea is chaos, it’s the unknown, there’s a reason why Jesus parallels His own three days in the grave to Jonah’s three days in the depths of the sea, and there’s a reason that at the final judgment when death and hades give up the dead that are in them to be judged, the sea is its own separate contributor, giving up the dead that are in it. Humanity can have a beneficial relationship with the sea, gathering resources from it, traveling across it, but we are always at its mercy and there is always the risk of it rising up and breaking us. Jesus’ walk across the sea of Galilee was more than just a physical miracle, it symbolized who and what He was among humanity. The chaos that threatens us, that kills us, that makes us vanish from the face of the earth, He has conquered. He has crushed the heads of the leviathans of chaos that rise up from the depths to destroy us – this action reflects that He is God, and His interaction with Peter shows the deliverance He offers us, and the ways in which we stumble when we take our eyes from Him. There is deep historical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological relevance all packed into this one story, and it helps us to illustrate how we miss half the picture when we assume that the Bible is only one thing. No, I’m not suggesting that you take every poetic word of the Song of Solomon literally – Song of Solomon 4:2 says,

“Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them has lost its young.”

If the bride literally has sheep teeth then I have questions. You also don’t have to dig for poetic or symbolic meaning – sometimes a genealogy is truly just providing historical context. But to walk into any one passage and assume that it’s only literal or only symbolic without verifying the context undercuts the power of the message of Scripture. Which brings us back to today’s passage. The angel tells John that he will show him, “the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters.” We can understand fairly quickly that this is not a literal woman, but is much like the sign in heaven that John saw in Revelation 12:1,

“And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.”

We know this because as John goes with the angel to see these things he specifies that he is carried away in the spirit, he’s receiving a vision, the revealing of a spiritual condition. As we read on we see that the symbolic woman is Babylon, but then, as we’ll get into, Babylon symbolizes something more itself.

“And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness…”

The first thing to take note of is where the woman and the beast are found – though she is called Babylon, John is not taken to a city, not a place of structure, but into a wilderness. The wilderness has a significant theme in Scripture, largely as a place of trial. When God delivers His people to the promised land, they scout out the territory and come back with discouraging news. All of the spies except for Joshua and Caleb report that the land is unconquerable, filled with giants and fortified cities that they have no hope of overcoming, and the people take them at their word. Doubt and despair rip through the camp of Israel, they completely set aside the miracles and wonders that they’ve seen God do and the lament that they were ever delivered from Egypt. They then plan to kill Moses and raise up a leader of their own to take them back to their slavery in Egypt – when God intervenes. After an appeal from Moses the Lord relents from His initial intent of destroying the congregation and says in Numbers 14:20–23,

“… I have pardoned, according to your word. But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers. And none of those who despised me shall see it.”

And He continues on to say in Numbers 14:31–35,

“…‘But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ I, the LORD, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”

Blasphemy against the Lord Most High, intent to murder His prophet – a complete abandonment of faith in the One who has been their deliverer again and again. And for their transgression they will perish in the wilderness – a generation will fall and pass away and those who come out of it will have been delivered through the trial, refined and prepared to serve the Lord properly. In today’s passage we see the woman is located in a place of trial, in a place of suffering and refinement, but what we see is that she has not been refined, she delights in her rebellion, and so like the rebels among the people of Israel, she will die in the 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.”

Like the woman, the beast she sits upon is a spiritual symbol, but its color and its shape tell us quite a lot about it. There can be a tendency when reading Revelation to see the word “beast” and immediately jump to the beast, the Antichrist. But as we read the description of this symbolic monster upon which the woman sits, the physical description seems to mirror that of Satan from Revelation 12:3,

“And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems.”

Now, it’s not that the scarlet beast of Revelation 17 has nothing in common with the first beast that rises from the sea – it’s full of blasphemous names, and we read of the Antichrist in Revelation 13:5–6,

“And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven.”

Something that we have to remember is that Satan’s desire is to be God, which is what we read of when Isaiah 14:12–15 says,

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.”

Because Satan vies for the throne of the Most High, but could not, will not, and cannot attain it, what we’re left with in the enemy isn’t just a cheap, second rate imitation, but something dark, sinister, and toxic. Jesus says to Philip in John 14:9–11

“… Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.”

