Revelation 17:3-8

³ So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. ⁴ The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. ⁵ And on her forehead a name was written:

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

⁶ I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement.

This culture of Babylon, this worship of not God, sits upon the Antichrist.  The beast is the Antichrist as described in chapter 13.  The harlot is very attractive, her ways seem to be the right ways, her understandings seem to be the right understanding, her wisdom seems to be the right wisdom, all of it seems to be what you want because it makes you more worthy of worship.  But none of it leads you or anyone towards a closer walk with God!  No one will be able to say, “God is leading me to …” regarding any of these actions this culture promotes.

This culture is the sirens of the day and once people are drunk on her message they can no longer see real truth or understand it’s message.  Once they are drunken with her wine she will bite them and sting them before she destroys them into pieces.

Proverbs 6:32-33 reminds us, “The one who commits adultery lacks sense; whoever does so destroys himself.  He will get a beating and dishonor, and his disgrace will never be removed.”

Because this Babylon culture is driven by self-promotion and self-interest, it is willing to sacrifice others to promote its own benefits and prosperity.  This is all too familiar in today’s culture already and it is global: abortion, euthanasia, genocide, infanticide and the deliberate work of capturing people as youth and causing them to be sold and used as prostitutes.  Further, verse 6 tells that there is particular delight in the martyrdom of Christians.  The 20^th century was the bloodiest in Christian history.  What should we expect from the next one?

⁷ 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. ⁸ 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.

The beast was, is not, and will ascend?  That seems contradictory or impossible.  How can you be and not be?  This could mean a few things.  One, it could be reference to the imitation that the Antichrist will do of the death and resurrection of the living Christ when it has a supposable lethal injury yet is healed.  Or two, it could be in reference to history.  Throughout history there have been multiple antichrists.  They rise up for a brief reign of terror then die.  Then another one rises and reigns and dies.  This pattern seems to repeat itself over and again.  The world consistently finds ways to deny God and promote its own sense of truth only to find that it isn’t and everything fails.  They love the prostitute more than they love God.  Every generation gives life to the beast as it loves the practices, values, and ways of the world.  1 John 2:17 warns us, “the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does God’s will remains forever.”  The Babylonians will not last.