Revelation 17:15-18

The Mystery of Babylon

A sermon by Pastor Joe Haynes

Preached on August 9, 2020 at Beacon Church.

Some people think God is good but are afraid to believe in God’s power. In the book of Ruth, Naomi did not doubt God’s power but she forgot His goodness, and lamented, “Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full and the LORD has brought me back empty,” (Ru 1:20-21). 600 years before Christ, Jewish exiles in Babylon lamented the destruction of Jerusalem. Psalms 137:1 ​“By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.” They said, “How shall we sing the LORD's song in a foreign land?” (Ps. 137:4 ESV) And they prayed to God to avenge what Babylon had done to Jerusalem. In the early church, where was God when Christians prayed for Him to save them from persecution under the Caesars of the Roman Empire? Where was God when Rome spilled even more blood in the name of Christ? Where was God when Rome confused the Gospel, hid the Bible under layers of allegory and superstition, and for centuries, kept millions of souls from hearing and believing the Gospel? Why does God let the wicked prosper? Why does God let sinners get away with sin? Why did God let this woman, Babylon, become so great?

My theme this morning is that the angel reveals to John three things about the ruin of Babylon the Great that foreshadow the eternal consequences of sin but everlasting comfort for you if you believe in the Lamb of God.

I have three points in this sermon and each one is marked off in this passage when the angel explains something John had seen: see where he says, 1) the waters that you saw (15), 2) the ten horns that you saw (16), 3) the woman that you saw (18). Each time, the angel adds an explanation we discover the hand of God at work in ways we would not have expected.

The Woman was ruined by the nations she relied on

“And the angel said to me, "The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages,” (Rev. 17:15 ESV).

I want you to notice something interesting about what the angel says in verse 15. “the waters you saw, where the prostitute is seated…” Now again, at first glance, that’s not what John saw. In verse 1, the angel said the prostitute “is seated on many waters,” but when John saw her, he saw her “sitting on a scarlet beast” (v4). But that’s exactly what the angel means in verse 15 when he says, “the waters” that he had said the woman sat on, are also “the beast” John saw the woman sitting on. The waters and the beast are two complementary symbols that both stand for particular “peoples and multitudes and nations and languages.” The metaphor of Babylon sitting on many waters is taken from Jewish history. That Psalm I read, Psa 137:1, talked about the people in exile lamenting for Jerusalem, “by the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept…” That ancient, eastern city of Babylon, the ruins today can be found in Iraq, was a city on a river. The Euphrates River ran right through the city; the branches of the river supplied the whole city with water, with trade routes, and with natural defenses from enemies. The rivers of Babylon were a major source of Babylon’s wealth and security.

But here’s the point: the angel now tells John that like literal Babylon sat on the Euphrates River, symbolic Babylon get her wealth and security from the many nations and peoples she depends on. And it would be her undoing. It was already hinted, in verse 7, that the woman has become a burden to the beast. This verse highlights her misplaced confidence. This woman would be ruined by the very people she relied on. How fitting that the adulterous woman, the apostate church that deceived and seduced “the dwellers on earth” (v2), and who was “drunk on the blood of the saints, the martyrs of Jesus” (v6), before the end comes, would be betrayed by her lovers, that she would fall because she built her house on the sand. Like Jesus’ parable in Matthew 7, this false church is full of people who thought they were serving Jesus, but who did not depend upon the Word of Jesus—do you? Jesus said, “not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father in heaven…” and he said, “everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it” (Mt 7:26-27). The first thing the angel revealed to John in verse 15, graphically shows the consequences of sin—of failing to put our confidence in the Word of Christ, the Rock of Ages. But if you believe in Christ and rely on His Word, God is with you, and even through death, you will stand. Paul says when believers endure, it “is evidence of the righteous judgment of God…” (1 Thess 1:5). God makes His children able to stand, and God makes His enemies turn on each other.

The Woman was ruined by the empire God raised up

Next, the angel points out to John, “the ten horns that you saw…” in order to explain to John that the ruin of the Great Prostitute, Babylon, will be at the hands of the people she once ruled. Again notice the point about where the Prostitute is seated: verse 1 says, “on many waters;” verse 3 says, “on a scarlet beast”; verse 7 adds, “the beast… carries her”; verse 9 says the seven heads of the beast are also “seven mountains on which the woman is seated”; and verse 15 explains all of those verses by saying she sits on many peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages. Because while waters, and seas elsewhere in Revelation, are an Old Testament symbol for peoples and nations; the beast is a symbol for Rome’s empire, the heads of the beast are the different kinds of government that ruled the beast, and empires and governments are made of people. So the woman sits, as she always has, on people. Lots of people. “And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute,” (Rev. 17:16a ESV).

