Babylon in Revelation 17: The Evil That Doesn't Look Evil

Father's Day in Michigan always falls in uh the beginning of road trip up north season.

And if you're gonna take a road trip up north, you're gonna want one of these.

Because uh my my family went camping up north last weekend.

We saw a lot of this.

I think we got a photo.

There you go.

If you hit a pothole or anything else in the road and your tire gets a little flat or comes off its center, its hub, uh, it wobbles for a little bit, but if you keep going, that's what happens, okay?

And the and the faster and longer you drive on a tire that's not on its hub, the more violently it shreds itself.

So just heads up for you, especially dads if you're the drivers.

But also, life's that come off their hub operate the same way.

They go through the same sort of fall.

This is uh the sixth week of this preaching series on the book of Revelation.

We've been working through this book slowly.

We've got a few more weeks to go.

Um, this book of Revelation that it claims about itself at the very beginning, that this is the revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.

This is a revelation for us from Jesus.

And we get it through through the writing of one of his apostles named John.

John, who Jesus shows really throughout the whole book, he's giving him two realities, these two pictures.

One is a current reality, this is something we all experience.

There's suffering in our current reality, there's pain, there's death.

Sin is still a part of that.

And then there's also a future reality that Jesus shows John and us.

This future reality, there's no more pain, there's no more suffering, there's no more death.

Sin will go through a final judgment, and all things will be made new.

There's a new heaven, there's a new earth.

That's the future reality.

And associated with these two realities are two symbolic cities.

One is called Babylon or fallen Babylon.

Fallen Babylon is what the world becomes whenever it tries to operate without God as the center, without God as the thing that holds it together.

And then there's New Jerusalem, which represents like God's purified kingdom.

This is the way he intended creation to operate, the way he designed it.

This is where he is the center, and he holds all things together.

Okay, so so we got these two realities, these two symbolic cities, and the questions we've been asking, the question all series long has been, okay, if we if we know this, how do we, you and I, live today in light of a current reality where still sin still reigns, there's still suffering, all this, but knowing what's coming.

But it's not here yet.

Like, how do how do we operate in this world that we live in?

And the answer, the simple answer, is follow Jesus.

Follow Jesus.

The book of Revelation is many things, but at its core, it is a call to radical discipleship to the way of Jesus.

And today we are gonna unpack one aspect or one step for each of us in that discipleship journey that that comes to the surface in chapters 17 and then into 18.

So if you want to follow in your Bible, you can turn, put, put uh bookmark in Revelation 17.

Um, just for all of us to kind of get caught up on what we've kind of gone through before.

John, uh before we get to 17, chapter 17, he's he's seen a lot of strange things for many of us.

They may be disturbing or or frightening.

He's already seen the horsemen of the apocalypse ride out.

He's seen uh a large army of human-faced locusts, he's seen another army of like lion-faced horses that have snakes for tails.

He's seen a dragon, he's seen a beast come up out of the sea, he's seen angels pouring bulls of wrath over earth, he's seen cosmic warfare erupt in heaven.

I mean, he's seen a lot.

And to his credit, John has been a fairly unflinching witness to it all.

But in chapter 17, John sees something that stops him in his tracks.

It's a woman, just heads up.

And and what I want to show you is why he is so captured by her.

Because if we're not careful, this woman that captures his attention will capture our attention as well.

In fact, she may already have.

See, what we're gonna unpack today is this idea that when evil looks scary, it's easier to identify and try to avoid.

But what what about when evil seems so appealing, so attractive?

What do we do with that?

And I wonder as we go through this, if if bad if Babylon, this woman, showed up in your life today, would you even recognize her for who she is?

All right, chapter 17, verse 1, this is how it starts.

One of the seven angels who had the seven bulls.

Okay, just pause real quick here.

These seven bulls, chapter 15 told us were the last plagues.

This is the culmination, these are the final, this is the final judgment of God's God's uh his judgment is coming to completion.

Okay.

One of the seven angels who had the seven bulls came and said to me, Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute who sits by many waters.

With her the kings of earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.

Then the angel carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness.

There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names, and had seven heads and ten horns.

The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls.

She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries.

