We will look more carefully at the meaning of some of the terms herein. The idolatrous mind yields to the abominations of “the harlot.” We don’t want our iniquities to rise to the heights that God’s sovereignty demands Him to bring on judgement. This article offers an opportunity to look at what God means when he addresses the pagans who hold idolatrous thoughts and act them out.
It is a contagion that can engulf individuals, families, lands, countries and geographies. Fooling around with greed, covetousness, and bad habits taken to the extreme can lead to the atrocities and abominations which are spoken of here. I acknowledge there are more definitions to be explored. I will make every effort to be more explanatory next time.
What we can conclude from this brief study is that God’s patience can run out when peoples’ and nations’ sins reach to heaven. It’s bad. In Revelation 17:5, we find a striking verse which is difficult to understand, “And upon her forehead was a name written: Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother Of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.”
The name of the woman is therefore, a secret sign or symbol of “that great city.” She personifies that great city. How is this “woman” clothed/arrayed? In Rev. 17:3-4, John is carried into the wilderness where he saw the woman. She was seated on a scarlet-colored beast, full of blasphemous names. The beast has seven heads and ten horns.
This John saw being carried away in the Spirit. God took him to a place where he saw the woman who had committed innumerable sins against those who honored the One True God. She had been responsible for shedding the blood of the saints of Jesus Christ, blood of the martyrs for the testimony of His word. Her sins were way beyond toleration. God had to make a statement. She was a drunkard for their blood. When John saw her, he wondered greatly at this woman.
Babylon is the fountainhead of all idolatry and systems of false worship. This is the mystery of iniquity (as written in 2 Thessalonians 2:7) and seen in all the great religions of the world. They all substitute another god for the God of the Bible. Those gods made with the hands or with the imagination, but equally made. Those religions consist of human merit and endeavor.
John saw a woman in “that great city.” Revelation 17:18 reads, “And the woman which you saw is that great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth.” The kings of the earth who reign and have a kingdom this woman has made the nations to become drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
The “kings of the earth” have also drunk and have committed fornication with her. And the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her “delicacies.” John hears a voice from heaven, (Rev. 18:4) a severe warning saying, “Come out of her, my people, that you do not partake of her sins, and do not receive of her plagues.”
Revelation 18:5 tells why – “for her sins have reached to the heaven and God has remembered her iniquities
Writing for the Lord and loving it! Thanks for reading! Jeanette Grattan Parker is the founder-superintendent of Today’s Fresh Start Charter School, 4514 Crenshaw Boulevard, L.A. 90043, 323-293-9826, www.todaysfreshstart.org, (Ask Dr. Jeanette TM) “Inquiring Minds Want to Know.” All articles are copyright. All rights reserved © [email protected]. References: The Holy Bible. StudyLight.org; fivedoves.com. Any errors? Please let me know.
