Well, I'm going to start reading and then we'll pray and I think since we've been a couple weeks since we met, I'll read the last part of chapter 16 and then, if my voice holds out, maybe go all the way through chapter 17. Because I want to get to chapter 17 today, I don't think we'll finish chapter 17, but just so we have the contents chapter 17 in mind where we talk about it at the beginning, I think I'll try to do that. And particularly we're going to focus probably today on Babylon, an identity of Babylon, what is Babylon in chapter 17. We're not quite finished, which after 16 yet, so I'll start reading at verse 12 of chapter 16. Let's hear the word of God. The sixth angel poured his bowl on the Great River Euphrates and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the east. And I saw issuing from the mouth of the dragon and from the mouth of the beast and from the mouth of the false prophet three foul spirits like frogs, for they are demonic spirits performing signs who go broad to the kings of the whole earth to assemble them for the battle on the great day of God the Almighty. Low am coming like a thief, blessed is he who is awake, keeping his garments that he may not go naked and be seen exposed. And they assembled them at the place which is called in Hebrew, Armageddon. The seventh angel poured his bowl into the air and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne saying, it is done. And there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake, such as had never been seen since men were on earth. So great was that earthquake. The great city was split into three parts and the cities of the nations fell and God remembered great Babylon to make her drain the cup of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away and no mountains were to be found. And great hailstones heavy as a hundred weight dropped on men from heaven, till men cursed God for the plague of the hail so fearful was that plague. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who is seated upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication and with the wine of whose fornication the dwellers on earth have become drunk. And he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet and bedecked with gold and jewels and pearls holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery, babble on the great mother of harlots and of earth's abominations. And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled greatly, but the angel said to me, why marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. The beast that you saw was and is not and is to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to behold the beast, because it was and is not and is to come. This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated. There are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen. One is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth, but it belongs to the seven and goes to perdition. And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour together with the beast. These are of one mind and give over their power and authority to the beast. They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and king of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful. And he said to me, the waters that you saw, where the harlot is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. And the ten horns that you saw, they in the beast will hate the harlot, they will make her desolate and naked and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire. For God has put it in their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and giving over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman that you saw is the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth. Oh gracious father, we praise you today that you are the Almighty, the king of all kings, Lord of all lords, that you know the end from the beginning, that you are the great one who stands behind all of human history. That this time of great reflection, and when practically the whole world around us has glanced back at history and looks forward, this milestone in most of our lives, we pause to give glory to you as the only one who is worthy to receive our praise and honor and glory. It is you, O Lord, who stand behind all the works and all of the events of history. It is to you that they point, may we and may we aid all the earth also to give glory to you. We thank you for this marvelous book again, and pray that you would take away the clouds from our minds and help us to understand it, that we might amend our lives and live according to your words, precepts, and Jesus' name. Amen. All right, late cowers may be seated. Oh, well, they keep coming in good. These are the those who are just getting out of their bunkers from Y2K, maybe. Well, it is a joy to welcome any visitors. Are there any visitors I'd like to introduce today? Why see one over here that hasn't been. We want to welcome Lord Grace, and doesn't she look smarter? Of course, if she'd been a Cambridge, she'd look even smarter, but I'm sorry. She came here, and so what is all this Y2K business in any way? One thing that I thought was, well, here's a question for you. Why should any non-Christian celebrate the year 2000? What's that? It's a time to party. Yeah, I guess that's probably the answer, isn't it? Any excuse to party. But, you know, I guess every culture has its new years and, you know, celebrate new years, but the year 2000, of course, is only the year 2000, because of Christ, and because we date our calendars that way. So it was part of the, part of the strangeness, I think, of this whole event to watch people all over the world, and in very non-Christian countries, Japan, and China and so forth. Having a big wing thing about the year 2000, it's just very fascinating to me. Of course, it's mostly been a media event, I think, all along, but even the media, our media why makes such a big deal about the year 2000, and then once in a while, you would hear just sort of under somebody's breath mentioning, well, you know, it's 2000 years since, supposedly, since the birth of Jesus Christ, and that was about it. Any other observations about the recent celebration? Who drugged this guy in the office tree, right? Okay, yes, sir. No, no, I try to avoid things like that, right? Yeah, right. Yeah, if we're counting from the actual birth of Christ, most people who study that say that Jesus was probably born in three or four BC, I mean, I've heard recently a theory about six BC. What's that? Well, I could make a smart remark there, but I won't. What? God could do it. As we've been learning all through our study of the book of Revelation, God can do the impossible, right? Yeah, so if we're looking strictly at that marker and the 2000 years and everything, it's already passed. It's already passed. Now, there's also the calendrical glitch that you're probably all aware of, too, is that even in the year, even in the system of counting, the next millennium doesn't start until next year, because there was no year zero, so the first, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 belongs to the first 10, you know, so the first decade, so the year, you know, the second decade started sort of year 11, so the second millennium starts at year 2001, so we're officially in the last one. What's that? Another big party.
