“But the angel said to me, ‘Why did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.’ Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. There [They] are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. And the beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition. And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast.” Revelation 17:7-13.
The above has been retained to maintain context and provide reference material. This post will cover Revelation 17:14-18.
“These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.” Revelation 17:14.
This is how deluded these kings and the beast are, they will make war with God Himself, I assume with the intention of winning.
This war is known as the battle of Armageddon and it is when the beast who was one of the seven kings and has become the eighth, goes to perdition (destruction), not the abyss this time but the lake of fire.
“And he said to me, ‘The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues.’” Revelation 17:15.
The waters on which the harlot sits are missing one specific group, tribes. When listing the people saved during the tribulation these are mentioned.
“After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb…” Revelation 7:9.
The word tribe generally refers to Israel because they consist of twelve tribes; since tribes are not mentioned as being under the harlot, they must have been exempted.
This exemption may have been due to an article in their seven year treaty (covenant) with the beast, signed at the beginning of the tribulation.
“Then he [the beast] shall confirm a covenant with many [Jews] for one week [7 years]; but in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.” Daniel 9:27a.
“And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to fulfill His purpose, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled.” Revelation 17:16-17.
You may have all seen a movie or television show where the coroner says, “Well, the victim was stabbed 72 times, which would indicate that this was a crime of passion, one of intense hatred”.
Yes, well the ten kings go after the harlot with such a malevolent hatred, even the description above defies description.
For three and a half years the ten kings have had to curry favor from the harlot to reach their goals. Imagine facing some pompous hypocrite of a high priest and having to grovel before him. “Yes, my lord. Fluff your pillow my lord? If you are not too busy I need your letter of permission my lord.”
Groveling is not the place for a proud king. So when the god-man the beast rises from the dead; payback comes with violence and a vengeance which will have few peers in history.
The kings make her desolate; the idea here is to despoil her, to strip her of her treasures. This church will be unimaginably rich, land, gold, art treasures, with even more coming in with tithes and extorted offerings.
Making her naked, literally unclad, without clothing, would be to humiliate her. Naked may even be literal, kings in the past would often march their war captives unclothed through the streets to bring them to complete humiliation before killing or selling them as slaves.
Eat is to devour, consume; and to burn her with fire, is to burn up, consume by fire. It is hard to imagine this kind of destruction, but the super-church will deserve it, they will perish with the blood of millions of martyrs for Christ on their hands.
God’s will to destroy this church will be carried out by His enemies. Even when it seems God is not in control, He is in control.
“And the woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.” Revelation 17:18.
The verse above coupled with verse 9 shown again below for comparison indicates the location.
“Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.” Revelation 17:9.
This is the confirmation that Rome is the city since this same city reigned when this was written. The woman, harlot, “is that great city”; it is notable that the harlot and the city are so intertwined that it could be said that she is that city.
Before going on it must be emphasized that the super-church is an amalgamation of all godless religions, pagan or otherwise. I say godless because they reject the true and living God for someone or something that pleases their vain imaginations.
The mantra of this church may be, “Come one, come all, and let us work together and save the environment and build heaven on earth!”
Those chanting (and these are only a few) will be Hindus, Buddhists, witches, Satanists, Baha’is, Sikhs, Mormons, and atheists; this is not a misstatement, atheists worship man.
The list is very long, so perhaps just a few more, Baptists, Lutherans, Assembly of God, Episcopalians, Methodists, and Catholics.
These last churches all say that Jesus Christ is God, why should they be on the list? Simply because in many of them the gospel is so watered down, few in these churches even hear of their need to trust in Christ for salvation.
Suppose when the Lord comes back to rapture His church out of the world, it is on a Sunday morning, many would be taken and many more will be sitting in their pews wondering, what just happened?
Going to church or singing in the choir will not get you into heaven. It does not matter if your father is the pastor or you are a deacon. You can do good deeds until you drop from exhaustion; heal the sick, cast out demons, knock yourself out.
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” Matthew 7:21-23.
The key to this verse is, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven”. What is the will of Jesus’ Father?
“And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:40.
“Then they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him [Jesus] whom He sent.” John 6:28-29.
“Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.” I John 2:23.
“All that the Father gives Me [Jesus] will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” John 6:37.
Let us return now to the woman, the harlot. An effort has been made to point out all of the false religions and fundamental churches, which are not so fundamental anymore, and the Catholic church, to show that the conclusions given here are not borne out of a prejudice but rather a Scriptural conclusion.
All Christian churches are not tools of the politically correct liberal establishment, nor are all Catholics unsaved tools of the Pope. There are godly, saved, Christian men and women in all of these churches, this includes pastors, teachers, priests, and those seated in the pews.
But when Christ returns to take us out of the world the only ones left will be the unsaved. It should be added that the folks left behind will not all be godless rake-hells, there will be decent people who were not given the gospel in church, or were deluded into thinking that good works get you to heaven.
Now for the bad news, it is likely that the harlot takes over the shell left of the Catholic Church, the description is pretty explicit. This is not too far fetched; the Catholic Church is, to my knowledge, the most organized of all the churches, including Buddhism, Lutheranism, or Mormonism and the like.
Much of the hierarchy is already in place, since many of the leaders will have gotten their high positions by manipulation or hard work and not through excelling in the works of Christ, they will still be in place after the rapture.
Priests, left behind? Is that such a difficult concept? Can you find anywhere in Scripture where Jesus allows a priest to use his authority as a priest to molest young boys? Rather, He says this about men like this.
“Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Matthew 18:4-6.
The name priest, cardinal, Pope, or pastor, elder, or deacon, for that matter means nothing to God if they have not received Christ as a little child. So, yes, there will be many left behind to run a godless church.
The beginnings of this are in place now with a thing called ecumenicalism; which has been in the works for quite awhile now and is a movement for all Christian churches to join together as one church.
While this seems good on the surface, it would force churches to adopt a central theology consisting of many compromises. We are seeing the result of this in the church today with the watering down of the preaching of the gospel.
This has destroyed the effectiveness of the church, and attendance has and will drop off because the church has nothing to offer to those who seek something beyond the deadness of this world.
To compound this error many churches including Catholicism are reaching out to heathen religions to join in this abomination. Many of you will recall the Pope’s dialogue with the Dali Lama in his desire to bridge the gap between all religions.
When the rapture of the church comes, the dead shell of the Church of Rome will be ready to combine all religions into a unified wall to resist the advances of the followers of Christ and to murder them in an inquisition beyond comprehension.
Revelation 17:14-18 taken from godisrevealed.com updated on 2-23-17, reposted on 10-15-22.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.