REVELATION 17

This chapter is highly symbolic and will certainly not be understood by anyone who is unwilling to face the
facts. The first seven verses deals with religion and the last ten verses deals with political rule. The two
principle figures are the harlot and the Beast.

1. THE HARLOT (Vs. 1-7)

1. The harlot is not a city or a woman but an institution – V-15.

2. The fornication here is spiritual fomication — intercourse between the church and state.

3. The harlot is the world-wide religious institution that will be the state church or religion of the Beast during his reign on the earth.

4. The “Many waters” of V-1 are people – V-15.

5. The Bible calls Christ’s own Church “Bride of Christ,” “A Chaste virgin.” The opposite of this is a harlot – the world’s church.

6. The Roman Catholic Hierarchy (church) is the mother of all Protestant churches (Baptist are NON Protestants) and they will all go back into the Roman Catholic Church before or at the time of the Rapture. There you will have the old harlot, the “Mother of harlots.”

7. This gigantic hierarchy is the woman setting on the Beast – V-3.

8. No institution on earth has killed more saints or spilled more of their blood than Roman Catholicism.

2. THE BEAST (Vs 8-16)

1. The Beast is the anti-christ, the last Gentile world-ruler. Everyone on the earth will stare in wonder at
this man, except those whose names are in the Book of Life. Christians are the only people who really understand world conditions now.

2. A mountain in Scripture is a symbol for a kingdom. The seven mountains of V-9 are seven nations that will have Roman Catholicism as state religion.

3. We believe that the five kings that are fallen (V-10) are the four that Daniel saw plus Egypt.

4. V-14 refers to the Battle of Armageddon.

5. In Vs 14-16 the Beast and his ten puoodet kings turn on this religious hierachy (harlot) and destroy it. More on this subject in chapter 18.

6. Note that this is all a part of the purpose and plan of God – V-17.

2. Is one church as good as another/ Is a harlot as good as a “Chaste Virgin” espoused to the King of Kings.

9. The universal invisible church idea is that we can take the old harlot, mother of all her little harlot daughters, put them all in a pot together with the true churches and they together become “A chaste virgin.” The “The Bride of Christ” this is even more absurd than Aaron’s explanation of the golden calf in Exdous 32.24.