That's when the real Y2K happened, but as Larry was informing me, now you want to say that again?
The millennial year, so if you want to be notically correct there and keeping with the the naval, what was that again? The Navy Observatory in Washington keeps our official time. You'll refer to this as the millennial year. Okay, leading up to the millennial. No, no, like we were saying before, it's always proper to be all millennial, whether it's pre-millennial year, millennial year, or post-millennial year. We're having a dried food party at Buds tonight, complete with generator and everything. At the bottom of a bottle, too.
Many were infected with faster and we didn't experience that. I think there's a false sense of security
It could be, you know, a turning point. It's a natural point for people to stop and reflect, and maybe some of that, right. Some of the hype has, well, in God's Providence, serve a purpose for a lot of people. Maybe we have time, the opportunity. Yeah. I guess this thing is a super-precipite.
Right. Well, let's hope so. Yeah. Isn't that the truth? Right, right. Chris is reminding us that so much of the celebration was so humanistically oriented. I know Marcy turned to me at one point and we were watching, I guess it was on Friday night or something, but she just said, isn't this just, it's all about man, isn't it? It's all about man, the glories of man, and all they were celebrating. So yeah, and I think that that's where this maybe has some relevance to the book of Revelation, what we, we may talk about today, is this, our fixation on ourselves and on humanity, on mankind, and not on God, when we fix our attention and our glory and our honor, on the deeds of man and not on God. That has caused me to think about the book of Revelation over the last weekend, just how much of it, how little of it was centered on God or upon Jesus Christ, and how much on man. So it's even interesting in the local paper with their millennial edition on Saturday, they had this special section, and while there was a page given to Christians, although, you know, pastors, interviews with pastors, and so forth, but it was only just like because religion is one slice of life, and they also had a whole page, I think, given to Cassadega and the spiritualists there. You know, one page that had a big spread of pictures of the millennium all over the world, and interesting that there was one picture of Buddhist monks praying, and one picture of a Hari Krishna woman, praying strangely enough, a so-called inner-enominational prayer or inner-faith prayer, beneath the big Christ statue in Rio de Janeiro, you know. So what religion coverage there was was sort of a non-Christian, we're all the same, humanistic, one-world, one-faith idea. So, yeah, right, right, right, yeah, good point, good point, Jim.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, back to back to the seven, bowls of judgment at the end of chapter 16. Just to refresh, remember a little bit. We kind of ended right in the middle of the seven bowls, and asked to the question of how we interpret these, I said there's a bit of confusion, I think, well, even in my own mind, as to whether we should see these, at least the first four of these, as pertaining to the whole age, the whole Krishna age, which is how we suggested we ought to look at the seven trumpets, particularly the first four, that they have to do with the whole age, and the first seal, first four of the seven seals as well, or whether these bowls are more concentrated on the end of the era, the end, right before the second coming, and respected interpreters have gone both ways on that. So, I tend to leave that one a little bit open, more than other things, even that I leave open. But when we get to the sixth bowl in particular, it changes a little bit. Instead of the bowls being poured out on the sun, the earth, the sea, the fountains of water, this one is poured out on the great river Euphrates, and what seems to be the effect is that this dries up the river and prepares the way for the kings from the east. We then meet again the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, these great huge characters from chapters 12 and 13 that come back into play here, and foul spirits come from their mouths to deceive the kings of the whole world for what purpose? To gather them together for the great battle, the great battle, and this battle is given the name of Armageddon. Well, it's actually not the battle that's called that, but the place which is called that Armageddon. And we have in verse 15, in my translation, the RSV, it's actually in parentheses, because it seems like it doesn't quite belong at first sight. That is this warning, I'm coming like a thief, blesses he who is awake, keeping his garments that he may not go naked, that might seem to be a bit out of place at first, but I would say it functions like a lot of warnings that we've seen in Revelation already. We would go back, we could see