🔥 AN OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION (PART 8) REVELATION CHAPTER 17 🔥

Mike Balloun teaches today. 01/06/24

🔥 AN OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION (PART 8) REVELATION CHAPTER 17 🔥

VERSES: Hosea 1:10; Jeremiah 51:7; Genesis 11:4; Isaiah 1:21-2:4; Matthew 24:40-41

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A SUMMARY OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION PART 8
CHAPTER 17

In Revelation Lo Ammi,Not My People,Chapters 16-20, we have the revelation of the great change of ruling governments in this Realm; its Earth and its heaven, which is about to be affected. That is to say, the realities of the coming Kingdom of the Messiah are set forth throughout the Old Testament and made more comprehensible in the New Testament in the victory of Jesus the Christ; the ‘First-Born’ Son of God and Son of Man, which are about to be manifest. One of those realities being that Israel (God’s wife and firstborn son) will come forth and rule in the Earth, as prophesied in Genesis 22:17-18… “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.” See also Ezekiel 37:21-28… “And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols (idolatry being the chief sin of End-Time Israel and Christendom), nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children's children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.” (Note that in the Millennial Kingdom, Christ’s Bride and heavenly Kingdom first-born are to come forth and rule from the Earth’s first heaven (replacing satan and his angels there) in Christ’s Millennial Theocratic Government of righteousness, to be administrated with a rod of iron, as seen in Genesis 22:17-18’s reference to the spiritual seed of Abraham being as the “stars of the heaven”, while the reference to the “sand of the sea” referring to the Jewish part of Abraham’s seed ruling on the earthly part of the Millennial Kingdom. See Ephesians 1:3-14; 3:9-11; 6:10-24 in regards to God’s mysterious plan from before the foundation of this current world to have a theocratic government of ruling first-born sons to replace the satanic forces now ruling. And see also Matthew 13:11, where in answer to Israel hardening their hearts to the kingdom of heavens, Jesus spoke to them in parables. When the disciples asked why… “He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.”

Hosea 1:10 says what will ultimately happen to Israel in the End-Times… “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass (in the Millennial Kingdom), that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people (“Loammi”), there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.” That Millennial Kingdom is to be only after God’s Last Days’ purging and purifying judgements, on the “Lo-Ammi” Nation of Israel, on the presumptuous Nation of the One New Man, on the wicked Nations of the Gentiles, and on the diabolical fallen Spirits and their supernatural co-conspirators (those others that come from the Bottomless Pit). All of which culminates and concludes in Revelation Chapters 16-20.

God’s desired Theocratic Government in this Realm over the Nations of mankind is now on the horizon. The center of which on the Earth shall be the great city Jerusalem. Where in the 19th Chapter of Revelation the Messiah, King of Kings, Returns to take the authority Scepter and Throne in the Earth from the last Gentile ruling Beast and then restore it to Israel, God’s firstborn, unto the Abrahamic Covenant of preeminence in the Earth.

CHAPTER 17… MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

Previously, we read in Revelation 14:8 that a second Angel in a successive series of Angels is recorded as “…saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” (That fornication being idolatrous harlotry - see Jeremiah 51:7, which ties together Old Testament Babylon with New Testament “Mystery Babylon” in that she has caused all nations to drink of the wine of her fornication. This is the same entity in Jeremiah as in Revelation… “Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.”). And the third angel of Revelation 14:9 following gave fearful warning against taking the mark and worshiping the Beast. After which it is added… “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” This verse speaks to those two groups of God (Jews and Christians) who would be rewarded in their resistance even unto death. What can be readily seen is that this Babylon/city would fall prior to the setting up of the image and worship of the Anti-Christ Beast (the city seen in Revelation 17:15-18, which spiritually opitimizes mystery Babylon, and is contrasted with the Babylon that comes to the forefront in Chapter 18 in the last judgment Vial). Revelation Chapter 17 gives the further explanation to Revelation 14:8-9 as to who this Babylon is: “Mystery, Babylon the Great”… she is ancient Babylon in mystery. In the first part of Chapter 17, she is shown to dominate in the Beast Empire of the Last Days, but later in the Chapter, she is destroyed by the Last Days’ Beast and the 10-Nation confederation. The mystery of Babylon the Great and Daniel Chapter 7’s Last Days’ Beast Empire (who is also personified as the Anti-Christ as seen in Revelation Chapters 13 & 17) can only be discovered in the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament. (Or in other words, we need to let the Word of God in the Old Testament interpret the Word of God in the New Testament.) By going back to the Old Testament, we can discover the history of Babylon, as what John saw was not the entire history of this harlotrous “Woman.” What John saw in Revelation is but a glance at her origin, with only a view to expounding her Last Days’ Judgement of complete destruction. The rest is left to be discovered and understood from the Old Testament.

