The Bible Study Podcast, Episode 195. Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of Revelation

with Chapter 17. Welcome to the Bible Study Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen.

Chapter 17 starts like this.

One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters.

With her, the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with wine of her adulteries.

Then the angel carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness.

There I saw a woman, sitting on a scarlet beast, that was covered with blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.

The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering

with gold, precious stones, and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable

things, the filth of her adulteries. The name written on her forehead was a mystery, Babylon

the Great, the mother of prostitutes, and of the abominations of the earth.

I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of God's holy people, the blood of those who bore

testimony to Jesus. Now, some things again in this chapter are clear and some things are not clear.

One of the things that is clear

is whoever has been persecuting the saints whoever has been martyring the people of god

their day has come for judgment now what is unclear is this beast this mother of prostitutes

babel and the great who she is, what country, what city, what people.

And I say that's unclear because by the time this is written, Babylon had been destroyed for many years.

And so this is not likely to be a reincarnation of the ancient Babylon,

but it's more likely to be language that is concealed

that references Babylon so that we don't give away who it is, possibly because this would be

Rome, and you wouldn't want to make it obvious to the oppressors that you're writing bad

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