a number of them in chapter 13, 10, 9, and 10, and elsewhere. And the theme of keeping one's garments should ring some bells with us. It goes back, the first expression of this goes back to the letter to Sardis, chapter 3, chapter 3, verses 3 and 4. You'll remember this statement by the risen Christ. Remember then what you received and heard, keep that and repent. If you will not awake, I will come like a thief, and you will not know it what hour I will come upon you. Yet you still have a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white for they are worthy. He who conquers shall be clad thus in white garments. The idea of garments, very basic necessity in life, of course, but like a lot of basic things that we deal with, often in scripture, they're used symbolically, aren't they? Like water, and light, and a number of other things. Well, clothing is also used symbolically in scripture a lot. What is clothing or what are garments symbolized in scripture?
A covering, a covering for what? Of course, they're coverings for our bodies. What could be a symbolic or spiritual significance? Covering what? Covering our sin? Covering our inmost being, our spiritual being. And so we have already in the letter to Sardis, this warning about keeping our garments pure. It's spelled out for us if we needed help at chapter 19, verse 8, where in speaking of the bride, the bride of the Lamb, where it told verse 8, it was granted her to be clothed in fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. So your clothing, in a sense, is your righteousness or your good works? That's which clothes you're being. Now, you can soil those garments and all our garments are, of course, soiled. But Revelation also tells us
how to make them white. Chapter 7, verse 14, these are the who have come out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Our works are righteousness, they're like filthy rags in the eyes of the Lord. But how can they be made pure? Well, they're made pure by the blood of the Lamb. And therefore we may be clothed in righteous robes, in Christ's righteousness and in a sense, derivatively, because of that, in our own good deeds, because the rights and fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. So in this text in chapter 16, it's a warning from Christ to keep our garments, keep them from being soiled, keep them from being in pure, to keep that white, spotless purity that comes from being washed in the blood of Christ. And this is fitting, then, in the midst of a warning about the gathering of the forces on belief. So there's a fittingness to it. What is this bull talking about? Well, it's picturing a very terrifying picture for us. The kings from the east being able to march over the earth and come to surround the saints. And as we're hearing about that, there's a warning from Christ to keep our own garments pure, not to compromise, not to give up, but to be ready, because he is coming as a thief. And we don't know the hour at which he's coming. In verse 16, we're told that they assemble at the place which is called in Hebrew, Armageddon. These are the only verses where the word Armageddon, this is the only verse where the Armageddon is used in Revelation. In fact, in scripture, the usual derivation of this word is from Hebrew, from Hebrew, and it would mean mountain of Magito, mountain of Magito. One slight problem is that there is no mountain of Magito. There's a plane of Magito. Magito's name given in the Old Testament to a large plane. The nearest mountain would be Mount Carmel, where Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal. But it's a plane and many major battles in the Old Testament were fought there on this plane of Magito. So you have, of course, interpreters going from the literal to the more figurative understanding of Armageddon. Some, of course, would understand it to be literally there must be, it must be in that place in Israel called Magito. Perhaps there will even be a mountain there at the last, in the last days, to others who say, no, remember this is a picture. He sees a picture. He sees this happening on a mount of Magito. But that is symbolic. It's symbolic of the forces of unbelief being gathered in the last times against the church to pose the final ultimate threat, the ultimate attack on God's people. And that's about as far as literal as we should go. Well, that last explanation is the one that I subscribe to. Any discussion on that? Yes. Yes. What is it that you're talking about? Yeah. We have to leave it because it's not just not in terms of both sides having no terms whatsoever. What is all this invitation to work out of it? Yeah. I think it's hard to say before we actually see it. You can have the marshaling up there. Yeah. And I think it might be, it might be that. But what I wouldn't want to do is necessarily limit it to a certain geographical area. That is, it could be taking place, various places in on the earth. As I think it has been throughout history.