Genesis 11:4… “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto the heavens; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” Ancient Babel’s origin as a collaboration with the fallen spirits of the ‘heavens’ in pursuit of governing themselves outside the restraints of God is the beginning of understanding the Mystery. (This is repeated in the End-Times as man is currently working together with fallen spirits to bring about a system that appeals to man and that is contrary to everything God is. As we get closer to the Last Days, the system will no longer be hiding in the shadows.) The building of the city Babel was then the center of the original Beast Nation with both a designed pagan religious/spiritual and political/secular makeup. Nimrod, contrary to God’s commands, was its founder and supreme ruling king, who ruled with force, and is typical of the king Beast/Antichrist who will also rule supreme as the City of Babylon’s last king who will rule by force over the entire World.

At times in history, the religious arm and political arm of the ruling empires worked either together or independently in exerting control and directing power, whichever suited the Dragon’s World purpose in facilitating man in making a ‘name’ for himself independent of God. In the time of John, the Mystery of Babylon the Great had long been in existence, although Babylon the Empire was not (having been superceded), but its mystery was manifesting as the Roman Empire centered in Rome situated on 7 hills, whose political arm (being through the Emperors) took the dominant lead as the religious pagan worship arm (the mystery Woman, who is the Mother of all false religions and idolatry) thrived in those Roman Emperors’ political wake. But in the 3rd Century, as the political arm became more fractured and grew weaker, the religious arm took ascendancy and exercised her satanic-driven power for deception and control more effectively over a larger area and populace than her numerous individual political arms could. The ‘Woman’, being the mother of harlots in mystery, evolved and manifested as Paganism, then in ‘Paganized Christianity’ (Romanism and Protestantism), and also into Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc, exercising her authority over the vast majority of mankind in the World… along with ancient and End-Times’ religious Judaism. (Note that apostate Christianity consists of churches who love not the Truth, who have, by a spirit of deception, abandoned Biblical doctrine for non-Biblical Babylonian-permeated flesh-appealing ideologies.)

The Last Beast and Kingdom discards all mysterious pretense and unites the Babylonian Religious arm with the Secular/Political arm in declaring himself (in the power and authority of satan) as both Ruler of the entire Earth and sole object of worship in the pronounced destruction of all other opposing religions. (Revelation 17:15-17) Thus, the gods of the Mother of Harlots (all satanically inspired as a part of the “Mystery” of Babel; man-made pretentious religious names independent of God, from God’s point of view) are called to account as their adherents (followers) worldwide are slaughtered. As their followers are thereby demanded (like the gods of Egypt were demanded at Israel’s Passover, at the time of the slaughter of defiant Egypt) that their gods rise up and resist and defy, if they be capable… not to resist the one true God, but this time… the self-proclaimed Destroyer god/the Anti-Christ, who will have unrestricted supreme power in the Earth (the result being Revelation 13:4… “And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?”

Nebuchadnezzar was the King of Babylon in the days of Daniel the prophet when Israel’s apostacy caused God to take away their regal/royal ruling authority as His Theocratic Government in the Earth and give up ruling authority in the entire Earth to King Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon, whom God used to punish and dislocate the last Jews in the Land for a predetermined time, starting at what Scripture calls this current state in the Earth… the “times of the Gentiles.” The last of the Last Days will bring about the end of the “times of the Gentiles” in the last ruling Beast of Babylon/the Anti-Christ who God will use, but once more, in final punishment and dislocation of the Jews for their idolatry and harlotry. But then, the remaining Jews will finally see and receive Jesus as their Messiah, ending the “times of the Gentiles” in the re-establishing of Israel and the Jews, then to be given a New Covenant, and take their anciently appointed place as His Theocratic Government and rule in the Earth from Jerusalem. (Jeremiah 31:31-33… “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” This Covenant with Israel being seen also in Hebrews 8)

Three ancient Scriptural principals are to be working in the Last Days: 1) Judicial judgments of ‘sowing and reaping’, there no longer being grace and mercy to fall upon 2) God using certain kings and nations to judge His people (as He has always done) to bring about their repentance and 3) God then afterwards judging the kings and nations according to Word given Abram… “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

Nearly all of the Book of the prophet Zechariah parallels the Last Days revealed in the Book of Revelation. Both have Israel in a state of ‘Lo-Ammi’ (not His people) under judgement and the Gentile nations being used to bring Israel into repentance during the “times of the Gentiles.”

