As you are doing Bible study, are you feeling pressured, as though you were running in a 50-yard dash? I have, and though it is little more than the voices in my head (and yes, I have voices in my head), the notion that I have go faster is there.
This may not mean anything to you, but as I went through grade school and college, I honestly thought, for many years, that my brain did not work. As a result, I had to figure out how to make school work, and rushing does not work. Because of these life experiences, I take Bible study a bit more seriously than others.
Just
for the diversion, today,
With that being said, we have made it to Revelation 17.
The Great Prostitute and the Beast
This is a personal favorite as I try to debunk previous harmful teachings.
Revelation 17:1 NASB “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,”
In chapter 16, we saw the last of the seven bowls. The last event of God’s wrath within the seals, trumpets, and now bowls, the seventh of any of these, has been the painful migration into the next series of events. With the last bowl being poured out, the last event to happen is Jesus finally coming back to earth as the warring messiah and cleaning house. Based on what 17:1 says, we have now moved into some explanatory information.
“Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters.”
- Judgment is the Greek word krima and means the decision, a decree, or judgments against the harlot.
- Harlot is the Greek porne. Alarms should have gone off in your head by merely seeing this word. The meaning runs along this vein - one who yields themselves to defilement for the sake of gain.
Using the phrase” judgments against the harlot” makes more sense when you begin to see it as a controlling entity currently operating in unity with the global community, something we have never seen before.
- “who sits on many waters,”
John Gill’s commentary tells us that this phrase “who sits on many waters,” is to be interpreted as people, multitudes, nations, and tongues, ... and this is said in reference to Babylon. I bypassed the somewhat standard reference to the harlot being subject to the jurisdiction of Rome primarily because I despise how easily we cling to tradition, even if it’s wrong. Most of the teachings that I have heard have referred to Rome as the harlot. But, hey, guess what, the majority can be wrong, so stick with scripture.
One of the ways I try to interpret obscure passages is to find “witnesses” from other parts of the Bible; I do this as a form of validation. We can find such confirmation in Jeremiah 51:13.
Jeremiah 51:13 NASB “O you who dwell by many waters, Abundant in treasures, Your end has come, The measure of your end.”
Get real, this could be any number of nations, and our discussions are nothing more than futile speculations unless we pursue the context. In terms of context, Jeremiah 51 gives us a physical association with this harlot that sits on many waters and may correctly motivate us to look at something other than a biological woman, a place, or a philosophical construct.
Before we get to lost in rabbit trails, let’s get back to Revelation 17.
Revelation 17:1-2 NASB 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, (2) 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.”
Think about this, the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with this harlot since time began and have been made drunk with her immorality.
Drunk is the Greek word methyō and is used metaphorically in Revelation 17:2, there it means “to become drunk with fornication, i.e., never having enough of it” (Word Study Dictionary)
It is somewhat overwhelming and scary to think that this delusion of power has made these “fools” drunk for a long time.
If you are paying attention to the explanation, it is not just the standard definition, such as alcohol; it is drunk on fornication. Most of us associate fornication with sexual activity; however, we cannot exclude fornication because it is associated with never having enough. Since the arrest and suspicious death of Jeffrey Epstein and, in time, the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell for sex trafficking, many of us are aware that the swamp, as former President Trump called it, may be deeply involved in this “drunkenness.” The obvious factor here is that a vast number of leaders appear to be involved over a wide variety of venues.
To put the idea of kings becoming drunk with power in perspective, you need to know about Klaus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum. The World Economic Forum is the organization that Bill Gates has been helping to finance, and it is where Mr. Schwab has been training world leaders in his school for Young Global Leaders. The shortlist of some of these “kings” include Chancellor Angela Merkel; Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain; Emmanuel Macron, the President of France; Sebastian Kurz, who was until recently the Chancellor of Austria; Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand - whose stringent lockdown measures have been praised by global health authorities; Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary; Jean-Claude Juncker, former Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the European Commission. Many leaders of the health institutions of their respective nations; the current US Secretary of Transportation Peter Buttigieg; Microsoft’s Bill Gates; Amazon’s Jeff Bezos; Virgin’s Richard Branson; and the Clinton Foundation’s Chelsea Clinton.
If all these players have the same goal, then surely you can see that eliminating consumers while protecting the assets and food chain for the rich helps create the philosophical construct they long for.
Revelation 17:3 AMP “And [the angel] bore me away [rapt] in the Spirit into a desert (wilderness), and I saw a woman seated on a scarlet beast that was all covered with blasphemous titles (names), and he had seven heads and ten horns.”