He can say this, that both He is in the Father, and that the Father is in Him and it be perfectly true because as He stated in John 10:30,

“I and the Father are one.”

The relationship and the will of God the Father and Christ the Son are seamless, because despite the fact that we may know them as two distinct persons, they are One. What we see Satan display is again, not just a cheap imitation but a wicked perversion. The dragon and the Antichrist – and the false prophet for that matter, are not one, but are three separate entities. That being said, it would be a mistake to read of the scarlet beast in Revelation 17 and think that we’re only seeing Satan, to the exclusion of the other two beasts. The three are not one, but the three are united in lockstep toward a common goal. Remember that we read of the Antichrist in Revelation 13:2,

“… And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority.”

And Revelation 13:11 says of the false prophet,

“Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.”

The antichrist has no power, no authority apart from what he was given by Satan. The false prophet has no message, no voice to sway the people apart from imitating the words of the Devil. These two are puppets, not equals, not co-contributors, they’re wicked servants carrying out the dark will of the enemy. So when we read of the scarlet beast, this monster that holds up the evil woman who is Babylon, it would be a mistake to fixate on this representing any single one of the three, because she is supported by them all in the common goal of their mission of rebellion against God. Her foundation is the enemy in all his varied forms and functions – it is not one, but all of his blasphemous names that stabilize and establish her.

“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.”

We’re told from the beginning of this passage that the woman sitting on the beast is a prostitute, and yet as we see her dressed regally – her expensive, dyed fabrics, her precious metals and gems, has her looking more like a queen than a woman who is selling her body. But her appearance, but the grandeur and the corruption takes us back to God’s words to Israel in Ezekiel 16:13–15,

“Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord GOD. But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his.”

The woman seated on the beast is attractive, seductive, and destructive – her beauty, which could have been a blessing has become her pride, the thing to which she bows before, forgetting the fragility of her own existence. This is a figure like Jezebel, the pagan queen who persecuted the servants of God, like Herod’s step-daughter, who at her mother’s command seduced a favor from her step-father and then asked for the head of John the Baptist. This is the spirit of the adulteress spoken of in Proverbs 7:21–23,

“With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him. All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life.”

The fact that we know she’s a prostitute, the fact that we know she’s dressed lavishly, and that the cup in her hand – the cup that she offers – is filled with sexual abominations and impurities tells us so much about her purpose and her dangers. Consider something – over the course of the Old Testament we see as God’s people fail repeatedly, cycling from obedience into deeper and deeper rebellion. But we don’t see any examples where the people are serving the Lord, following His commandments, things are going well, and then, on a random Tuesday, some guys show up and are like, “Have you considered worshiping Baal?” And all of Israel just gives up following God and starts sacrificing their children to pagan gods on a whim. There was temptation to turn from following God, there were offerings that the world put forth as a lure – and at the core of them there is a repeating theme of sexual sin. There’s a reason why, after the Lord turned Balaam’s attempted curses into blessing for His people in Numbers 23-24, his alternate means of attack was to get the people of Israel to bring condemnation on themselves through sexual temptation, which is what Jesus references when He says to the church at Pergamum in Revelation 2:14,

“But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.”

There’s a reason why as you’re reading through Israel’s vicious circle of failure, you will see good kings tear down asherim, destroy high places, and disband or kill off cult prostitutes – and wicked kings will do the reverse, enabling or reestablishing these same things. When God say to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 3:6–10,

“… Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the LORD.”

This isn’t just speaking metaphorically – take into consideration that orgies are repeatedly shown as an element of pagan worship, even into the New Testament among the pagans of Rome. While there are other lures – power, social connections, financial incentives – sexual corruption is what lies at the heart of these matters. And this is vividly displayed in both the appeal and the corruption of the woman who sits upon the scarlet beast. She is the polar opposite of what Paul encourages when he writes in 1 Timothy 2:8–10,

“I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.”

“And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.’ And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.”

Here we are given her name, the mark upon her brow that identifies her, and yet though we’re told what it is, we’re also told that it’s a name of mystery. That she is Babylon, that she is the mother of temptation and of the world’s dark wickedness only tells us so much – we gain further insight from what comes next – that what she feeds on, what has intoxicated her is the blood of the saints and martyrs.

Matthew 23:29–35,

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.”