Well, that's, I mean, those are good questions. I don't know if there are going to be tanks and guns pointed at Christians, I think there may be. And there probably has been in recent history.
I think that we need to interpret this in light of what happens in chapter 20 at the end of the millennium where we have a very similar picture being drawn. And that is of Satan after he's released from the pit, goes out to the sea of the nations at the ends of the earth, Gog and Megag, to assemble them for battle. And the word the is actually in there for the battle, which I think points to the same battles we're talking about here, to assemble them for the battle. And it talks about them surrounding the camp of the saints. There it's depicted as a camp, almost like a military camp. But before we actually hear about any actual fighting, what happens in that text? Well, fire comes down from heaven and destroys Satan and Gog and Megag, destroys these armies. So again, the question comes up how literal should we imagine that to be? I think at least we should say that there is going to be a great concentration of the forces of evil and unbelief against the church. And I think it's going to be the church where why? It can't just be the church in one given area, Palestine, South Florida, middle and center of Florida, wherever we happen to be. And it's depicted as a battle like this, as if all the Christians were in one place. But it's hard to imagine that it's going to be that localized. So I don't know, could it be that that's talking about one aspect of the final battle? I wouldn't say that's impossible. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, I'm comfortable with that. The question is whether that's going to be for a thousand year earthly reign or not.
That will get to that court of right when the next millennium comes, right? Yeah, the question is, you know, what happens at that decisive, ultimate turning point in history? Is that last battleant and when the forces of Christ overcome, force of evil? Is that the inauguration of an earthly? What do we mean by earthly? That's common parlance, earthly kingdom of the just for a thousand years before the resurrection in the last judgment. Or does that last battle in fact inaugurate the last judgment? Bring us to the end of world history and inaugurate the eternal kingdom of the new heavens and the new earth. And that's more the point. I mean, that's another appointed issue, obviously, between pre-Millennial and Omelennial, so even post-Millennial, but
against the Christians or on the part of Christians.
In one rotation of the earth, there are at least some concentrations where that actually is going to be fighting. Well, yeah, see there I'm not sure that I would want to read out of the word battle or war, Paul and Moss, a necessary concept of what Christians are going to do in response. Well, where we find indication of the saints in battle in Revelation, I think, is in chapter 19, where Jesus descends verses 11 and following. John sees heaven open in a white horse and he who sits upon it is called faithful and true. In righteous he judges and makes war skip down to 14. And the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen white and pure followed him on white horses. In other words, the only time I can think of pointed something out if I'm wrong in this, but the only time I think of when the saints are actually depicted in battle is when they're coming from heaven. They're coming from heaven on white horses, along with Christ, the returning Christ on the last day. So what's happening with the saints on earth? They're the saints coming with Christ and they're the saints on earth that are being rescued, delivered. I would just say that I don't know, Bob, about what form the opposition, the resistance is going to take on a part of Christians. But it does look as though Christians are outnumbered, Christians are bested, Christians are going to get it from the picture we get in chapter 16 and the picture we get at the end of chapter 20. It looks as though it's the end for Christians on earth. It looks like they're going to get it before Christ intervenes supernaturally. So, and I would just say, I don't know what exactly it's going to look like at that time. But what I think when we get to identification of Babylon, what to make this point even more, but I think it does cause us to be vigilant and to wake up and look around us and ask always where is the opposition coming from and how can we be prepared for it. Even if we don't believe we're right at the edge before Christ comes, you know, with one approach, one school of thought tends to make us look at world events and say, is this the end? Is this so-and-so the beast? Is so-and-so have 666 written all over them? Is such-and-such the city of Babylon? And that's okay, but then if you say, well no, I don't think that is, does that then make you let up in your vigilance? Or I think another approach would say, let's not just be concerned with the ultimate and the ultimate fulfillment of 666, let's look around us now and see what may be the penultimate than the not quite ultimate manifestation of these things and see if they have to do with our world today and shouldn't that open our eyes and shouldn't that make us vigilant and shouldn't that make us watchful? Even if we're not thinking that this is the absolute end, so you can't identify the antichrist, so that should that make you less vigilant? Well, I think there, you know, we ought to say no, we ought to be looking around for manifestations of the beast, similarities, resemblances to the beast, and prepare as Christians.