In looking at the UCRT Cross reference on Revelation 17:3, I found a short commentary on the word “wilderness.” The editor said, “this is the state of the church.” I looked to see when this commentary was published and found 1992.
Around this time frame, after several years of drinking too much, I had been going to an independent church that seemed to be on fire for the Lord. The uncomfortable part of this equation is that I lived with a beautiful lady, and we were expecting our first child together. An acquaintance of mine, whom I worked with, threatened to turn me into the church leadership; the result of which would have removed me from anything I had been involved in, and demanded that I separate from my soon to be wife for six months – as though that is a magical number. In a short period, I got my new family out of there, and, only a few months later, that same acquaintance got divorced and had an affair with a lady from the same church.
This is not an accounting of affairs, but I am trying to point out that OUR brokenness, from the pastors to the parking lot attendants, infests every church we have anything to do with. However, it isn’t necessarily our actions that make the state of the church a wilderness so much as it is the preaching and backbone of the person preaching that seems to play the most significant role in whether the church is on fire or not.
I saw a woman.
At this point, she is nondescript, but that is not a problem as we have already been given pointed descriptions.
the great harlot
This speaks to fame, influence, and power.
who sits on many waters,
Doesn’t this convey the idea of a global influence? Or the fact that the influence she pushes infests many nations.
with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality,
This statement does not tell us that everyone complies or whether the handful of small nations pushing back against this global governance will survive. Still, it demonstrates that most “kings” are falling into place and advocating what the Klaus Schwab school of global governance is apparently conveying.
and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.”
While the rulers of this earth commit their acts of immorality, those that are not so powerful, all the way down to the ordinary person, are drunk with the wine of her immorality. As you can see below, prophecies of this nature are not uncommon to the Jews.
It will come about at the end of seventy years that the LORD will visit Tyre. Then she will go back to her harlot’s wages and will play the harlot with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. (Isaiah 23:17 NASB)
The next verse speaks of Balaam, who submitted to the wine of her immorality when he caved to the badgering of Balak, who wanted him to curse Israel.
‘But I have a few things against you because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality. (Revelation 2:14 NASB)
Considering how the angel of the Lord, which is typically Jesus, had told Balaam that he was NOT to curse Israel, it is surprising that he circumvented the command by telling Balak that he could destroy Israel from the inside if he introduced the young, attractive women from the other nations. They would bring their gods into the Israeli camp and pollute it. To put it differently, if you bring in the cuties, the men will be drunk with lust for them and destroy themselves.
seated on a scarlet beast
Do a search for a “scarlet beast,” and you will only find one reference, Revelation 17:3 NASB. You will not see this term in the KJV; however, other versions call it a scarlet, scarlet-colored, or a red beast. I am pointing this information out if you are going to try to do a word search that might explain what this scarlet beast represents.
The passage (Revelation 17:3) tells us the most crucial clue to define this red beast.
He had seven heads and ten horns.
We saw these seven heads and ten horns in Revelation 12:3; however, we are told that the beast is a great red dragon. Do not let yourself get confused, as Satan, the dragon, is the beast, and yet, he empowers the beast with seven heads, out of which the antichrist, another
beast comes.And another sign was seen in the heavens. And behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads! (Revelation 12:3 MKJV)
Revelation 13:1 describes a beast but not much else, and yet its description is very similar to what we see in Daniel seven.
And I stood on the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns. And on its horns were ten crowns, and on its heads was the name of blasphemy. (Revelation 13:1 MKJV)
Daniel 7 picks up on several of the characteristics spelled out in chapter 7.
After this, I looked in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, frightening and terrifying and very strong. And it had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped the rest with its feet. And it was different from all the beasts before it, and it had ten horns. (Daniel 7:7 MKJV)
This fourth beast, the scarlet beast, is aligned with Nebuchadnezzar’s statue. Unlike the first three, the fourth beast is undefined in scripture, but the clues are there, the majority of which are historical. If the third beast was the Grecian empire under Alexander the Great, then the fourth beast, represented by the remaining two legs and initiated with the last two remaining Grecian generals, Seleucid in the north and Ptolemy in the south. Just looking at the statue tells you that a thread of the Grecian empire ran down into the feet. Still, it is known that both realms intermingled with the Assyrian empire, a remnant of the Babylonian and Medo-Persian empires, and is demonstrated by the usage of the word mixed to explain the iron and clay mingling of the ten toes. The word mixed is the Hebrew word arab.
So, out of the iron legs, feet, and toes, we find the seven heads and ten horns.
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