The Pharisees were hypocrites, and their hypocrisy as they spilled the blood of prophets and called themselves righteous was just an added layer to their sin. The woman who is Babylon lacks this hypocrisy – she may be drunk, she may be delusional, but she claims no righteousness, boasting in her sin. She is the epitome of what Peter wrote of in 2 Peter 2:12–14 saying,

“But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children!”

From a worldly perspective she and the beast she sits upon are powerful, they are mighty and destructive – but they are broken things. Grand castles made of sand, fascinating and intricate, and made to be washed away with the tide. Glass swords, needle tipped and razor edged, but destined to shatter when first used and to be ground into sand over the course of time. There is great peril embedded in the things that we’ve seen, but there is no longevity, no endurance – only a poison flower that rots and decays to nothing in the face of righteous eternity.

2. The Broken Power of the Kingdom of Man

“When I saw her, I marveled greatly.”

We should never expect anything but the truth from Scripture, but I still find myself admiring the bold honesty and complete lack of pride that we see from those that God used to pen His Word. The fact that so many writers did not hide or gloss over their mistakes and stumblings, but made a point to freely admit them does nothing but further validate the legitimacy of the text, and John is no exception. Despite the fact that he has told us what this woman is, the markers that testify to her wickedness, he freely admits a degree of captivation when he sees her. She is dark and mysterious, and that sparks a sense of wonder – not for any good reason, but purely out of curiosity of the flesh. It is not right that he marvel at her, it’s not right that she exist as she is to begin with – she in and of herself is an abomination. But if John the Apostle can find himself captivated for even a moment, it gives us some understanding as to the sway this woman holds for the fallen and rebellious world.

“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.”

There can be an unfortunate fascination with sin sometimes – even when we’re free, when we’re no longer mired in it, our flesh will attempt to draw our eye to the dark mystery, the train wreck that we’re tempted to gaze at, even if we feel we’re not caught up in the carnage. Times when we feel this pull call to mind James’ words in James 1:14–15,

“But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

The thing is, there’s no reason for us to look at sin and marvel, to feel an inner curiosity about working out its mysteries. Sin, despite its darkness, is not so mysterious, because it can really be summed up in just that – it’s darkness. Scripture gives us clear descriptions of the depravity of man, seen most vividly through the rebellious actions of God’s people as they again and again deny their Lord and Master and pursue the lusts of their flesh. So to John’s wonder the angel simply tells him that there’s no need, this mystery is not so mysterious, there is a clear explanation for the image that he sees.

“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.”

We read in Revelation 20:1–3, 7-10,

“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.” … “And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

The angel tells John in today’s passage that the beast, which we’ve identified as the symbol of Satan, is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. But if we’re reading through chronologically, he hasn’t been sealed away in the pit to be able to rise and go to his destruction in the final judgment, so what’s up with that? Firstly, consider that Revelation, which delivers beautiful and prophetic words that allow us to come to a better understanding of Christ and His plans, does not always relay things in a crystal clear timeline. Things like the sequence of the seven seals, trumpets, and bowls will seem largely straightforward, but when we arrive at things like the rise of the Antichrist, the arrival of the two witnesses, and where certain events fall over the course of the tribulation, we don’t have an exact timing. Secondly, so as to not get too bogged down in not having exact timing for every detail, consider that God is in a constant state of victory – the Lord simply does not lose. His glory, righteousness, power, and perfection are eternal and unfailing things that are not compromised on for even the barest fraction of a second. Satan on the other hand exists at the opposite end of this spectrum – he is in a perpetual state of defeat. Even when it seems like he’s winning – when his beast and false prophet are ravaging the world and allowed to conquer the saints – it’s like winning a contest of seeing who can swallow the most poison. He’s in a position where he’s trying to aggressively cheat at the game, and also still losing the game. He is always in the position of being cast out of heaven, always in the state of being on his belly in the dirt and feeding on dust, he is always and forever foremost of the eternal losers. But what’s tragic is that, despite the fact that he’s horribly and disgustingly broken, this is what draws the world to him. The dark sensuality and perverted mystery of the abominable woman were chief among her lures, but for the dragon, for the loathsome beast, his attraction lies in the fact that he is, but should not be. This phrasing that the beast, “was and is not and is to come,” is a clear sort of inversion of the way God is described in His holiness, the One who “was and is and is to come.” Satan is an absence, a negative existence, a dark void in reality – a thing that should not be. But for those whose hearts do not belong to God, who have planted their feet on the foundation of rebellion, they’re captivated by the beast and his blasphemous existence, and they follow in devotion to their flesh and to his broken nature.

