Revelation 17 – The Great Harlot

In this chapter, John sees the harlot Babylon.  This describes the Daniel 2 statue, as what you call the head, you also call the feet.

Revelation 17:1-2

(1) Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, (2) “Come here, I will show you (3) the judgment of (4) the great harlot (5) who sits on many waters, (6)with whom the kings of the earth committed (7) acts of immorality, and (8) those who dwell on the earth (9) were made drunk with (10) the wine of her immorality.”

  1. One of the angels which John just saw.
  2. Beckons John to come and see what he is about to show him.
  3. The topic is specifically “judgment”.
  4. Rome, as we will see in a bit.
  5. One of the pictures of Rome.  Also, speaks of people’s, as waters often do.
  6. The Kings of the Earth committed these acts.  Jerusalem could not be in view here, because while Jerusalem was labeled a harlot at times, they kings of the whole earth did not commit adultery with her.  Some did, but not the vast majority with her specifically.
  7. Acts of immorality.  The seed bed of culture, of civilization, and things like the “renaissance”, and wordly, demonic “arts”, devoid of Christ, and not in the image of God.  Indeed, much of what the world calls “fine arts” is a finely tuned demonic strategy to tie men into a pagan culture, and, in so doing, they are duped into the worldly guise.  Not realizing they have practiced the ways of Balaam who taught Balaak to sin, they embrace a culture whose underpinnings they do not understand.  They do not see that all of these “delights” of culture truly point back to the harlot.  For this reason, God forbade the children of Israel from participating in the cultures around them.  When we realize that there is no fascination with anything unless there is a spiritual force behind it (Daniel 2 shows the four part statue representing the outward kingdoms, and Daniel 7 shows the spiritual forces behind it), we understand that everything from art galleries to symphonies to every other medium is either part of the Kingdom of God or the kingdom of darkness.  The tie is in the spiritual.  While it may not seem readily apparent on the outset, it is the ‘beelzebub’, the father of lies, that sows seeds of self, of soul, and of selfish intent and ambition all throughout these things.  From this come performances, competitions, divisions, factions, envyings, rivalries, murders, thefts, and all the like.  There is no innocent art.  It is either in the image of the Heavenly Father, or it is in the image of the beast.  Then or now.  All such cultural delight, outside the heart of the Father, which is a family and brothers and true loving, unity, is a demonic trap, a deceit, a lying vanity.  Outside of Christ, all that men do is filthy rags.  So, why is it that men are attracted to such a system?  Why is it that, though they are empty in themselves, men are drawn to them?  For power, for control, for self promotion.  They are empty of all merit, and they are corrupted.  This is “western civilization”.  This is why the beast of Rome’s fall elicited the “dark ages”, as they call it, because the light of the harlot was gone.  There is not a worldly system, a civilization, or culture, that has any merit.  There is not any cultural interest that does not have within it the trappings of this jezebel influence, the harlot, to enslave.  The goal, while to many might seem like empowerment, is enslavement.  From the movie and theater industry, to fine art and pottery, to sculpture, to most recreations and past-times.  While there may be some places where a Christian may need to enter into some of these realms with a pure heart and clean hands, they must never partake of them, nor take delight in what the world takes delight in.  Above all, he must keep his heart and mind pure, and to love the Lord and His commands above all.  In this way, he is kept clean of its influence, being in the world, but not of it.  His source is from a higher place, and if he takes as his source anything of the systems of this world, he is doomed to be trapped by it, save for the delivering, saving grace of the cross.  Such is the web of deceit of the enemy.  The enemy knows that, like Adam, if he eats of the wrong tree, he will take on its nature.  In the same way, in the delight of our soul and appetites, if we take pleasure in anything of the system of the world, we become influenced by it, and we become clouded in our perceptions of the world.  Only through the continual cleansing of the blood, the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit within us, can light be maintained that consistently overcomes the darkness.  Woe to the people who put light for dark, and dark for light.  Who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.  Too many have taken their lead from the system of the world, have created doctrines of toleration and acceptance of the harlot and her practices of immorality.  The only thing that builds up, that puts in right perspective and character is the Spirit of life, Jesus Christ, living within.  Many simple things in life may be enjoyed in life, so long as they never take the place of the surpreme delight of Jesus.  There is nothing outside of Him, nothing beyond Him, nothing surpassing Him, and nothing outside of His scope.  If it has power behind it, and is not Jesus, the discerning young Christian should steer far from it, even as the ordinances of the Old Covenant.  For the saint who is called into such a front for the furtherance of the Gospel, not personal volition, he should do so with prayer, with awareness, and with a heart centered only upon the one, Jesus Christ, above all.  Too many, attempting to change the system of the world, have only been changed themselves into the image of it.  When all is said and done, it can be said that they loved the pleasures of this world more than the cross, and were pierced with many sorrows.  There is no thing outside the bounds of Christ, and all that is not in Him is wickedness.
  8. Those who dwell on the earth, in other words, all men.  The enemy has cast his veil of deception upon all classes of men, and introduced false worship and worship of the creation rather than the creator to nearly every people group on the planet.
  9. The resultant of these things is a spiritual stupor, or drunkenness.  People can no longer tell right from wrong, and wrong from right.  The effect is compounded as the concentration of evil escalates.  Only the true Word of the Lord brings correction, but those who are in such entered in through rebellion of their own hearts, out of their own search for something in an illegitimate way.  And, as such, it requires the convicting power of the Holy Ghost in the Gospel to bring them to repentance, often enough.  But, what is impossible with men is possible with God.  We must pray that the veils can be removed, so that the spiritual stupor and drunkenness be brought low enough so that true light (Psalm 36:9) might come into their heart, and, with an upright and true heart, they see that the deeds of their hearts are abominations.  Sinners hate a preacher of righteousness, as a preacher hates sin.  But, it is God ordained that it is through the preaching of the Gospel that men might be converted, that they might be saved.  May God raise up 10,000 holy messengers in this hour, who will both preach and prophecy the true word of the Lord, in righteousness and truth, that the tide of darkness in our land might be turned back.  It is the hour of a message of repentance.
  10. Her immorality is called a wine.  It is sweet to the taste, but it is the essence of temptation.  Only God is good enough, sweet enough, and pure enough to satisfy the human condition.  All others are tainted, corrupt, and evil.  They are unclean spirits, sent to deceive, and they will never satisify, nor live up to their expectations.  Not a drop must be tolerated, and it must be rejected entirely.  This world lies corrupt and damned, and all that it is in it.  We are no longer of this world, although we are in it.  Let us not live as children of darkness, but as children of the light.

