Judgment of the Great Prostitute

Revelation 17:1-7

Introduction: Seven bowls of wrath have been poured out on the beast that rose up out of the sea and “Babylon the great, has fallen.” You will remember that this beast is described as the fourth beast (empire) of Daniel’s vision in Daniel 7. Daniel foretold that this would be a persecuting beast that would “wear out the saints.” But Daniel also prophesied that “one like the Son of Man” would be seated on the throne of God and bring judgment on the beast and give victory to the saints.

Now one of the seven angels who poured out the bowls of wrath tells John to follow him into the wilderness to see the judgment of the “great prostitute with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality.” Though the destruction of the beast is confirmed in chapter 16, the Lord wants us to see this beast with the prostitute sitting on it for who it really is. 

1. The Description of the Prostitute
   1. The question that comes to mind that since we have already seen the fall of the beast, why does the Lord want us to see the judgment of this prostitute who is seated on the beast? The answer is that we are being warned. This is not the only prostitute that has allured peoples of the world to drink the wine of her sexual immorality and it would not be the last. Remember, Revelation is written for us as much as it was for the first century Christians.
   2. Let’s begin by identifying this prostitute.
      1. She is “seated on many waters.” Vs. 15 states that these waters are “peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages.” In other words, the prostitute has seduced the people and the nations of the world to commit sexual immorality with her.
      2. Verse 18 removes all doubt as to who this prostitute is: “And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.” Verse 9 tells us that the seven heads of the beast are the seven mountains upon which the woman is seated. Rome was built on 7 mountains.
      3. Verse 3: the description of the woman is nearly identical to the beast in chapter 13 – seven heads and ten horns full of blasphemous names. 
      4. Verse 4: her attire is intended to cause the world to be drawn to her and desire her. She has royal attire and is regaled with gold, jewels, and pearls. And in her hand is a golden cup. But inside the cup we see it full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. Her attire tells us clearly what she is offering – wealth, power, and immorality. She is the promoter of filth and worldliness.
      5. Verse 5: on her forehead, instead of the name of the Lamb and the Father as with the 144,000 (14:1), she proudly announces that she is “the mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” This fits a number of OT descriptions of city/nation prostitutes.
         1. Nineveh was the mistress of witchcraft & a harlot of conquest and cruelty (Nahum 3:1, 4).
         2. Tyre was the harlot of merchandise and commerce (Isa. 23:15-17).
         3. Babylon was the harlot of wealth and pleasure (Isa. 47:5-15).
         4. Jerusalem was the religious harlot (Eze. 16).
         5. Now Rome is called the mother of harlots and therefore she embodies all of these.
      6. Verse 6: Finally, we see her drunk. What a picture, a drunk woman dressed in scarlet sitting on a horrible beast. On what is she drunk? The blood of the saints. You can see her reeling with blood drooling out of her drunken mouth! 
      7. And please notice – John marveled greatly! But why? John may have been in a similar position as we are. At the time John is writing, the persecution “that was coming on the whole world” (3:10) had not yet happened. At the time, an individual citizen or dweller in the Roman Empire could not see the danger at hand and the true character of the beast that was rising up. But with this vision, the nature of the beast and the harlot–city is seen. 
2. Recognizing the Danger of the Prostitute
   1. We may not have immediately realized it, but in unveiling  the prostitute the Lord has shown us a woman who is in contrast to the woman of chapter 12 who was clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. This is the woman who gave birth to the man child who would rule all the nations. She and her offspring “keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus,” and conquer the dragon by “the word of their testimony, loving not their lives even unto death.” Please note how God views the “world city.”
   2. Later, we will see these who are faithful pictured as a beautiful city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven. Two women, one who is pure and loyal to the Lamb and the other who is a prostitute seducing the world with her power and immoralities. Two cities, one a holy city, which came down out of heaven prepared as a bride, and the other, mother of all harlots. 