The name written on her forehead was a mystery.

Babylon the Great, the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth.

I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God's holy people, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.

When I saw her, I was greatly astonished.

And of course he was.

This is unlike anything he's seen.

Everything else he saw was like disturbing.

But this, I mean, this woman is attractive.

She seems like she's got everything kind of going for her.

And he's like transfixed by her, so much so that the angel who's taken him to show this has to interrupt him.

Verse 7 says, Then the angel said to me, Why are you astonished?

In other words, hey, John, eyes up here.

Okay.

Just wait till I tell you what this woman represents.

You're not, maybe not gonna want to stare at her too long, okay?

Because here, here's what this woman represents.

It's it's something rather sinister.

And it's something that that uh is is a part of not just something John saw there, but it's a part of a recurring reality for every generation since then.

Um, to unpack, we'll start with the beast that had the seven heads and the ten horns.

Now, John's audience would have immediately started to think, oh, oh, he's talking about Rome.

Rome was was famously built on seven hills.

And so, like, oh yeah, that that's what he's talking about.

But the symbolism goes beyond Rome.

To talk about any sort of kingdom or empire that sets itself up without God as the center.

So Rome was one, but it goes on, the angel goes on to explain.

There were some before Rome, there will be some after Rome.

This is any sort of any sort of you know organization that does this.

And and then the the ten heads, uh, it verse 12 explicitly tells us represent ten kings that don't yet have a kingdom.

These kings uh represent not just okay.

The point is not, okay, let's go find out when did this happen, where are we now, 2026, where are the ten names that we can fit in there?

That's not the goal.

The point is that the the Babylon rides on the accumulated political power, military power, economic powers, all that set themselves up in opposition to God, that seek to be the center of our lives.

Now, I want you to notice something about her title in verse 5.

She's Babylon the Great, the mother of prostitutes, which means that she has offspring.

She's got daughters.

Every single generation gets its own version of Babylon.

In her hand, she's got a golden cup.

It is beautiful on the outside, but on the inside, it's filled with corruption and filth.

Because this is Babylon's strategy.

She's appealing on the outside.

She offers everything the human heart already desires.

And yet, what's inside her?

Well, she's getting drunk on the blood of God's holy people.

Babylon has an agenda.

It's to seek after people who bear the testimony of Jesus, to be alluring enough to get them to come to her so that she can devour them like a vampire.

John is being given a vision of what's actually behind Babylon.

Because behind her glitz and glamour and appeal is exploitation, destruction, death.

Like this, this is what comes from it.

I wonder, do you think you could spot her if she showed up in your world?

Like today.

I got a picture of a coin put up here.

This is, I think it's pronounced, it's a it's a Roman tertius coin or Cetertius coin.

Uh it was minted by the guy on the left, Vespasian, his name's on the coin, in 70 AD.

On the back of the coin is clearly Roma, the personification of the Roman Empire.

She is reclining.

I think we got a picture that's a little more clear of her side.

She's reclining on seven hills.

These uh reclining on the seven hills that represent Rome.

Um there's some people that I think they're called pneumostatic experts.

They study coins.

And they'll tell you that the little dogs next to her are Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome.

She's got a sword in her hand.

At her feet is the river, the Tiber River, uh, depicted as a god that's also with her.

Okay, this coin is Roman propaganda.

It's telling the story that Rome is glorious, Rome is eternal, Rome is secure, Rome is mighty, Rome sits enthroned over the earth.

John's audience carried this coin in their pockets.

They bought bread with it, they paid taxes with it.

Do you think they would have been able to spot her?

John is John is exposing a current reality.

He's pulling back the curtain.

Babylon's clothed in scarlet and purple, red and purple, the colors of uh of imperial might and authority in that time.

This is put they represent political power in his day.

Underneath those robes is glittering gold, precious stones, you know, pearls, which represent the economic machinery that's required to keep the political structure in place.

Underneath that is something even more problematic.

It's a self that's determined to exist outside of a need for God.

She says so as much about herself in the next chapter, chapter 18, um I think verse 7, she it Babylon boasts, I sit enthroned as queen.

I am not a widow, I will never mourn.

