Revelation 17:13-18

Verse 13-14 “These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them; for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.”

Now it can be seen how the beast comes to power. These ten hand their power over to him. When discussing the possibility of this ten person league being a Muslim federation, and the beast being the Mahdi, it is easy to see why if this is the scenario they would hand their power over to him without hesitation. The fact that in Daniel we are told that three of them are subdued by him could result from the fact that later on he proclaims himself God. The Muslims do not believe that Allah can be incarnated in a man. Therefore they would not accept his claim to godhood, while they would accept him as the messiah or anointed one. It is possible that the necessity to subdue (probably kill) these three comes when they object to the elevation to godhood (regardless of whether it is a Muslim Mahdi or not). The other seven probably fall in line to save their own lives (again regardless of whether it is a Muslim league or not). It would not be the first time that this sort of behavior has happened. Not all of Hitler's henchman really believed in him, but they did as they were told to save their own skins. I am guessing the same can be said of the group that surrounded Saddam Hussein.

When the ten give their power and strength (read that as armies) over to the beast they expect that by doing so the beast will be able to overcome the Christian God. They are wrong. Christ is not only the Lamb, He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and cannot be defeated. He will be the winner, and those that are His followers will overcome, even in death. Note that God does not just call His servants followers. He gives a very specific order as to how they became His followers. They were called, then chosen, and remained faithful. This goes along with what has been taught so far in this Bible study. God calls people first, then based upon their response to that call, He chooses them. Then God can predestine their lives to His will (but it must be realized that God knew everything from the foundation of the world, so He knew in advance their choice and therefore elected or chose them and predestined them from the beginning), and they have the obligation to remain faithful to the end in order to actually qualify as followers of Christ. That is how election and predestination works. Many people misunderstand this. It is as if someone asked a crowd, "Who wants to have a free trip to Hawaii?" Some people will raise their hands, but some may actually not want to take a free trip to Hawaii, so don't raise their hands. Now, even though they raised their hands, they can't just grab the free trip to Hawaii. They still can do nothing to get it except wait to be chosen or for that person's approval to go. But if the person giving out the free trips is generous, he will take everyone who wants to go. Now if he was omniscient, he would know in advance who would raise their hands, so planned on taking that many people with him. So many are called, but you have to be chosen, but it is a choice based on our response, and oddly enough, when it comes to God, the majority don't want to raise their hands, so they aren't chosen.

Verse 15 “And he saith unto me, the waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.”

This was covered at the beginning of the chapter.

Verse 16 “And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.”

As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, it is often assumed that the beast and the whore are part and parcel of the same entity, but this indicates that there is animosity between at least the ten people who have propelled the beast into power and the whore, if not between the whore and the beast himself. The whore has ridden the beast all this time. A rider uses a beast to get them where they want to go. A rider controls the beast to a certain degree as long as the beast allows itself to be controlled. The beast that is ridden is always subservient to the rider. It would appear that after all these millennia of being ridden, the beast may be rebelling. At the very least, his counsel of ten are rebelling against her and her control over their leader. There is a schism between the two that is going to cost the whore her very life. To date, the whore has been the goddess of the Babylonian mysteries, the Queen of Heaven who has claimed the worship of her followers. Now the beast wants to be worshiped as god and there is no room for sharing. Babylon is competition and she must go. As a result the ten see to it that she is destroyed. They will burn her with fire, which will eat her flesh and make her desolate and naked. Common sense says that given that this destruction comes from the ten and not directly from God, and given our technology, this is most likely a nuclear attack. When this occurs Babylon will cease to exist for the rest of time, as God wants it to be permanent. As we will see she will become a haunt for demons and unclean animals and never be inhabited again. We will explore more of what the possible reasons for the animosity between Babylon and the beast are later.

Verse 17 “For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.”

The ten horns destroy the whore because God is using them to do His will, which is to destroy her for Him. They believe they are doing this so that her kingdom can be handed over to the beast. This would not only give the beast political power, but would force everyone to give up her religion (Remember that all Jews and Christians have either been killed or are being protected by God, so that only leaves either Babylonian religious followers [take your pick of religions] or atheists.) and adhere to the worship of the beast as the only religion. No matter what the powers on earth think they are doing for themselves, ultimately they are still doing God’s will. Again while there is no proof that the beast is the Muslim Mahdi, it would make the most sense of the scenario of why they want her destroyed. If she joins the New World Order and is in league with them, why would they need to destroy her? It would seem that in declaring himself God, the beast is not only wanting to usurp God, he wants to replace Babylon as the being to be worshiped. Satan was fine with using her as a tool for all this time to get people away from God, but now he wants his “son“ to be the god of this world, just as Christ is God‘s Son. Satan feels the need to imitate everything about God. He wants so badly to be God. If one were to speak to a psychiatrist, I am guessing that when a person is not mentally sound and they believe they are someone else, they feel the need to imitate the things that the person they believe they are has done or would do. Thus the death and “resurrection” of the beast, the claiming of the temple in Jerusalem as his throne, etc. Babylon worked for Satan all these millennia as the queen of heaven, as it appears possible that she is a powerful spiritual entity to whom others in the fallen spiritual realm must answer. However now that he has the whole world under his control, he no longer wants her as middle man. He wants people to worship him more directly. All of the Babylonian religions tend to be polytheistic as lesser spiritual entities posed as gods within her religion given that she is not an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient being. She needed the hierarchy to keep track of things within her religion. Now Satan does not want to share the worship with a multitude of other “gods.” The only three monotheistic religions are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The first two worship the true God. It would therefore seem likely that the scenario of Islam being the religion of the beast as a convenient vehicle for Satan to get everyone worshiping him alone is a plausible scenario. Therefore the fall and destruction of Babylon are a necessity. Since America seems to be her residence and through whom she wields her power, it is likely that it is America will be destroyed by this league of ten on behalf of the beast. At this time (although that could easily change), America is the most powerful nation, which would make us the only ones who would have the power to oppose him. This is another reason for believing America is where Babylon resides rather than a confederation of Arabic nations with Iraq at the helm.

Verse 18 “And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.”

Now we have another definitive identifying factor for Babylon. She controls the city which controls all of the rest of the world’s leaders. Here we come down to the question of, are we talking spiritual control, political control, or financial control. If speaking of spiritual control, (using a spiritual position to influence politics) again a case could be made for the Vatican, as we have all seen political leaders bow and kiss the Pope‘s ring, as if they owe him obeisance. However, there is a United Religions organization that exists which is uniting the religions of the world and is the spiritual equivalent to the New World Order. This must be considered when speaking of spiritual control. The United Religions movement is headquartered in the U.S. This would place the spiritual control of Babylon in this country. If we are talking strictly political control, the visible center of political control is the United Nations in NYC (however many of the leaders of these countries answer to the Illuminati, as they are members of the Freemasons or other organizations which are controlled by the Illuminati.) If speaking of financial control, we are speaking of the power brokers of the world who control the banking conglomerates (otherwise known as the top level Illuminati). Is there a particular city that would answer this last entity? Possibly still NYC as that is where Wall Street resides, although many of the people who own these world banks live in Europe (They don’t want to get nuked when Babylon catches it.) It would seem that the place where these three things cross, even if others qualify in some respects (but not all) is again America. It does seem that America is the top candidate for Babylon.