QUESTION:
Is there any chance that
America could be the great city, Babylon? Not the harlot, but
the commercial Babylon?
STEPHEN'S ANSWER:
Little can be said dogmatically
about the identity of "The Great Harlot" and "Babylon".
But Revelation 17:5 does tell us clearly that the great harlot
is called "Babylon the great". Relation 17:8 also confirms
that "the woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns
over the kings of the earth". Therefore, we can safely conclude
that the harlot and Babylon (the great city) are tightly connected,
if not identical.
From the descriptions given in Revelation
17, we can list the characteristics of the harlot as follows:
1. She "sits on many waters"
(v1), which are "peoples and multitudes and nations and
tongues (v15);
2. She "committed acts of immorality" with the kings
of the earth (v2a);
3. She made those who dwell on the earth "drunk with the
wine of her immorality" (v2b);
4. She was seen sitting on the scarlet beast who has seven heads
and ten horns (a clear reference to the last Satanic kingdom
headed by the Anti-Christ) (v3);
5. She was described as "clothed in purple and scarlet,
and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having
in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean
things of her immorality" (v4);
6. She was called a "mystery", also "Babylon
the great", and "the mother of harlots and of the
abominations of the earth" (v5);
7. She was "drunk with the blood of the saints, and with
the blood of the witnesses of Jesus" (v5);
8. She will finally be hated by the ten horns and the beast,
who will "make her desolate and naked, and will eat her
flesh and will burn her up with fire" (v16);
9. She is "the great city, which reigns over the kings
of the earth" (v18).
We can thus summarize that
this great harlot, first of all, is a worldwide religious system
that leads kings and people away from the only true God and has
enjoyed persecuting true saints and followers of Jesus Christ
for a prolonged period of time. Second, this religious system
will initially be used by Anti-Christ and his ten-nation kingdom
as a way to gain control over the world, but eventually be abandoned
and destroyed. Finally, it is also a great city near the sea.
It is thus in my opinion
that this great harlot refers to the Catholic Church of Rome,
the great city the city of Vatican.
PS: not to mention the purple
and scarlet clothing and the gold cup! See the two pictures below
for yourself:
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 These
are the colors of the
Holy See,
or the administrative arm of the Vatican. The Pope's
aides wear purple vestments , with shirt sleeves
that are scarlet from the elbow to the wrist and
purple skull caps , while Cardinal Bishops wear
black and scarlet. As for the Pontiff, he generally
wears white under garments with a scarlet cape when
he is there.
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Pope John Paul II, dressed in purple, holds a golden
cup, during the Papal Apology Mass on March 12th,
2000. Some Cardinals in attendance wore both prophetic
colors of purple and scarlet.
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Scripture quotations taken from the
New American Standard Bible.
Further questions or comments on this
answer may be sent to Stephen at here.
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