Revelation 17 
“And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. (Jeremiah 51:7 speaks of the same golden cup that made all the Earth drunk. See also Romans 1 about men’s hearts being darkened) So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration… …And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” [Revelation 17:1-6; 15-18]

(A parallel passage of Babylon and its future Judgement is seen through the eyes of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah Chapter 47… “Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man. As for our redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms. I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke. And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude (fullness) of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments. For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me. Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know. Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it. Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter; none shall save thee.”)

From one point of view in Scripture, the city/state of ancient Babel or Babylon is cast as literally being reconstructed and is to be the End-Times headquarters of the Anti-Christ. That ancient city’s dual regal system is kingly and priestly, designed for fallen man’s flesh, which desires a government outside the restraints set by God. That is to say, which desires to have his own independent royalty, which was satanically inspired and designed by his knowledge of God’s hierarchy. That Babel-based World system, having reached Rome, and having been perpetuated and thriving through its offspring of Empires/Nations and Emperors/rulers, continues yet to exercise its authority, in one or both its designed fashions, as it has encompassed mankind down through the millenniums. Today she is exercising her increasingly darkening wicked authority over the Nations, bringing the prophesied days of Noah closer and closer. (Matthew 24:37) “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind…” [Romans 1:28] See also 2nd Thessalonians 2:3-12… “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”) These days which are as the “days of Noah” encompass not only the collaboration with, but intercourse with fallen angels.

See Revelation 9:20-21, which is an indictment against the Last Days’ people who had been suffering judgements of God but who yet did not repent… “And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.”) Mankind being particularly enticed to evil in these latter days of the “times of the Gentiles” (of which more will be said momentarily). It is that Harlot “Mystery” system into which Israel was enticed/seduced…. as well as idolatrous and fornicating Christianity, who is hopelessly enmeshed/entangled. The ultimate Last Days’ goal of that ancient system is to exterminate off the Earth all people who resist the Babel system. The objective of the unholy trinity (of satan, the Beast, and False Prophet) being to establish the god of this World (satan), with the son of ‘god’, the resurrected conqueror, who would be manifesting the right hand of his god’s power, he then also being worthy of worship as god, as is his father, who is now to be established as king of this his earthly kingdom, ruling from ancient Babylon, the city of the great god. (Ezekiel 28:2… “Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God…”)

It is this Last Days’ literal city and its system to which the prophetic word of Daniel spoke… “Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces…” “Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold (all the Gentile Beast Empires/Nations), broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.” (Daniel 2:44-45) Smashed and ground to dust is the Last Beast Gentile confederate Empire. See Revelation 18 and Jeremiah Chapters 50 and 51.

From another point of view, ISRAEL IS REPRESENTATIVE OF SPIRITUAL BABYLON in that she was/is called to be now God’s only regal authority as Firstborn Sons (a term meant to give understanding in contrast with those other Sons who are His Angels) in the Earth but is disqualifyingly entrenched within Babylon’s idolatrous religious harlot system (designed by the Son/angel of Perdition/satan) and in the Last Days, she greatly personifies her (as does Romanism today). She has played the Harlot. God divorced her, judged her, and cast her out of the Land into the Gentile Nations, where she is today to effect/bring about (definitively and eternally) her repentance. (Isaiah 1:21-2:4… “How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water: Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies: And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness. And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed. For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen. For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.” [Isaiah 1:2-31]

Isaiah 2:1-4 then speaks of the results of God’s judgements upon Israel that take place in the Millennial Kingdom… “The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (See also Jeremiah 3 and Ezekiel 16 shown at the end of the lesson, being that those are long chapters.)

It is a vital understanding that historically in Scripture, according to God’s Abrahamic Covenant and Mosaic Covenant, it would be an exceeding determinant to the Gentile Nations of the Earth for Israel to be judged by God and delivered up and scattered into the Gentile Nations. As it is only through Israel that the Gentile Nations could receive the spiritual blessings for deliverance from satan and his Babylonian World system and hope of a greater salvation. (This explains why much of satan’s energies and focus is upon Israel.)

The Israelites’ continued persistence to choose the fleshly religious idolatries of Babel/Babylon and refusing their Messiah and spiritual high calling 2000 years ago, resulted in their house being then left desolate, and also resulted in God calling out of another Nation, to form another Nation more worthy of the high calling (not of an earthly type, but a heavenly type) to ‘bless’ the Gentiles during the times of the Gentiles. The Nation of the One New Man needed be formed from the Seed of Abraham. Which then brought about God’s judgement on Israel by the Roman Empire in 70 & 135 AD and scattered the Jews among the Nations until such time she repents.