   3. Notice the emphasis on sexual immorality with the kings and peoples of the earth: verses 1, 2, 4, 5. The question is, what does this mean? How did the kings and the “peoples, multitudes, and nations and languages” (15) commit sexual immorality with Rome?
      1. First, the metaphor of sexual immorality is used because of its likeness to the physical sin. It is an escape from “God’s restrictions” which seems to offer a “magic carpet ride” to experience what would otherwise be unknown. Just like Eve seeing the tree and the fruit stirring the desires of her flesh and her eyes, and the pride of what she could become. 
      2. The woman “Folly” in Proverbs describes the allurement:
         “The woman Folly is loud; she is seductive and knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house; she takes a seat on the highest places of the town, calling to those who pass by, who are going straight on their way, ‘Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!’ And to him who lacks sense she says, ‘Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’ But he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.” (Proverbs 9:13–18)
      3. Thus, the figurative use of sexual immorality is used because it so seductive and goes almost unnoticed in the beginning until one’s mind is captured by the lust of the eyes. 
      4. Paul chose two sins in which he commanded us to “flee”: sexual immorality and idolatry. Why flee? Because these are “potato chip” sins – just one taste takes us into a deep pit and gives us a desire for more. Once we commit these sins, we cannot get the taste of out of our minds. 
      5. Proverbs 7:6-23 gives us a picture of physical immorality, but the same seduction is seen in the idolatry of spiritual immortality. Verse 27: “Her house is the way to death.” You can see from this picture that the “Great Rome/Prostitute” is offering the same magic carpet ride that cannot be attained any other way. 
      6. Therefore note the characteristics of the prostitute’s offer of sexual immorality and subsequent nations and cultures. Thus the woman sitting on the beast says:
         1. Accept my religious and idolatrous demands of ungodly living. Offer sacrifices and pay homage to me in my temples. Go enjoy my priestesses. Do not rebuke or teach against my lustful culture and support my worldliness. In return, I will give you security, money, and ultimate pleasure. 
         2. Why did Israel make a golden calf? Why did the Canaanites have an Ashtoreth goddess? Why did they and Israel worship the Baals? (1) An idol does not rebuke us for fulfilling our fleshly desires. Since we made the idol, we make our own rules. (2) Yahweh does not give us what we want when we want it. (3) We don’t trust Yahweh to provide all my desires.
      7. If there is any question about how easy it is to fall into the clutches of the prostitute, consider James 4:3-4, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” How easy to be a “Christian” and be a “friend” of the world. 
   4. We typically do not appreciate our dangerous condition in a country that offers anything we desire at a moment’s notice. Don’t have enough money? That’s okay, just pull out your credit card. Sexual desires? The golden calf can be worshiped on any number of TV channels. Seek all the experiences that might be good to enjoy “during the few days of your life” (Eccl. 2:3)? That’s the best!—“Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure…and this was my reward from all my toil” (Eccl. 2:10).
   5. Be warned! Do you know the reason that wealth is flowing like water during a flood and that the average worker can live far beyond what most could not have dreamed of just 30 years ago? It is because in that time our government has borrowed and printed 36 trillion dollars and pumped it into our economy. And every politician knows that our false feeling of wealth is what gets them elected. And on top of that, let’s get rid of all the moral boundaries so that everyone can identify with whatever fleshly desire that can be invented in their corrupt and rotting minds. Sound like the prostitute? 
   6. Jeremiah 4:30-31 [the Israel/prostitute making one last attempt to save herself from being destroyed by her lovers]  “And you, O desolate one, what do you mean that you dress in scarlet, that you adorn yourself with ornaments of gold, that you enlarge your eyes with paint? In vain you beautify yourself. Your lovers despise you; they seek your life. For I heard a cry as of a woman in labor, anguish as of one giving birth to her first child, the cry of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands, “Woe is me! I am fainting before murderers.” From the beginning, the only interest these nations had in her was to satisfy their evil desires. Now they will destroy her because she can no longer satisfy their lusts.

