14th Meeting 9/13/09 - Revelation Chapters 17 & 18

Chapter 17 begins the "Final judgment at the time of Eschaton (last things). This section starts in chapter 17 and goes through Revelation 20:15. This should be grouped together and taught as a block, but due to the immense amount of symbolism and the different subjects talked about, this section will take some time to discuss and map out. We will attack this subject one verse at a time and hopefully it will make sense.

Verse 1 starts out with one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls (judgment) came and said to me (John), "Come I will show you punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters.
The great prostitute is the name given to Babylon, but this passage goes on to say she sits on many waters. Historic Babylon sat on only two rivers the Tigris and Euphrates, I don't believe this Babylon is the one mentioned here. Historically, the term Babylon was used in the Bible in prophecy and applied to Rome and other cities. Verse 2 talks about the kings she committed adultery with and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries. When the Bible talks about the kingdoms and kings committing adultery, this means that they have sinned against God and the place that they commit their sins against is Israel. The Bible is stating that the countries around Israel joined Babylon in committing sins against God and Israel.

Verse 3 says that the angel carried John away in the Spirit into the desert. In the Bible, the desert can be a place of refuge as we saw in earlier chapters where the pregnant woman was taken for protection; and as a place for judgment like the Children of Israel found during their Exodus from Egypt. The second half of this verse shows the woman sitting on the beast. The fact that the woman is shown riding on the beast means that they are like minded at this time. This beast is the anti-christ mentioned earlier and person number 2 of the demonic trinity. Verse 6 states that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus. Babylon was destroyed before the birth of Jesus, so I believe that Babylon mentioned here is the city and kingdom of Rome.

I will stop this post here and take it up in a new post. I told you this will take some time to get through.