Don't Drink With The Prostitute (Revelation 17:1-18) Series

Many of us, at one point or another, have found ourselves desiring a different kind of life. A better life, with nicer stuff. A life with "more." This desire for more tends to run in four directions:

(1) Power/fame. At times, we get tired of having no voice, no say, no authority. We are tired of life not going the way we want. We want to be someone.

(2) Wealth. We get tired of having to budget, of limping along with old cars, of having no A/C in our apartments or houses, of wearing old clothes, of eating cheap. We wonder what it'd be like to have marble, instead of laminate. To have gold, instead of copper. To have a Lexus, instead of a Kia. To have more steak, and less pasta.

(3) Pleasure. We want to have more moments where we can relax, and feel good.

(4) Security. We want to be safe from persecution (Revelation 13:7). From foreign invaders. From gangs. From thieves.

What keeps us from having this lifestyle of "more"?

Often, the answer to that, is that we follow Jesus. When you are committed to following the Lamb, wherever He goes, you'll find that the paths He takes tend to be hard, and costly. With money, and wealth, in particular, Jesus expects his people to give sacrificially. To live open-handed, generously, toward those in need (Luke 12:32-33).

And then, if you add persecution to that, it can get even harder. In many parts of the world, at many times, Christians are given the Bud Light treatment. Doors are shut to them, financially. If you don't toe the line, and give your allegiance to the Beast, you'll be boycotted financially (Revelation 13:16-17).

Most of the time, maybe, we accept the cost to following Jesus. We know that Jesus, and his kingdom, are a pearl of great value, and worth giving up everything. We don't find ourselves looking sideways at the world, and wanting more power, or fame, or wealth, or pleasure, or security.

But once in a while, maybe, we do.

Now, when we read the book of Revelation, we see that these four things-- power, wealth, pleasure, and security-- are all offered by satan. Satan holds out his hand to all people, and invites them to give their allegiance to him.

Now, in Revelation, satan doesn't do this directly. It's not like when Jesus was driven into the wilderness, to be tested by satan one-on-one.

In Revelation, satan offers these things through his minions. We saw in Revelation 13 that he uses human empires to achieve these things. Satan is given the right to pick out nations, to raise them up, to give them his power and authority and throne, and to elevate them over all other nations. Basically, satan can turn nations into evil superpowers. Or, in the language of Revelation, satan can turn nations, into the Beast. And this beast has two main purposes: (1) to harm the church, and (2) to deceive people into bowing down, and serving it. If you can make people patriotic, and get them to swear allegiance to a flag, you can keep them away from the Lamb.

In the first century, this beast took the form of the Roman empire. But the beast is active throughout the life of the church. We will always find ourselves in war with the beast.

All of this is familiar ground, at this point in Revelation. But what we will see today, adding to this, is that satan has a third minion. This minion is given several names: Babylon, the great city, the great prostitute. And Satan uses Babylon to offer people the four desirable things I talked about earlier: power, wealth, pleasure, and security. Babylon's job is to seduce people into chasing these things. She makes people unfaithful to the Lamb, because you can only chase one thing. You either chase the Lamb, or you turn aside, and chase the whore.

Now, who, exactly, is Babylon? This is not a literal city. [And we shouldn't be so literal in reading Revelation, that we find ourselves hoping someone will rebuild it, and give it new birth. I remember when fundamentalists were excited about Saddam Hussein rebuilding it.] It's symbolic. And the key to understanding the symbolism, is to see how it's rooted in the OT.

When we read the OT, we find that Babylon is exceptional in its wickedness (the key passages, helpfully listed by William Hendriksen, More than Conquerors, 168, are: Genesis 11; Isaiah 13-14; 21; 46; 47; Jeremiah 25; 50; 51; Daniel 2; 4:30; 7; Habakkuk 3; Revelation 17 also picks up echoes from Tyre, in Ezekiel 27-28). From almost the very beginning of time, Babylon was the place where people intentionally opposed God's vision for the world. In Genesis 11, at the Tower of Babylon-- in Hebrew, it's the Tower of Babylon, not the Tower of Babel-- the people worked together to fight God's desire that people expand across the world. Instead, they built up, so that their name would be great. When we read Isaiah and Jeremiah, we see that Babylon is marked by its pride (Isaiah 13:11; 14:13-14; 47:7-8; Jeremiah 50:31-32), by its intentional opposition to God (Genesis 11, compare with Jeremiah 51:9; Jeremiah 50:24, 29), by its great wealth, (Isaiah 13:17; Jeremiah 50:10; 51:13), by its luxuries (Isaiah 13:22; 14:8), by its power (Isaiah 13:22; 14:10, 16-17, 21; **47:1**; Jeremiah 51:30, 58), by its idolatry (Isaiah 21:9; 46:1-7; Jeremiah 50:2, 38; 51:17-18, 47, 52), by its sorcery (Isaiah 47:9-15), and perhaps most importantly, by its violence and cruelty toward all people, and toward God's people in particular (Isaiah 14:3, 17, 20; 21:2, 10; 47:6; Jer. 50:15-17, 33; 51:34-35, 49).