“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, 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." (vv.1-2)
The judgment of the great harlot mentioned here in our text refers to Babylon. To those familiar with the Old Testament, the name Babylon is associated with organized idolatry, blasphemy and the persecution of God’s people. Thus Babylon has from its inception symbolized evil, rebellion, and false worship against God.
Babylon was founded by Nimrod (Gen. 10:9), a proud, powerful, God-rejecting ruler. Babel (Babylon), became the site of the first organized system of idolatrous false religion (Gen.11:1-4). The Tower of Babel, the expression of that false religion, was designed to facilitate the idolatrous worship of the stars. God then judged the people’s idolatry (You shall have no other Gods before Me) and rebellion by confusing their language and scattering them over the globe (Gen. 11:5-9).
The seeds of idolatry and false religion were then spread around the world from Babylon, where the kings of the earth adopted the practices (and many others) and committed acts of immorality, thereby making all who dwelt on the earth, "drunk with the wine of her immorality." I see Babylon itself as a symbol of man's rebellion against the Lord. Which makes chapter 17 a prophetic look into the overthrow of all false religions (that which had their beginning in the ancient city of Babylon and its religion).
In this final judgment which will come against her, we will see those who have divorced themselves from God and followed after false God's, believing in the great deceiver, be suddenly and catastrophically destroyed, like that of Sodom and Gomorrah. This destruction will be sudden, complete, and permanent.
Whoa to those who play the harlot against God.
The Truth: “Wail, for the day of the LORD is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore all hands will be limp, every man’s heart will melt, and they will be afraid. Pangs and sorrows will take hold of them; they will be in pain as a woman in childbirth; they will be amazed at one another; their faces will be like flames. Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and He will destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, a man more than the golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth will move out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts and in the day of His fierce anger. “(Isa. 13:6-13)