This is the anthem of a person which could also be an empire, could also be a civilization, whatever that that set out that we don't need God anymore.

We are the center of our own existence.

This this this is what John is exposing here.

It's the ancient lie of the Garden of Eden all over again.

I don't need God, I'm the center of my life.

It's like a wheel trying to spin without a hub.

When it does, it shreds itself.

No.

Before Babylon shreds itself, spoiler alert, it's coming.

John does something that I absolutely love.

Like embedded in the middle of this story of the fall of Babylon, he actually gives us the gospel.

He gives us the good news of Jesus.

Like right in the middle, he places it here.

He says of the kings of earth, which are depicted by the horns on the beast that Babylon rides, he says, right in the middle of this verse, verse uh 14, these these kings will wage war against the lamb, but the lamb will triumph over them, because he is Lord of Lords and King of kings, and with him will be his called, chosen, and faithful followers.

What this means for us is that when we when we right now are trapped in a world that operates under Babylon's influence, while we are suckered into, tempted to give into the allure of Babylon, while we all have done so, we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

God sent his son, the Lamb Jesus, into Babylon to rescue us.

And of course, Babylon waged war against him.

And she's and she's ferocious.

But unlike us, Jesus lived a life we could not.

Sinless, perfectly in line with God.

And he died the death that we deserved for the adulteries we've committed with Babylon.

And then he rose from the dead to give one final devastating blow to sin and death and any forces that set themselves up in opposition to God.

Like this is this is the gospel here.

The Lord of Lords and the King of Kings came and rescued us.

Because Babylon is powerful, and the beast she rides on is powerful.

And the kings of earth are powerful.

But they are no match.

John wants us to know, they are no match for the Lamb of God.

There was no contest in that fight.

And for anyone who puts their trust in the Lamb and is willing to stand with Him in that fight, they're given a new name.

The called, the chosen, the faithful followers.

If you will, this is the seal that Jesus puts on his people.

Similar to the seal that the beast puts on his people, or that mark that we've talked about.

And this woman, she's got her own mark.

Her name plastered on her forehead speaks to her own desire for self-sufficiency, and that's the thing that brings about her ruin.

What we read next is I I didn't expect it, maybe you did, but verse 16 says, The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute.

They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked.

They will eat her flesh and burn her with fire.

The very powers that built Babylon up that she rides on, these economic structures, these political powers, these anything that supports the empire on itself, they eventually turn and devour.

Babylon doesn't just fall, Babylon eats itself.

This is the outcome of any sort of organization that tries to set itself up without God as the center.

Because when you take God out of the center, you've got to fill it with something.

And in Babylon, what it gets filled with is ego.

What it gets built up, what it gets filled with is acquisition, pleasure.

I just I gotta take care of it, it's a me-centered world where I gotta take care of me.

But the the political powers and the economic powers that are required to support a me-centered world, eventually they always turn on each other.

They devour each other and they turn on the inhabitants of the earth who host them.

This is the warning of Revelation chapter 17.

Revelation 17 · chapter mention

Every version of Babylon that has ever existed eventually shreds itself.

And when we try to live our lives without God prioritized at the center, what we get is self-destruction.

Can you see it?

Can you see it?

Well, after Babylon falls, three groups of people respond.

Chapter 18, you can read their specific responses on your own.

There's uh there's the rulers of Earth, there's the merchants, and there's like the sea traders and the sailors.

All three of them, they weep and they mourn, they're bawling their eyes out.

They all of their specific laments you can read in chapter 18.

And when you do, you're gonna notice there's one thing that's said about all three groups.

All three groups are standing far off.

While Babylon falls, none of them are going down with her.

Because they never loved her.

They only loved what she could give them the power, the wealth, the influence, the security.

And as soon as she can't provide those things anymore, they're like, oh boo, woohoo, who was me.

And then they go on to find, get this.

This is what they go look for.

They go look for her daughter and wait for her to come of age so that they can commit adultery with her as well.

This this is every political and economic system that has ever existed.

They don't really love Babylon, and Babylon didn't ever love them, she was just using them, and they were just using her.

This this is built into the fab, this self-destructive nature of a life that's off the hub of God.

It is built into the fabric of creation.