Revelation 17:3

And (1) he (2) carried me away (3) in the Spirit (4) into a wilderness; and (5) I saw (6) a woman (7) sitting on (8) a scarlet beast, (9) full of blasphemous names, (10) having seven heads and ten horns.

  1. The angel.
  2. The angel is said to have carried him.
  3. The whole vision is still in the Spirit.  John is not, then it seems, travelling there literally, that is in his body, but in his spirit.
  4. An undisclosed place.
  5. Visions continue.
  6. The harlot John sees.
  7. Seated, or reclining.
  8. The city of Rome, or the Roman empire.
  9. Rome was full of abominable idols and devils.  The entire Roman pantheon is remembered, but not as directly as the Greek one.  Their list of false gods are demons are what controlled them.  They gave these forces power through and over their civilization, and so were ruled by them, in contradiction to the only true God.  But, God alone is judge, and soverign, and He rules over the whole Earth.  It is through these that men are degraded, deluded, and brought to the price of a meal.  It is unbelief in the highest, blindness of heart, and is always the child of immorality, spiritual adultery, and filth.  They are abominable.  The greatest gift a child of God can have is a clean conscience.  Little children, keep yourself free from idols (1 John 5:21).
  10. The horns and the head, indicating specific things, to be explained in a moment.

Revelation 17:4

(1) The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and (2) adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, (3) having in her hand (4) a gold cup (5) full of abominations and (6) of the unclean things of her immorality, and (7) on her forehead a (8) name was written, (9) a mystery, (10) BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