“This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; 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. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction.”

Okay, let’s break down what we’re seeing here – the beast’s seven heads are seven mountains. We know as we’ve discussed before that seven is associated with completeness, and mountains show a Biblical theme of authority, so we could look at this and see an image of complete authority, and that if this is where the woman is seated then she’s resting in a position of complete authority – but things don’t stop there. The seven heads, which are seven mountains, are also seven kings. Again, just like a mountain, a king is an even more obvious symbol of authority, but then we read that five of them have already fallen – these aren’t active sources of power or authority, they’re ghosts or shadows of things that have been. And then one of the kings hasn’t come yet, and when he does come it’s only for a little while – so the image of “complete authority” that she started off with, sitting at the top of her seven mountains is actually nothing more than an illusion, an imitation – a broken power that is trying it’s hardest to fake an image of completion. We then focus back on the beast, the broken thing that both was and is not, and see that it is aligned with the seven, yet detached from them – it is following the same path of imitation power, of authority without substance, and it goes to destruction.

“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. These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast. 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.’”

The ten horns seem to indicate the armies that have assembled for battle against Christ, the forces of the world who, enticed by the demonic spirits of the dragon, beast, and false prophet have gathered in the place we discussed last week called Armageddon. It seems straightforward to identify these, because we don’t read as we have before that these figures gather to war with any degree of success against the saints. They assemble themselves against Christ, they hold power for but a moment, and they’re destroyed – just as the armies of the world are before the awesome and glorious arrival of the Lamb.

“And the angel said to me, ‘The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages.”

This one line concerning the waters brings us an answer to a very specific question – who is this woman? We read in her name that she’s called “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations,” but as I said earlier, the woman symbolizes Babylon, but Babylon itself symbolizes something. This one statement concerning the waters is telling because it actually points us back in a direction that leads to Jerusalem, the fallen and perverted, once holy city. The angel first tells John that the woman he will show him is seated on many waters, but when John sees her she’s seated on the scarlet beast, and then as we just read, the seven heads of the beast are also seen as seven mountains where she’s seated. All this together shows a deep level of interconnectivity between the woman, the beast, and the waters. The thing that points us back toward Jerusalem is what the angel says to John now, that the waters are “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and languages.” If you remember back to after the two witnesses are conquered and killed by the beast, We read in Revelation 11:9–10,

“For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.”

Now there’s a clear indicator that the information that the two witnesses were killed is dispersed across the earth – people living in desolation are exchanging presents the world over in celebration of the murders of the witnesses. Usually this and the “peoples and tribes and languages and nations,” are lumped together, it’s imagined that this and “those who dwell on the earth” are the same groups, and the idea that we now have technology for global broadcasting makes is possible that the entire world could stare at their dead bodies. But there’s one thing that logistically throws this off – it seems unlikely that a person looking at a screen in another part of the world is actively preventing the two witnesses from being buried, that seems like an action that would be local to where their bodies actually lie. Bearing that in mind, I would put forward the theory that the “peoples and tribes and languages and nations,” that are mentioned is not referring to the whole world, but is actually focused on the place where the two witnesses were killed, and the specific action of the Antichrist (who the beast is tied to, who is directly linked to the “many waters” in today’s passage). So, where were the two witnesses killed? Revelation 11:8 says,

“and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.”

If we’re to understand this literally, which given that it specifically offers two symbolic titles before telling us the actual place, it sounds literal, the two witnesses were killed in Jerusalem, meaning the “peoples and tribes and languages and nations,” is pertaining to Jerusalem. Now, some people will take that information and get super antisemitic really quickly – “Jerusalem is the seat of the harlot of Babylon, that’s who our enemy is, the Jews are the enemy, case closed.” But this misses so much of what is being said here, because it fails to realize that Jerusalem is no longer Jerusalem. What made Israel special is that they were a people set apart by God, for God. What made Jerusalem special is that in the midst of this holy people, it was the holy city, the sacred site in the middle of the promised land, a special place in what was already a special place. What made Jerusalem significant wasn’t the strategic advantage of its altitude, the height of its walls, or the thickness of its gates – it was that it was a city set apart to the glory of God. But this was lost. Jesus laments in Matthew 23:37–39,

