REVELATION 17.1 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here. I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters, 17.2 with whom the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality, and those who dwell in the earth were made drunken with the wine of her sexual immorality.” 17.3 He carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness.
I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet-colored animal, full of
blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. 17.4 The woman was
dressed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and
pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities
of the sexual immorality of the earth. 17.5 And on her forehead a name was
written, “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE
ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” 17.6 I saw the woman drunken with the blood of
the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. -WEB Bible
When Eve picked the forbidden fruit in the Garden of
Eden, she made a selfish decision that was based on pride. She deliberately
disobeyed God because she was deceived or enchanted by the evil serpent (or
dragon.) She didn’t ask her mate Adam
about it: she made this life-altering decision entirely on her own, and then
she asked Adam to join her in eating the fruit.
Now, fast-forward to the end of time, and we see the
culmination of Eve’s one small sin. The whore of Babylon is the ultimate
example of all selfishness, vanity, pride and corruption. She gloats in her own
self-sufficiency and brags that she submits to no man. She is vile in all her
pleasures, and she delights in the destruction of God-fearing people. She entices others to join in her sinful
pleasures.
Babylon is evil to the core, like the beasts and the dragon,
but there is a difference. Babylon is entirely a human construction. She may be
influenced by demons, and empowered by them: but she is not a demonic beast
like the others, so her demise is different from theirs.
IMAGE CREDIT: Illustration of the Harlot of Babylon is by English artist William Blake, 1809.