Yeah, anything else that comes out of the 6th of all, so we come to the time of the gathering for Armageddon, we're not actually in this text told what happens in the battle, but they're gathering for that great battle. John, did you have something? Yeah, well yeah, I think you do have to think along those lines and like when Bob is bringing up the word battle, what do you read out of the word battle? I'm just more comfortable saying I don't know what it's ultimately going to look like, but I think we can see the forces of unbelief trying to gather themselves against the church. We can see them trying to do that in every age. Yeah, yeah. Right, I agree with it. I think that's good insight, and rather than saying we know that this means the end is right around the corner, it may or may not be, but let's still be able to identify it for what it is. You know, is it alive from the pit? It's alive from the pit, whether the 2nd coming is tomorrow or 2000 years away. So yeah, right, right, right, that is always a valid point, and I think it has more to do with Revelation than we would first think. Rob is pointing out the Ephesians 6 and our struggle is not against worldly powers, but against the principalities and the powers. That's always the Christian struggle, and I think Revelation really does have to do with that ongoing Christian spiritual struggle between the 1st and 2nd coming of Christ. However, it might manifest itself. Look at it this way. It's that. It's just the ultimate manifestation of that, I think, that we will see at the very end. It's not as though they're two completely different things, but that's the power of Satan at work now, and his power in the heavenly realms sometimes manifests itself in very political, very earthly, very physical ways. There. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I always need to be reminded of that. Yes. Good. Bob. That's my scholarship. I think my wife would agree with that. No, I'm just kidding. Bob.
And it's physical aspect. Yeah. You guys between the chapter of Revelation, and he speaks about inviting what he calls to the egos of others, either the flesh, the causes of sufferings of the God Almighty. Yeah. And talk about the flesh of the forces, the flesh of the captains, the flesh of this, the flesh of that. Right. And so there are just around very physical, very much a part of this world is real walking through it today. Yeah. Exactly. I have to grant you that. And that is precisely one of the points that has separated interpreters over the years. And I can't really cast stones at that. Except to say, well, that how consistent can you be with that in Revelation? I mean, we see in chapter 17, a woman dressed in scarlet riding on a beast. Well, I've seen women before. So that's conceivable. I've seen women dressed in red. That's conceivable. You know, riding on a beast. Well, I haven't seen a beast like this, but you know, it's conceivable. Even a lot of the images that everybody takes figuratively. You know, they're conceivable. Many of them are conceivable in a literal way. So, I'm not just discounting your concern, because I think it's a real one. But I think we always have to ask how consistent can you be with that? And where, where does the, where does Revelation actually lead us with its interpretation of itself? But go ahead. Yeah.