It's the God designed us to live lives that can He only He can support them.

And when we try to do it on something else, well, we know what we get.

Okay.

So what do we do with that?

If you can see it, if you can see Babylon for who she is, but you also are like, okay, but my current reality is that she still kind of has an influence around me, she's still kind of having influence.

What do we do?

How do we live in light of this?

Well, good for lucky for us, I don't know if it's lucky, intentional, probably.

Uh, embedded into the fall of Babylon, there's a voice that breaks out from heaven that John records in in chapter 18, verse 18.

Verse 4, he says, Then I heard another voice from heaven say, Come out of her, my people, so you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues.

Notice who this invitation is for.

Come out of her, my people.

This invitation is for believers.

It's for people who show up in churches, people who've been baptized, people who are in small groups.

Okay, I read through this and I'm like, okay, yeah, this seems like obviously he's writing about uh uh this great prostitute.

She's she's enticing all these people who don't know God.

But John said that she's drunk on the blood of God's holy people.

She's drunk on the blood of people who bear testimony to Jesus.

John's like, hey, warning, warning.

She's out to get people who think that she's not out to get them.

It's easy to think, oh, she's going after people from a different religion, people that live on the other side of the world.

And from heaven's perspective, heaven's like, this is how obvious it is.

Her name is on her forehead.

She's riding a beast that's covered in blasphemies.

But to us, she looks like a good time.

She looks like, man, some ambition.

What's wrong with that?

I'm just looking out for my family.

I'm just this is just an opportunity, so it only comes around once in a lifetime.

She shows up anytime I prioritize myself at the center of my life.

Same for you.

So, what are you prioritizing at the center of your life?

That's a question worth sitting with.

The invitation, it's an invitation, not an accusation.

Come out of her, my people.

I don't want you to have to go through what she's gonna go through.

Come out of her.

What are you prioritizing?

At the center of your life.

What do you acquire?

Hoping that it will, you know, prove your worth in this world.

What are you afraid of losing?

Who in your life has perhaps become a means to your end?

Because whatever you, whatever you honestly prioritize in your life, it's gonna show up in your fears.

It's gonna show up in your ambitions, it's gonna show up in your spending, it's gonna show up in your relationships.

So listen.

Because the voice is still speaking through the pages of scripture today.

Come out of her, my people.

Come out of the lie that another thing, or more success, or more achievements, or more approval is somehow gonna hold your life together.

Come out of that lie and put God at the center.

I told you at the beginning, the book of Revelation is at its core, a call to radical discipleship to the way of Jesus.

And one of the steps in that journey is that we are all called to prioritize a relationship with God over a relationship with the world.

Come out of her and put God at the center.

One more thing I want to show you, and then I'll be done.

Chapter 17 started with one of those seven angels with the bulls said, Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute.

Later in chapter 21, I don't know if it's the same angel, but another one of the angels with the seven bulls comes and says almost the same thing.

He says, Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb.

Babylon is adorned with all the things that she's acquired from her prostitution.

The wife of the lamb is adorned with the glory of God.

Babylon is saying, put yourself at the center, it's all about you.

The bride of the lamb is saying, hey, something better.

This is all about God.

Put him at the center of your life.

One is failing, the other is being prepared every day in the lives of people who decision by decision choose to follow Jesus.

Which have you chosen?

And which will you choose?

Today you can make a decision to prioritize God in your life.

Put Him at the center and watch, experience everything else come into its proper place.

Let's pray.

God, you are so good.

And sometimes I wish you uh gave us uh some images and pictures in revelation that are a little easier to unpack.

But God, you choose to do what you choose to do.

And there's something about the way you showed yourself to John that is just so convicting for me, personally compelling.

I think for all of us, God, that you're, God, I'm so grateful that you're drawing me and you're drawing us to your Son, the Lamb, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And God, as you work in the hearts of each one of us that had ears to hear and eyes to see, God, may you guide us to follow Jesus.

That, God, may we claim victory over all the things that have tried to steal our lives from you.

God, may we may wear the name proudly that we are called and chosen and faithful.

God, show us where we need to choose you and give us the courage and the wisdom and the determination to do it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right, Revelation 17 and 18.