So it should be seen by the Scriptural literate that today Israel is banned from the Land and out of her regal calling, being steeped in idolatry, wholly unrepentant, but yet she is determined to return and not to be cast out of the Land. This is contrary to God’s revealed ways and means according to Scripture to affect their repentance and return to Him for restoration. Today Israel, being unwarranted occupiers of the Land (in that it is not God who brought them into their Land, but Zionism/the hand of man), and thereby are neither in a Scriptural position to repent nor in a Scriptural position to bless the Gentile Nations and bring them out of their ever-increasing darkness. (Psalm 147:19-20)

And so it has been since May 1948 that they have been proceeding upon that course unto the height of her great apostasy in her Latter days’ idolatrous and adulterous affair predicted by the Prophets of Israel; in their refusing the One Who came in the name of God, and receiving the one who comes in his own name (John 5:43), having entered into their Last Days’ Covenant with Death and Hades, having a dependence upon the Anti-Christ to stop the madness, but he only prepares the way for his own madness. (Isaiah 28:14-15, Daniel 9:27)

For this final blatantly shameless union of harlotry, she will experience God’s Judgements of Last Days’ Babylon. For the Jew, this time is described by the prophet Jeremiah as Jacob’s Trouble, as millions of Jews will be killed in the Land as a remnant will flee the Land, and He uses that wicked man of sin and son of perdition to bring judgements worse than the Holocaust upon Israel and Jews Worldwide. (Matthew 24:21… “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”) As Scripture has recorded, God historically has driven the unrepentant Jews from the Land, where He then will deal with a remnant of them… and they will repent and receive Jesus as the Christ of God. (These things are set forth typically in Exodus 32, which is a summary of End-Times Israel. The rest of Exodus sets forth the type for the Millennial inheritance. And Deuteronomy 29 sets forth Israel during Jacob’s Trouble. (The judgement Israel suffers being a result of God being true to His Word, and satan is well aware that God would have to hold Israel accountable for what He said would happen to them if they don’t walk in His ways, bringing upon them “all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law.” - Verse 21)

And then God will turn His Wrath entirely upon the destroyers who sought to exterminate His firstborn sons. (Read Psalm 2 and Revelation 19:15-20:3) And then He will establish His First Born’s (Christ’s) Kingdom on the Earth and in the first heaven. (Revelation 2:26-27; 12:1,2,5; 14:15-16; 19:7-8; 20:4-6)

Thus, the stage is set for the events of Revelation Chapters 17 and 18.

So again, then in Chapter 17, the Last Days’ Harlot’s religious part of Babylonian system is seen first dominating the Beast, which is the secular empire/corporate political side, up until the religious Harlot system (which is to say… the Mother of harlots who destroys her offspring) is destroyed by the Beast (of Revelation Chapter 13, now spoken of as personal in Verses 11-13, having emerged as the Last Days’ leader) and his 10-Nation confederation. When John saw the vision and wrote of it, the Beast and its 7 heads belonged to his period. In that the 7 heads are explained as 7 kings of which 5 had already fallen, one was then reigning and the 7th was yet future. And an 8th would follow and that would be the Beast person emerging from the Bottomless Pit in Revelation 13:1… “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy…” and in Revelation 11:7… “And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.” So he is declared to be one of the previous 7… as one formerly slain will be brought back to life. (Revelation 13:3… “And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.”)

In Luke 21:19, the Lord warned there would be a flight (fleeing) of His followers in the Last Days… “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land (Israel), and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (3 ½ more years).

Just up to sometime before this mid-point of the 7-year Covenant of Death, the religious Harlot, (pictured in Revelation 17:6) had run her drunken murderous course and is destroyed as Revelation 17:16-18 and Luke 21:19 are in view as the Beast/Anti-Christ begins to manifest in his full resurrection power in Jerusalem. As the abomination of desolation, his image is set up to be worshiped in the Holy Place. The time arrives for the seed of the Woman to flee from the Anti-Christ. These are those two groups of God, “which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” (Revelation 12:13-17) A Jewish remnant contingent will remain along with those who are “left” of the Christian contingent (see Matthew 24:40-41… “Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left…”). The “manchild” (of the “Woman in Revelation 12) being supernaturally “taken” or caught up to the first heaven. (Revelation 3:10… “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”)