And it's taken figuratively. You know, that would be a literal interpretation of it. It's trying to make it against, against the, you know, there's spiritualization of spiritualizing and throughout the world. It seems to me here that in the 17th chapter, that a literal interpretation of that would be, they would say, it's a figure. That's going to represent something in time. Maybe something in the, maybe something in the future, but it still should be taken. Literally as a figure. Literally as a figure. Take it literally figuratively, right? Yeah, I agree. That's, I mean, that's a good point. Terminology is often confusing. And so, right, I, they're just, they become sort of moniker for one view or another. Yeah. So there, there's maybe a tendency that most of us have to look for as literal a meaning as possible. That's a natural tendency. Yeah. And I think it's only going to, it, it should only take, no, it should take only the witness of scripture itself to dislodge us from that. Now wouldn't, wouldn't want us to be dislodged by that means. Well, that's a good discussion. Let's, let's go on to the last, bold, seventh, which is poured out into the air. And John, here's a loud voice out of the temple from the throne saying, it is done. Remember back in chapter 15, verse one, before the seven bowls are introduced,
here's how they're introduced. He says, I saw another important in heaven, great and wonderful, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last for with them, the wrath of God is ended. You know, the word ended is not the same as the word it is done here. It seems to be the same concept. So before the seven bowls are poured out, the announcement is with these seven bowls of wrath, the wrath of God is ended. This will consummate. This will bring to completion the expression of his wrath. And then with the seventh bowl, we have this, this proclamation, it is finished, is done. It seems to be that those are the, you know, two bookends there that to tie this together. This is, this will bring to a consummation the wrath of God. As we talked about the beginning of chapter 15, I would see this as one indication that the seven bowls do bring us not just to the, not just to the beginning of a millennial period, after which millennial period, there'll have to be another outpouring of God's wrath. But this would bring us to the absolute end, which inaugurates eternity. And so this is the last expression of God's wrath, even if that expression is an eternal, is eternal in duration. You see the difference there, I'm saying. This saying it is done brings us at least to the, to the end of the seven bowls poured out. And here we have no direct expression as to what it's poured out onto, it's besides the air, but we have flashes of lightning, voices, peels of thunder, a great earthquake, and the great city is split. People differ over what the identity of that great city is. Probably, I think this is the great city, Babylon, that's about to be mentioned. The cities of the nations fall, God remembered great Babylon, to make her drain the cup of the fury of his wrath. Then we have every island fleeing away, no mountain is found, and this great storm of hailstones. Many of the elements here of this description take us back to the seven seals. In fact, the sixth of those seals, which was the first time in a revelation that we said suggested that there's a depiction of the end of the world. That was at the sixth seal, when the sky vanishes like a scroll, this rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. We see that happening here again. So just another indication that this seems to be the wrapping up of world history. These are cataclysmic events. How literally there to be taken is a question, but what they seem to be depicting is the end. It's hard to conceive of life going on in its normal manner after this. We come at the last verse to this very sad refrain. Till men cursed God for the plague of the hail, so fearful was that plague. We pointed out last time that one of the themes seems to be of these plagues, of the bowls, is that men still do not repent. We see that in the fourth bowl, they cursed the name of God, who had power over these plagues, and they did not repent and give him glory. Verse 11, they cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores and did not repent of their deeds. That's so striking because elsewhere, we hear from the lips of angels and of saints expressions like this, just art thou in thy judgments, thou who art and washt a holy one. For men have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and now has given them blood to drink. It is their due. And I heard the altar cry, ye Lord God, the Almighty, true and just are thy judgments.
