We continue in Revelation 17, and we are looking at a place that is being described as Babylon. Revelation 17 seems to be about a religious Babylon. A religious system that is part of the antichrist empire. Instigated and energized by Satan himself. Revelation 18 appears to be a Babylon that is economic and commercial. We will see that when we get there.
As we look at Revelation 17, we find a description of someone called the “great harlot.” Not a very pretty word, is it? Revelation 17:1 says, “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me saying, ‘Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters.’” The harlot harbors back to the Old Testament when harlotry was mentioned in the Old Testament in a symbolic way. It almost always spoke of a spiritual idolatry or apostacy. It wasn’t an immoral thing in a sexual sense. It is an idolatry. A turning away from God and to false religions, so we have the greatest of all false religions going on here. The verse says, “she sits on many waters,” which is a description in Revelation of people. So, she is ruling over the masses of the people. We continue in 17:2 saying, “with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.” We find that the kings are really wrapped into this as well. She is holding a power over even the kings of the earth at this time, and they are drunk with her immorality and with what they are gaining from her.
Revelation 17:3 gives us a further description of this harlot saying, “And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.” Two things catch our attention here. This description of the scarlet beast is just like Revelation 13:1, a description of the antichrist. We have the antichrist here at this point and we see that the great harlot is sitting on the antichrist indicating that she has power and control even over him at this point. He is there and they are working in conjunction it seems, but she is predominating. This religious system seems to be predominating at this point. She has seven heads and ten horns describing, apparently seven different world empires . . .