The Dragon has been cast down to the Earth out of the first heaven. He is angry and knows his time is short. The Anti-Christ Beast is raised up from the Bottomless Pit in satanic power and kills the Two Witnesses of God in Jerusalem and Religious Jews in general who would resist him. (It is the time of Matthew 24:21-22… “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.”) The Beast and His 10-Nation confederation plunder and devour the religious pretentious in Israel as far as their arm shall then reach. The Beast and His confederation’s reign of terror begins and runs for 3 ½ years, which correspond with the 3 ½ years the remnant seed of the Woman is fleeing Israel, and are supernaturally nourished in the ‘wilderness’. (Revelation 12:13-17, Daniel 7:25) The work of Mystery Babylon’s Woman is finished, as the great “whore” Israel is exposed and vulnerable, and the great city of Jerusalem is ransacked, ravished, and burned with fire. (Idolatry and spiritualism being the religious order of that day - also see Jeremiah 3 at the end of the lesson where Israel is referred to as a whore and as “playing the Harlot.”)

But in that same discourse in Luke 21, the Lord speaks to the End-Times birth pangs that would occur over the years preceding these events and the Last Days’ judgements on the Harlot… “But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by (not right away). Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…” [Luke 21:9-10] It is then, in those End-Times birth pangs’ wars and commotions, that the Babylonian religious murdering Harlot arm uses its wealth and End-Times spiritual insidiousness for political influence to reshape the World’s religious landscape. That is described in Revelation 17:1-2 as she “…that sitteth upon many waters (many people and Nations) With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” She is then at her worst in Verse 6… “And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints (of the Old Testament godly), and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus (the New Testament godly): and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration” (wonder/amazement/astonishment).

Below is Jeremiah 3 where Israel, called the “wife of God”, plays the harlot with many lovers - yet she is told by God to “Return again to me…”

Jeremiah 3… “They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the Lord. Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed. Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth? Will he reserve his anger for ever? will he keep it to the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest. The Lord said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot. And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks. And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord. And the Lord said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more. At that time (the Millennium) they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers. But I said, How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? and I said, Thou shalt call me, My father; and shalt not turn away from me. Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord. A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the Lord their God. Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the Lord our God. Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. For shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”

Read Ezekiel 16, and see Israel being judged by the Beast and 10-Nation confederation when reading this…

Ezekiel 16… “Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, And say, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live. I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine. Then washed I thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers' skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head. Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom. And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God. But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was. And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so. Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them, And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them. My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord God. Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them? And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood. And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord God;) That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street. Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms. Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger. Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way. Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied. Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied therewith. How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord God, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman; In that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine high place in every street; and hast not been as an harlot, in that thou scornest hire; But as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband! They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom. And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms, whereas none followeth thee to commit whoredoms: and in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, therefore thou art contrary. Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord God; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them; Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness. And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy. And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare. They shall also bring up a company against thee, and they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust thee through with their swords. And they shall burn thine houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot, and thou also shalt give no hire any more. So will I make my fury toward thee to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry. Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast fretted me in all these things; behold, therefore I also will recompense thy way upon thine head, saith the Lord God: and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thine abominations. Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter. Thou art thy mother's daughter, that lotheth her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, which lothed their husbands and their children: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite. And thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand: and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters. Yet hast thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations: but, as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways. As I live, saith the Lord God, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good. Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done. Thou also, which hast judged thy sisters, bear thine own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable than they: they are more righteous than thou: yea, be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame, in that thou hast justified thy sisters. When I shall bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then will I bring again the captivity of thy captives in the midst of them: That thou mayest bear thine own shame, and mayest be confounded in all that thou hast done, in that thou art a comfort unto them. When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate. For thy sister Sodom was not mentioned by thy mouth in the day of thy pride, Before thy wickedness was discovered, as at the time of thy reproach of the daughters of Syria, and all that are round about her, the daughters of the Philistines, which despise thee round about. Thou hast borne thy lewdness and thine abominations, saith the Lord. For thus saith the Lord God; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant. Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant. Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger: and I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant. And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God.”

You can’t help but have a sobering fear of God after reading how God held Israel to their Covenant. We should likewise and even moreso learn from their unfaithfulness which should motivate us to a higher walk. For Romans 11:22 tells us… “Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.” Hebrews 2:2-3 says… “For if the word (the Law) spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward; How shall we (Christians) escape, if we neglect so great salvation…?”

If we ignore the leading of the Holy Spirit, we will experience a sorer punishment than did Israel. There is much more accountability for us who are under the Covenant of Grace. Christians need to not push the severity of God under the rug…
Hebrews 10:26-31… “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment (here on Earth or on the other side), suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

May we recognize the seriousness of our daily walk. May it be in humble service and reverential fear, that we may be among the worthy referred to in Luke 21:36… “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.”