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

This city is a representation of the way God seeks us, the way He loves us, what He offers to be for us in calling us to Himself – and it stands as an example for what becomes of us when we reject these things. For the holy city to be described symbolically as Sodom, the place of ultimate depravity, and also Egypt, the place of ultimate authoritarianism, the place that is identified as no longer being set aside to God, but being made up of “peoples and tribes and languages and nations,” shows us the lows to which she has fallen. She has forsaken God, she has gone not just in the direction of the world, but in every direction of the world, seeking to please every empty power and every false god – and in an attempt to be everything, she is nothing. But if Jerusalem stands as an example for us all, we cannot look at her fall and apply it to only her, which is why we have to back up a little more and see that this woman, this prostitute, this blasphemous witch who revels in her own wickedness, who paints her lips seductive red with the blood of the saints, and cherishes her lofty position upon the heads of the dragon, is not just a single city or a single people, rather she is the world itself. In John 14:30 Jesus refers to Satan as “the ruler of this world.” In 2 Corinthians 4:4 Paul refers to him as “the god of this world,” who blinds the minds of the unbelievers. Elaborating on this same idea, Paul writes in Ephesians 2:1–3

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

Christ is our Foundation, our Cornerstone, the fixed point and guiding figure by which all else is given form. The woman, who is this world, has made Satan its foundation, it has set itself firmly upon him and him and alone and delighted in the power she enjoys. But it is a temporary thing, a hollow, broken sort of power, and it leads to nothing but an entirely justified destruction.

3. The Broken Loyalty of the Kingdom of Man

“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…”

There is no honor among thieves, no truth among liars, and no loyalty found in the camp of the enemy. So should it come as any surprise that the woman who set herself atop Satan, who delighted in the worldly power of the enemy, is not just cast down, but betrayed by the serpent in which she placed her faith? The horns of the beast itself, the dragon and all of its authority will despise her and be turned against her, and all of her dark elegance and wicked beauty will be torn away from her, as she is left with her brokenness exposed. Her fate mirrors the words of Lamentations 1:1, 8,

“How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave.” … “Jerusalem sinned grievously; therefore she became filthy; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns her face away.”

As well as Ezekiel 16:37–41,

“… therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness. And I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy. And I will give you into their hands, and they shall throw down your vaulted chamber and break down your lofty places. They shall strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful jewels and leave you naked and bare. They shall bring up a crowd against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords. And they shall burn your houses and execute judgments upon you in the sight of many women. I will make you stop playing the whore, and you shall also give payment no more.”

“… 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.”

Romans 1:28–32 tells us,

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”

Those who set themselves against God are met without success – there is no thwarting the plans of the Almighty, no usurping His will. Those who are afforded a degree of agency in His design for us, our feeble rebellions when we choose to war against Him achieve nothing – and a part of this is the flesh’s complete inability to foster peace. Our sinful nature will always call us to war, to greed, to lust, and betrayal, and it is only through the common grace of God and the example of righteousness that He has given us that the world doesn’t rip itself to shreds in mere moments. In righteous obedience God is glorified, but He is not deprived of glory when the world rebels against Him – as He is great and holy in all things, at all times, whether that be seen in His steadfast love, or in the might and power of His righteous judgment.

“And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.”

This book is the revelation of Jesus Christ – then what is revealed about Him when we see and understand the enemy? The same thing that is understood of darkness when we are bathed in light, the same thing that is understood of filth when we are washed clean, the same thing that is understood of brokenness when we are bound up and healed. The world is terrible and mighty – from the perspective of the world. It is a disgusting, broken, feeble thing when seen in the reality of the Light of the Lamb. What we may see and know and celebrate is that these broken things will pass away, the institutions and regimes, the powers and principalities that stand in rebellion to holy God will one day be no more. The symbol of Jerusalem that we know in this world, what will be seen in the final days is a dark and blasphemous thing that rests upon the authority of Satan, but this will be wiped away, the old destroyed and the new brought forth, to the glory of God, and the good of His children. Revelation 21:22–27 tells us,

“And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

Pastor Chris’ sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NSttCS8yPs