The judgments of God are true and just, and they do elicit from those who are being called, they do elicit praise, but we're told here with the bowls, the tragic fact that for many, many will only be like Pharaoh was when the judgments fell upon him and his people. Many will only have their hearts hardened and even these judgments of God that will bring some to repentance, will not have that effect on many, and they will still end up cursing God for the judgments. And boy, you can sure see this in popular attitudes, can't you? I mean, one of the great obstacles it seems to believe is the whole question of the existence of evil, and when bad things happen, how could a good God allow this? And if you ever as a Christian suggest that some, well, plague or natural disaster or tragedy has some kind of theological meaning, some kind of theological, well maybe God is showing his wrath on sin. You better be prepared for a firestorm, right? Because if there's one thing that secular people believe they are excellent theologians about, it is the question of what God will and what a good God will and will not do, right? A good God would never do that. How can you say that God took the life of that child? How can you say that God had a hand in this earthquake? How can you say that? That's one place where we constantly have theologians coming out of the woodward, saying what God will and will not do. God couldn't do that. And here we have people saying, well, if it becomes clear that God is doing this, they curse God for it. Well, at the end of this, and again I'm suggesting that this brings us again to the end of world history. It's a picture, it's not very detailed, it doesn't encompass everything, it does not encompass the last judgment in any kind of judicial sense. That's still to come. But it brings us to the end of history and it brings us to the end of this great second vision in Revelation. I remember again, we've identified four major visions in Revelation. The second one is by far the longest. It has the seven seals, the seven trumpets, the seven bowls and the woman and the dragon and so forth. Now we're brought to the end of that. And we see that with a new beginning in chapter 17. When one of the seven angels comes to John, it says, come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who has seated upon many waters with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication and with the wine of whose fornication the dwellers on earth have become drunk. So this is an introduction to a new vision, the main subject of which is going to be the judgment of the harlot Babylon. We've been introduced to Babylon before. Only twice. Babylon was mentioned in that back in chapter 14, in passing, when an angel said, fallen, fallen, is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of her impure passion. That's 148. And introduced to us again at the end of chapter 16 when it says that God remembered great Babylon to make her drain the cup of the fury of his wrath. Now the focus is going to be on Babylon, actually Babylon and her allies, at least erstwhile allies, and the judgment that God will bring upon Babylon. The storyline, the plot line of chapter 17 is very simple. What does John see? Well, all he really sees is he's taken out to a wilderness and he sees a woman dressed in scarlet purple, but decked with jewels. And she at first has said to be seated on many waters, seated on many waters, whatever that means. And then she said to be seated upon a beast. And this beast has seven heads and ten horns. You know, that should remind us of the beginning of chapter 13 where we saw the beast introduced in that way, seven heads and the ten horns. John sees this and sees this woman is drunk with the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus. She has a name written on her forehead, Babylon, the great mother of parlots, ever its abominations. Okay, this is all he sees. And then follows the explanation because John is amazed. He is taken aback. He marvels. And the angel tells him, why do you marvel? I'll explain this to you. And then follows the explanation. First, he explains the beast, then the ten horns, then the waters, and then the woman herself in verses 16 through 18. So this interpretation section starts in verse 7 and goes to the end of the chapter. So you have what John sees and then what the angel says by way of interpretation. Okay, we've had some introduction to the beast before. We've kind of skipped over Babylon until we got to chapter 17. And Babylon, let's talk about Babylon. We'll have time to introduce this today and we'll have to finish up next time. But as you might imagine, several different interpretations for Babylon have been proposed. There could be a, well, Babylon could conceivably mean Babylon. That is the literal city in Iraq. Most interpreters, even very literalistic interpreters, had dismissed this idea for a long time because Babylon was in ruins, then came the Gulf War. And I don't remember this, but there was a professor at a seminary whose name will remain anonymous, who wrote a book arguing that Babylon means Babylon in Revelation. That sought up who's saying was actually rebuilding the city of Babylon and was going to make it his new capital. And that now we therefore can take Babylon literally again. And it's going to be this great world power. Well, that's one view that Babylon could be Babylon. Others have said Babylon is Rome in some way fashion or form. This has a lot in the text to support it. She said to be seated on seven hills. Very famous. Rome is seated on seven hills. And it said to have dominion over all the kings of the earth. So maybe it's Rome. Maybe it's Rome in a political expression. Maybe Rome in some kind of religious expression. As you know, this was the reformers took that to connect with the Roman church. Others have suggested it's Jerusalem of the first century. Hi, kids. I guess that means it's time to go. And just to make things interesting, other interpreters say, well, don't even think in terms of a historical city or one city. Think of any city. It could be any city and not any one in particular the world city, the world itself, the world in its hedonistic cultural expression, whatever. Okay, things to think about for next week. And we'll see what we can resolve on that then. Let's close in prayer. Dear Father, again, we thank you for your word to us. We ask you to make it real in our lives from Monday to Saturday as well as on Sunday. We ask you to be pleased with our worship of you this day in Christ's name. Amen.