The Book of Revelation – Revelation Chapter 17, Verse 2
2 (AV) …with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
2 (YLT) …with whom the kings of the earth did commit whoredom; and made drunk from the wine of her whoredom were those inhabiting the earth’;
2 (IGNT) μεθ ης επορνευσαν οι βασιλεις της γης και εμεθυσθησαν εκ του οινου της πορνειας αυτης οι κατοικουντες την γην
2 …with whom the kings of the earth prostituted themselves and those living on the earth are made drunk out of the wine of the her prostitution. (fornication)
Fornication is translated from eporneusan, which means to prostitute oneself. Derived from porneuo, with the sense of selling oneself, generally for sex, but is used by God in reference to committing idolatry. Whatever the details, the kings of the earth, or world leaders in this prophecy, have sold themselves to the harlot in idolatry.
While their idolatry may pertain specifically to spiritual worship of something in place of God, it is possible that they pursued something more worldly in place of God through their association with this “whore”, whether fortune or power, or some other practical element for which they desired so strongly as to take part in her evil in order to obtain it. The angel’s explanation may bring clarity to the specifics.
While the kings “committed fornication” with this “whore”, earth’s inhabitants were “made drunk” with the wine of her fornication. To be drunken is to be senseless, so people will have become senseless with that which enables one to lose judgement, inhibition, modesty, manners, reasoning skills. Wine is a means of inducing drunkenness, but is used by many to celebrate and “have fun”, or make people “feel good”. She “lived deliciously” (Rev 18) at the expense of multitudes, who themselves were drawn into her sin and welcomed it for how it made them feel. Her substance intoxicated the people of the world. Note that there is no limit by numbers, geography, nor tribe, to those who were made foolish; the wording indicates that this is a world-wide situation involving all who have not received the seal of God on their foreheads.
Different possibilities for the identity of the woman have been suggested. Included are:
Islam – the kings of the earth all sold their countries and their souls for the wealth of the oil under Islamic ground. Western leaders refused to pull their own oil, but purchased Arab oil at great cost to their countries, both in money and in the benefits of work that were lost to them.
Earth inhabitants became dependant upon oil and its derivatives: to heat, to cook, textiles, plastics, tools – virtually no aspect of daily life, or commercial, or industrial practice, lacked the abundant use of oil-derived products. To lose the resource would mean the end of ability to maintain life in northern spheres, or to run the majority of businesses. World affairs would grind to a halt without the products that oil provides. Because the west has demonized oil extraction and processing in their own countries, preferring to enrich the Islamic machine that luxuriates from the proceeds of their oil, verse two could easily describe Islam when describing the woman seated on the beast.
Indeed, Islam is “full of …. blasphemy”, continually blaspheming the name of the living God.
Rome – Rome ruled over the “civilized” world for centuries, and many countries continue to submit to its leadership in various ways. Popes for the past several decades have profoundly influenced the global movements, in and beyond the UN. The present pope has influenced social norms by rejecting traditional RC doctrines on sexuality in particular, embracing Islamic leaders as ‘brothers” – perhaps because of their mutual admiration for Mary as an important figure in religious history? Frances embraced C19 vaccines, pushing them as a divine gift and obligation to the entire world.
Rome enriched itself on the backs of its adherents, and the millions pillaged by international conflicts led and sometimes fought by the Vatican. The opulence of the living conditions of the highest members of the leadership compares easily to the wealthiest capitalists in the world, including the oil barons.
Rome is an organic blasphemy; founded on many lies belittling Christ, damning all who proclaim the gospel as presented in the Bible, demanding the allegiance of its members ABOVE any allegiance to both Christ Himself and His holy Scripture. Its leader declares himself to be the “vicar” of Christ – Christ’s particular representative on earth – and infallible in all his religious pronouncements.
Yet the vileness of the papacy and countless of its clergy, is known throughout the world. Riches, indulgence of all physical desires and urges, is the hallmark of the upper management of the Roman apostasy, followed by too many of the priests under them.
Communism – the elite has grown in number, strength, influence, and wealth, off the labours and losses of those they pretend to defend. Indulgence typifies lifestyles of the leaders and those who work most closely with them – until they err and are eliminated and replaced.
Communism decries the existence of any deity, and the ideology despises the living God inherently; it is blasphemous to the core, demanding that the people worship only the system, its leaders, and the ideal of communism. Millions have died for failing to embrace the usurpation of their liberty and their goods, the thieving of their labour and their very flesh, and for persisting in worshiping God above the government, its despots, or the idea.
Like Rome and Islam, communism seeks to spread into all lands, envelope all people, and consume all other ideas and movements. Along with its evil step-sisters – children of the same rebellious father of lies – communism has pushed across all developed nations, destroying everything touched by it.
New Age – generally unrecognized by the church, and underestimated as well, the New Age movement has pervaded every nation and every western religious institution. New Age ideas and practices have become so common-place that a small minority of people notice when it shows its face, despite displaying itself millions of times daily in every venue imaginable. Western vocabulary has adopted many of its catch-phrases as common parlance, and the western church has embraced so many of its ideas and accommodated so many of its practices as to have quenched the Holy Spirit in conviction, correction, teaching, and every other of His ministries. Many of the world’s most prominent religious leaders participate in the multitude of special events hosted and run by an increasing number of New Age influencers, and scores of well-known, apparently Christian teachers have become its spokespersons inside of the professing church, bringing doctrines and practices which God has clearly condemned from earliest days, riding in on the back of idolatries of personal well-being, “social justice”, and inclusivity.