Conclusion: God’s words to the original Babylon/Prostitute is an appropriate conclusion: Isaiah 47:8-11.
“Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one besides me; I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children’: These two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day; the loss of children and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the great power of your enchantments. You felt secure in your wickedness; you said, ‘No one sees me’; your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, and you said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one besides me.’ But evil shall come upon you, which you will not know how to charm away; disaster shall fall upon you, for which you will not be able to atone; and ruin shall come upon you suddenly, of which you know nothing.”

Berry Kercheville

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Perfecting the Love of God

1 John 4:7-21

Introduction: How much thought do you give to loving others? I would imagine that for most of us, we are just trying to get through the day. Oh sure, the needs of others certainly crosses our minds, especially when it is urgent and brought to our attention. But providing for urgent needs isn’t the sum total of loving one another.

In our last lesson we looked at 1 Corinthians 13 and Paul’s emphasis as love as the greatest of all character traits that Jesus expects of us. It is the first virtue listed in the fruit of the Spirit and it is the pinnacle of virtue of Peter’s list growing to become partakers of the divine nature. In other words, there is simply nothing more important. And yet, we typically do not give much thought to it, especially when relationships become troubled. 

In John’s first epistle, loving the brothers is a primary theme. In chapter 4, he explains why: we are called to perfect the love of God. 

1. Love Defined
   1. Understanding love can be elusive. We “love” everything! Love is so deeply connected to our immediate emotions that we become dulled to its real meaning. Therefore, it is imperative that we define love as God defined it.
   2. 1 John 3:16-18 “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” 
   3. In our text, verse 9 states, “In this the love of God was made manifest [revealed, made visible] among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” 
      1. We could easily say that God showed his love in many ways throughout the OT. But never was the measure of his love truly evident until he “sent his only Son into the world.” 
      2. Please notice the words, “that we might live through him.” The concept is striking. He gave up his Son to give life to us. That is like saying that I would be willing to give up one of my children in order to save one of  your children. Of course, I don’t want anything to happen to your children, but what if the only hope for your child is giving up my child? The whole scenario is unimaginable, but that’s what God did. 
   4. Maybe we can appreciate this concept more when we think of God telling Abraham, “take your son, your only son whom you love, and offer him as a burnt offering…” Now, do you understand God’s definition of love? 
   5. Verse 10: There is another aspect of God’s love to consider: “In this is love, not that we loved God.” We are not the originator or definition of love. God defined love and is the standard of love. Romans 5:8, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
      Our love for God is not magnanimous in that we are loving someone who has never done anything for us or loving someone who is undeserving. That is why love cannot be defined by us! And, it is why we cannot use our own comparative, earthly standards to evaluate how we love. 
   6. Verse 11: Thus John’s pause and exhortation: “If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” 
      1. Therefore, the foundational definition of love as God displayed it is not how we loved him, but how he loved us. He loved enemies. He loved the unlovable. He loved when he wasn’t being loved. That is how love is defined.
      2. This should always be our motivation, our stimulus. When loving is difficult, considering the great love God had for us should take away any hesitation to love as we should or initiate love even when it is underserved.

• • • Words of the Hymn, “Here Is Love”
      “Here is love, vast as the ocean,
      Lovingkindness as the flood,
      When the Prince of life, our ransom,
      Shed for us His precious blood…
      On the mount of crucifixion
      Fountains opened deep and wide;
      Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
      Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
      Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
      Poured incessant from above,
      And heaven’s peace and perfect justice
      Kissed a guilty world in love.”