  1. The woman is dressed in the colors of Rome, particularly royalty.  She is the queen of heaven, jezebel.
  2. She is lavish, and decked out.  She wants to be treated well.  She wants attention and prominence.  This is always what Jezebel seeks out.  She looks for power to dominate and control.
  3. She is drinking from her cup.  This is her “power”, as it were, the immoralities.  They strengthen her grip on the people.  When people bow to the altar of her immorality, the is strengthened.  She also tries for tolerance.  She kills those in opposition (the true prophets of God), and raises up a false voice against it.  Those not in direct cooperation she attempts to lull into a sleepy tolerance.  As Elijah demonstrated, direct confrontation is the only thing that will dislodge her.
  4. Her cup is gold.  She loves these things.  She is decadent and prideful  in all her belongings.
  5. But, it is full of the abominations.  For all that she is, she is a demon, pure and simple.  All her ways are filthy and abominable.  She corrupts and deceives and perverts all who touch her.  There is no good thing about her, and all her powerful witchcrafts serve only to destroy.  But, she is recognizable to the upright.  Her greatest deception lies in her gold cup.  It looks inviting, it looks promising.  The able minister will remind himself of what truth is, of what righteousness is, and what is really in her cup.  He will have no interest in damnation.  He will have no delight in wickedness.  His delight is in the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night.  The filthy things of the earth, the fornications, the adulteries, the drug use, the debauchery and orgies, the power of the culture that dulls and deludes, degrades, and corrupts, these are her aim, and they are detestable unto the man of God.  Of the clubs of the night, the mindless dancing, the revelling in the night, these are not of the Father of light.  They do nothing but entice, pull down, and enslave.  They are wickedness, and all her house is abominable.  It is to be torn down, left desolate, and never to be rebuilt.
  6. They are unclean, even as the Spirits Jesus cast our were unclean.  They are never to be trusted, never to be accepted, and of the filth of the earth.  For, out of these things come every molestation, every adultery, every fornication, every wicked thing.  For the people of God, they were to kill such as these, for it was a deadly leaven.  The leaven would spread from people to people, from house to house.  The leaven by agents of the unclean spirits would spread throughout the house of Israel if one opened the way.  So, they had to be purged out.  Today, it is no less deadly among the people of God, for a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, but it is through the power of the blood, through the power of deliverance, that we no longer need to destroy the offender, but see them “restored gently”, through the spirit of meekness, lest we open ourselves up to temptation.  These unclean things are the demons brought forth by these things, and in culture and civilization, these things run unchecked throughout society.  An adultery in an office can quickly spread through the whole organization, and soon, there is an epidemic of unfaithfulness.  An after-work drinking group can quickly infect the whole body simply by infecting others with the same root of bitterness and harlotry they have.  These are to be hated, despised, and warned against in the body.  Despite what modern so called teachers might say, these things are just as deadly now as they were then.  Any good Bible teacher will know these things, and will deliver a multitude of souls from harm by teaching thus.  All of the harlot, of Jezebel, of the seat of civilization must be avoided, and outcast as unclean, even as it was in the days of Israel.
  7. That is, as a label of identification.
  8. A name is written.  It is who she is.
  9. It is said to be a mystery.  This is in reference to Daniel 2.  What you call the head, you call the foot.  Only Rome can be in view here, and, more pertinently, the city of Rome, and the principality over it.
  10. This is Babylon the Great, Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom.  It is Rome based on Daniel 2, which is God’s way of hiding mysteries, putting it in His book of prophets and seeing who is willing to read the Word.  It can ONLY be Rome, because of the description of the seven heads below.  By saying “one is”, there is no other possible explanation than that one of those seven kings was living then.  Only by some other extrapolation or some extreme adjustment of the text in attempting to redefine things, could this imply anything other than the Rome of John’s day.  This is clearly the “Babylon” that is in view, and all attempts to say otherwise would have to produce compelling evidence of why the most plain reading of the text should not be employed.  The simple fact that all the points line up, and point directly to Rome as the beast, the false “dea Roma” as the harlot, and Domitian as Nero back from the dead as the eighth king, is overwhelming evidence that this interpretation is correct, to the contradiction of futurists, dispensationalists, and partial preterists alike.

Revelation 17:6-7

(1) And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. (2) When I saw her, I wondered greatly. (3) And the angel said to me, “Why do you wonder? (4) I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.
  1. John saw this woman, Jezebel the harlot, and she was also drunk with the blood of the saints.  It was, again, Rome, that was killing Christians in John’s day.  Jerusalem was not killing Christians near as much as Rome was.  But, Rome brought forth her pride in the persecution and shedding of the blood of the saints.
  2. John saw her, and greatly wondered.  Why?  Because this was most probably the woman in the basket brought out of Israel at the rebuilding of the second temple, and now, instead of Jerusalem, she is sitting over Rome.  This harlot is “Roma”, the female demon said to personify the city of Rome, hence, riding it.  She is also said to personify “civilization itself”.  This is none other than the same spirit of Jezebel allowed entry to Israel by Ahab in marrying the woman Jezebel.  This demonic force had gone by many names throughout history, from Jezebel to the Queen of Heaven, to Diana, to Minerva, to many other things.  Here, she is seen as “Roma”, or “Rome”.  She is depicted on Roman coins as the “dea Roma” as sitting on seven hills beside the waters.  She is said to personify the city, and so she “is the great city”.  Yet, she is the principality, or ruling power, that is controlling the city and the empire, and more than simply the city itself.  This demonic power is what John saw, and it was the same power that had been in Israel, called “wickedness”, that the two angels carried away in the basket in Zechariah, and had been set up in Babylon, of which Rome is now the final segment of (as per Daniel 2).
  3. The angel asks John why he wonders.  Again, the vision is plain to John, yet he marvels at it, and is astonished.  The power of the spirit over the city of Rome, that of this “Roma”, or Jezebel, is evident throughout the Roman society.
  4. The angel tells John he will explain the vision.

Revelation 17:8

(1) The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction. (2) And those who dwell on the earth, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast, that he was and is not and will come.