Decades ago, the holistic health movement alone was a multi-billion-dollar industry in the US. With myriad self-improvement opportunities presented as “wellness” or as business acumen, more millions of westerners have incorporated New Age into their personal and corporate lives than most people could imagine. Admitting the intention to invade by stealth – not dissimilar to Islam’s taqqya in which lying for the furtherance of Islam is considered a virtue – key New Age influencers have successfully invaded virtually every aspect of private and public existence in the western world, as well as many eastern countries, and hold multiple key positions in the most critical international organizations, where they have for decades directed the activities and outcomes of those organizations toward a single global government, a single global religion, and the anticipation of a New Age “Christ” to come in the near future, when human spiritual evolution has achieved a required level to permit this New Age saviour to be revealed. Wealth and power belong to this movement, at least to the degree of any of the previous efforts by Satan’s minions to take over God’s world.
The blasphemy of the New Age movement is the declaration that “I am God”, the anticipation of the development of the “Christ consciousness” in oneself – the acknowledgement that self is “Christ”, of which idea humanity had allegedly lost consciousness, and which knowledge must be restored and affirmed before humanity as an whole may “ascend” to its highest evolutionary level – that of Masters, who teach and instruct the lower humanity in the proper awareness and understanding. Ultimately, the goal is to “reunite with the universe”, to have our energies merge with that of the “universe”, that we all become a cosmic “one” where no pain, illness, wickedness, or other negative aspect continues to exist. This of course is achievable as we become aware of our innate power and deity, and transcend the limitations placed on us by our earthly flesh. As with the previous four ideologies, those who refuse to adapt, must be purged in order to ensure the desired outcome, which in New Age is the advancement of the species to a higher spiritual order.
False Religious Beliefs in General – Paganism – it is entirely possible that “mystery Babylon” is not a single religious idea but an umbrella for all false religious beliefs, which proliferated world-wide with various details and differing false “gods”, but all from the same spirit of lies, blasphemy, and hatred of the living and true God. Some of these religions have been deeply metaphysical in their profession and practice, while others have been mostly or entirely materialistic. The common aspects of all, regardless of their individual claims, was a repudiation of the truth of the Bible, the replacement of the living and true God with spiritual or material alternatives, the requirement of actions either prescribed or described in order to achieve whatever is presented as the end-goal of the ideology, and varying degrees of animosity toward the people and truth of Jesus Christ, as given by His revelation in the Bible.
Because every false religion is by nature an affront against God, motivated at some point by a wilful rejection of Him, they are also inherently blasphemous.
Could it be said that the “kings of the earth committed fornication with” any of the above religions ideologies? In fact, virtually every national leader, whether king, president, or prime minister, has been guilty of embracing one of the above-named specific ideologies in particular or embraced some other pagan ideology, as a national leader. Western nations have sold their souls, as it were, to accommodate Islam, and to benefit from the oil produced and sold “cheap” by Muslim Middle East nations.
Western nations have partnered with the Roman apostasy in pursuing global coordination and governance, allowing successive pontiffs a place at the international political table, and an influential voice among political leaders. Having compromised even their own doctrines to embrace “unity” with Islamic leaders, Rome has worked toward a religious collaboration to achieve world governance – an interesting and ironic development to any who understand both religions and their goal to draw the entire world under their headship, and their history of abusing and destroying those who resist.
Communism has informally infected every western ‘democracy” in recent years, exploiting the democratic process as a blind to delude western voters that they have somehow contributed meaningfully to the decision of who gets to lead their national, provincial or state, and municipal affairs, and by what standards and values their nations shall be governed. Gorbachev confessed in his 1987 book, Perestroika, that communism had not fallen, as the western world was coached to believe, but that it had been “democratized”, in an effort to deceive particularly the United States that Russia had changed and with it, the world, to a more respectful and honourable means of administering the affairs of large geographic entities. Nearly forty years later, the majority of the western nations are themselves run as communist strongholds, with government control of all valuable resources and means of production, tight restrictions on contrary communication, with government financing of “approved” media and punishments of those who dare speak publicly against the current regime, wide-spread corruption in all political spheres across every inhabited continent, and the illusion of choice to voters whose ballots offer names who represent the same ideals and intentions as one another, with exceptions only among those incapable of ever filling a mandate to govern.
Western politicians who earn between 225,000 and 775,000 annual salaries, are found to have personal “net worth” of many millions – in many cases, several ten’s of millions – while allegedly having no other business involvements while they are in office. These “kings of the earth” have certainly enriched themselves off of the system under which they have oppressed those who have been fooled into voting for them, which voters are certainly rendered senseless – drunken – from what has been produced by these workers of iniquity given the privilege of running nations into the ground while they benefit from the labours and resources of their respective people.
Among these possible candidates for “mystery Babylon”, do any possess the characteristics listed in the subsequent verses in which John further describes this “woman” and the beast on which she rides?
Revelation 17:1 Revelation 17:3
Follow