For a long time the false church symbolized by the woman ruled the beast as one of its heads—especially the rule of the Popes over medieval Europe up to the early modern period. That was the beast in 13:5 speaking blasphemies and persecuting the saints. As time went on, the nations of Europe began to recoil from the church in disgust; they came to despise her and hate her. Napoleon acted on that hatred and the one-time Roman Catholic stronghold of France arrested Pope Pius VI, in 1798, and took him as a prisoner until he died. But that was only the beginning: as the Catholic Church bled out over the next 70 years, the mood in Europe became increasingly fed up with the arrogance of the Roman Church. In 1870, the armies of Italy captured the city of Rome, confiscated all the lands that had belonged to the Kingdom of the Popes, and left them with nothing but the Vatican—and none of the ten kingdoms lifted a finger to help the church. Now, the Prostitute, the Roman Catholic Church, still sits in her palace in Rome but she no longer rules anybody. The ten horns—the ten countries of Europe who inherited the old lands of the Western Roman Empire—they turned on the woman; the beast, the commonwealth of Europe’s nations that once were united under an emperor, still unite but they have thrown off the head that ruled them—they turned on the woman. “They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire…” (Rev. 17:16b ESV).

All three of these metaphors come from the Old Testament. Ezekiel 23 pictures the city of Jerusalem as a woman whose former lovers turn against her, who strip her of her clothes, leave her naked, and put an end to her prostitution, who burn her with fire—all of these symbolic actions were fulfilled when Babylon destroyed Jerusalem—there was an article in the Jerusalem Post just yesterday reporting that scientists had excavated burned ruins and dated them to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in August, 586BC, 2605 years ago. Verse 16 predicts the city of Rome would also be desolated, devoured, and burned. The picture hearkens back to the apostate city of Jerusalem that betrayed God until God punished her. And then there’s Jezebel. Where verse 16 says, “they will devour her flesh” the reference is to the dogs who devoured Israel’s wicked queen, Jezebel. “This is the word of the LORD, which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite: ​‘… the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel…'" (2 Kings 9:36). And they did. But the metaphor in this case is pointed: God punishes the Prostitute because like Jezebel, she had waged war against His prophets—those who faithfully believed and proclaimed His Word. GK Beale describes how all those metaphors are combined and applied to Babylon the Great: “Babylon's nakedness is exposed like that of a whore, she is devoured like a victim of a fierce beast, and she is burned like a city.”[i]

What I want you to absorb here, though, is that unlike ancient Jerusalem, she is not ravaged and discarded by foreigners but by friends: The same ten kingdoms she once commanded; the same empire she once ruled from the city of Rome. When justice finally comes to Babylon, as it did so dramatically through the 19th century, the means of Rome’s punishment are the peoples of the same empire and ten kingdoms that formerly were Rome’s dominion. And where was God? The next verse tells us that this was no accident—where was God when Rome rose again under the Popes in the middle ages? It was God who raised the empire in order one day to bring ruin down on the head of the prostitute church. God had a purpose in the rebirth and rise of the Catholic Roman Empire. Look at verse 17b: they “carry out [God’s] purpose”. Do any of us even begin to fathom the wisdom and absolute sovereignty of God that gives sinners over to their sin in order to expose their guilt and vindicate the justice of His judgments? Do not for a minute shake your fist at Almighty God or blame Him; repent of your sin; throw yourself upon His mercy; believe in His Son whose death is sufficient, whose Gospel is the only hope for sinners!

Just think about what verse 17 is saying: “…For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled…” (Rev. 17:17 ESV). God makes them carry out His purpose by making them want to unite their countries. “One mind”; unity of mind. Suddenly, after Napoleon, the 19th century saw European philosophers, and statesmen, and politicians possessed by a dream of unity that still drives European politics to this day! In 1849, at the International Peace Congress in Paris, the author, Victor Hugo declared, “A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood ... A day will come when we shall see ... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas.”[ii] “God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose…” That dream of a European Union finally became a reality in 1992 when the key nation states of Europe signed a treaty founding the European Union.[iii] The member states of Europe gave their nations’ sovereignty over to their common union, the entity called the “beast.” “…For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled…” (Rev. 17:17 ESV).  