  1. That is, the Roman emperor, Domitian, but those after him as well, as it also surmises the empire as well as the emperors.
  2. Those who do not know Christ and are not in Him will wonder when they see the beast, not the harlot.

Revelation 17:9-10

(1) Here is the mind which has wisdom. (2) The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits, (3) and they are seven kings; (4) five have fallen, (5) one is, (6) the other has not yet come; (7) and when he comes, he must remain a little while.

  1. Understanding, or wisdom is required.
  2. The seven hills of Rome are directly indicated.   This was a commonly understood metaphor for the city of Rome.
  3. They are seven kings, the emperors of Rome.
  4. Five have fallen:  Augustus, Tiberius, Caligua, Claudius, Nero.  Hence, the book was written (apparently) after the death of Nero.
  5. One is:  Here we make one supposition, and say, Vespasian.  Three short-term emperors were in view, but they fell immediately.  Yet, none of these were emperor in Judea.  Hence, in the “year of the four emperors”, we see Vespasian as the emperor who is.
  6. The other has not yet come:  Titus, the destroyer of the temple, is in view here.
  7. Titus reigned for 2 years and three months.

Revelation 17:11

(1) The beast which was and is not, (2) is himself also an eighth and (3) is one of the seven, and (4) he goes to destruction.

  1. The beast is Domitian.
  2. He is in line after Titus.
  3. He, as well as Titus, were both sons of Vespasian.
  4. He’s going to be destroyed and cast into the lake of fire.

Revelation 17:12-13

(1) The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, (2) but they receive authority as kings with the beast for (3) one hour. (4) These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast.

  1. Most probably, the ten persecutions of the Christian church, as recorded by Foxxe’s book of Martyrs over the next two centuries.  Interpretation is everything here.  The assumption is that they must be together, but it is just that, assumption.  They join with the beast, here meaning the empire as a whole, and they give their power and authority to the beast empire to persecute the church.
  2. They receive authority as kings with the empire, and in a line from Domitian and Nero.
  3. They reign for their “hour” as emperor, sequentially, not simultaneously.
  4. They give their authority and power to the empire, to the fourth beast of Daniel 7, so that instead of reigning justly, they serve its desires. 

Revelation 17:14

(1)  These will wage war against the Lamb, (2) and the Lamb will overcome them, because (3) He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and (4) those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.

  1. As stated, they wage war with the lamb, and persecute the church over the next two hundred years. 
  2. The church will be victorious, and will ultimately crush and defeat the beast of Rome by the time of Constantine.
  3. It is Christ’s authority by which He rules.
  4. Instead of a title of Christ, a title for the believers is given, the church.  They are the “called”, the “chosen”, and the “faithful”.

Revelation 17:15-17

(1) And he said to me, The waters which you saw where the harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. (2) And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, (3) these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire. (4) For God has put it in their hearts to execute His purpose by having a common purpose, and by giving their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled.

  1. The waters are more specifically identified as many peoples and nations.  Again, Jerusalem cannot be in view.
  2. The ten horns and the beast.  These will work together in this to some degree or sense.
  3. They will hate the harlot.  Understand that the harlot was the principality Jezebel over the city, diefied through the persona of “Roma”.  Temples built in honor of the emperor were also dedicated to her.  What would make a power-crazed, demon-possessed male emperor madder than to have a woman glorified with the same, or often, greater honor than he was?  So, the beast actually hates the ruling power.  The beast, the emperor, and the other ten kings, want absolute power and control and dominion, and yet, they are dominated, and the people love, this “queen of heaven”.  Hence, they hate the harlot.  This is evidenced even in the burning of Rome by Nero, to a degree, and, most likely, through the other emperors.  They wanted absolute control, and this other principality got in their way.  They wanted dominion absolutely, but the witchcrafts of Jezebel, like in the days of Ahab, tied his hands, and made it restricted, at least.

Revelation 17:18

The woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth.

  1. Finally, the woman is identified as the “great city”.  Another reference to a “great city”, such as Revelation 11 is not enough to say they are identical.  This one is “the great city which reigns over the kings of the Earth”.  Revelation 11 is “the great city wherein their Lord was crucified”.  “Great city” by itself is not the full clause, but it must be taken into account which “Great City” is being talked about.  In this instance, again, it is actually talking about the false goddess Roma, or Jezebel.  She was said to “personify” the city.  Hence, to say that she is the city is to say Roma, because Roma was “the city”, in that sense.  She also personified civilization itself.  She ruled from Babylon through to Rome.  Hence, most of what we consider to be civilization is actually Jezebellian.  This should not come as a surprise to the earnest preacher in love with the Word, but it might come as a shock to certain Dominionists who insist on their attempt to “reclaim the Jezebel whoredoms” for God so that we can go to our media entertainment outlets and not feel condemned by the demons that want to steal our lunch.