1. Perfecting the Love of God
   1. Verse 12: “No one has seen God…” seems to be an odd assertion in the midst of John’s discussion on love. But note carefully the connection to the rest of the verse. “If we love one another God abides in us…” In other words, since God is invisible to the world, if we love one another as we should, the world will be able to see God because God will be abiding in us.
      1. In John 1:18, John made the same argument concerning the coming of Jesus. In Jesus, the world could see the invisible God. Now that Jesus is gone back to heaven, he has left us as his offspring so that we continue to show the world the invisible God.
      2. Therefore, it is in this way that God’s love is perfected in us. “Perfected” is the idea of bringing God’s love to its ultimate goal or to completion. We continue to see this repeated theme in scripture of us being image-bearers of God. By being the offspring of Jesus, everything Jesus did, we do because we are a reflection of him. Thus, back in verse 7, if we love we have been born of God. 
      3. Notice again the phrase in verse 12, “if God abides in us…” The idea of God abiding in us indicates that the way we love has become a natural, inherent way we live. Just like the parts of the fruit of the Spirit, we grow to the point where we become what was previously unnatural to us because God has taken over our inner being. Put another way, it should be unnatural to do anything but love! 
      4. Consider that Jesus didn’t see sinners and tax collectors come to him and think, “Oh no, here comes these people again!” When people were screaming at him on the cross, mocking him, and saying terrible things about him, he did not think, “Father, there is a special part of hell for people like this!” Jesus didn’t will himself to think in a loving way, it is that he couldn’t think any other way. It was not in his nature!
      5. I hope we can see how easily we violate this principle and how important it is to change.
   2. Therefore, the obvious question is, how can we grow to this love? Verses 16-17 gives us the key. Our ability to love is dependent on knowing, believing and valuing God’s love for us. 
      1. Luke 7:36-51 We have noted this incident many times, and there is no need to rehearse it in detail. However, something in the story especially struck me when considering how we love. Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven – for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little” Luke 7:47. Both Simon and the woman “love.” But one loves little and one loves much. Jesus commends the woman for loving much and exposes Simon’s love as inadequate.
      2. Consider, how did Jesus evaluate the love of each person in the story? Jesus quantified the love of each by comparing how they responded to what he had done for them. Therefore, our challenge: do we love little or love much? John is giving us the standard. Jesus loved much!
   3. This should be a reminder this is to us of the danger of valuing certain commands greater than others. Listen to Jesus: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness, these you ought to have done, without neglecting  the others” (Matt. 23:23). We can stand on our head proclaiming the need to “repent and be baptized” or else be lost, but then hardly a whimper comes from us concerning how we love each other or love a lost world. If this happens, woe to us! 
   4. 4:20-21 Final warning: If we do not love one another we do not love God.
      1. Why is the way we love one another so important to God? There is a reason God is always pushing us and forcing us into relationships we are not allowed to sever, whether it be in marriage, family, or the church. 
      2. Ephesians 5:25-28 says it all: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.” 
      3. We are being prepared as a bride that Christ will present to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle…holy and without blemish. Therefore, the testing ground for being his bride is whether we love those he loves! The proof of our love for him whom we cannot see is loving those we can see. It is simply obvious that we cannot be his bride if we have not learned to love.
2. Our Mission: Perfected Love
   1. It is seen in three areas of our life:
      1. Love God by pursuing the knowledge of him
      2. Love one another by sacrificing ourselves for each other’s good
      3. Love a lost world by involving ourselves in their lives as salt and light
   2. It is demonstrated in the way we model Jesus’ love:
      1. Jesus loved first. God-like love initiates love; it does not wait to be loved. Waiting to be loved before we love, is not imitating God.
      2. Jesus loved even when it meant putting himself at risk of being rejected and mocked.
      3. Jesus loved even those who hated him, even when there was a high probability of rejection. We cannot excuse ourselves from love because people are difficult or even hate us.
      4. Jesus loved people who were different or outcasts from society. We tend to love people who are like us and avoid people who are not.
      5. Jesus’ love accomplished what is best for people even when it was not what people wanted. People usually like their lives just the way it is. They put an imaginary sign up that says, “Do not disturb.” But love still operates in their best interests.
      6. Jesus’ love persisted and endured even when it was inconvenient and he was wronged and abused.
      7. Jesus’ love came at extreme cost to himself, even a death on the cross. There is no cost too high to pay for someone’s soul.. Perfect love will be attained at a heavy cost.

Berry Kercheville

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