Now let’s not forget that the judgment on Rome began a long time ago but it isn’t finished yet. This angel speaking to John is one of the angels of with the seven bowls of God’s wrath—the bowls that were poured out in chapter 16. This vision of the harlot on the beast in the wilderness, in chapter 17, shows how the Antichristian power was judged and reduced, in the first five bowls, and those fulfillments brought us up to the 20th Century. But the seventh bowl, where in Rev 16:19, “God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath” remains unfulfilled.

Verse 17 reveals the great mystery that what happened to Rome in the past was part of God’s purpose; that God directed the hearts and minds of kings and nations and empires according to His purpose—as Proverbs 21:1 teaches about God’s sovereign rule over the hearts and minds of even the greatest and most powerful people on earth: “The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.” (Prov. 21:1 ESV) G.K. Beale again says, "God executes his will through the ‘hearts’ of both the righteous and the unrighteous… This must be construed not as mere divine "permission" but as divine causation."[iv] But verse 17 reveals that God’s purpose continues to unfold because the EU exists to do His will—“…For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled…” (Rev. 17:17 ESV).

Here in Rev 17:17, it seems that God has a purpose behind what has happened to Rome in the past; and he has a purpose even now that he has put into the hearts of the nations of Europe—so that He will use them to punish the Church of Rome. The people and multitudes and nations the Roman Catholic woman used to depend on, on which she still sits, still have a part to play in the ruin and judgment of the Great Prostitute in Rome. Verse 17 reveals that their ambition of a European Union was put in their hearts by God “until the words of God are fulfilled”—it seems from verses 16 and 17 that the desolation of Rome is not yet complete. But the words of God will be fulfilled. Before the seventh trumpet was blown and the seven angels with seven bowls came forward, Revelation 10:7 assured God’s people, “…in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.”

The Woman was ruined as a preview of Judgment

Finally, the angel says to John, in verse 18, “The woman that you saw…” “And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth," (Rev. 17:18 ESV). John knows what city the angel is talking about—the angel says she is “the great city that has dominion…” a present participle meaning, “she presently has dominion”—the city that had dominion over the kings of the earth in John’s lifetime was none other than the city of Rome. The most powerful city in the world at that time. The city that persecuted the apostles of Christ, that executed Jesus’ followers, that shed the blood of martyrs for sport; the same city that centuries later took a bishop to be their king, the city that made the apostate church wealthy and powerful like ancient Babylon. The same city that fleeced its flocks and sold prayers to fill its coffers. The same city that confused the Gospel, that kept God’s Word out of reach of the people by hiding it in the Latin language. The same city that oversaw the extermination of Gospel churches in its lands. The church responsible for the Spanish Inquisition, for the persecution of Protestants, for the burning of innumerable martyrs in the name of their religion. This woman was once the most powerful city in the world. And her ruin foreshadows the eternal cost and consequence of sin. But through all those dark years, where was God? He was there. Sovereignly ruling, establishing the hearts of His children in faith, in belief and trust in His Son; giving them His Word to uphold them, teach them, to bring them the Good News of salvation by grace alone, through faith, apart from works of the Law.

There is judgment still to come for Babylon the Great. But that’s only a preview of the judgment coming on the Last Day, for everyone who spurns the Lamb of God and puts their confidence elsewhere. You are free to deny that God is powerful and sovereign, you can close your eyes to His justice. You can pretend He is a tolerant deity who doesn’t care about evil, who doesn’t care how His creatures treat Him. But even Naomi believed in God’s power. Even Naomi realized the gods of Moab could not save her from Yahweh. So she came home. Rev 14:9 warns that if you put your confidence, your faith, your trust anywhere other than in Christ, you also will “drink the wine of God’s wrath poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and [you] will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.” How tragic that would be to suffer eternal punishment within sight of the Saviour you refused to trust! Turn to the Lamb of God today. While there is time.

In Revelation 6:9, John saw the Christian victims of old, pagan Rome—he saw “saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" (Rev. 6:9-10 ESV) God was there. He told them to rest a little longer. He had a purpose in their suffering as He does in yours. But, as we await the seventh bowl when the justice of God falls on Babylon the Great, God is still here, and it won’t be long now.