December 18: TRUE GREATNESS
And the woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth. Revelation 17:18
In showing to John the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters (v.1), the angel is making a solid case of her identity. She is called a prostitute because of her spiritual seduction of the people of the world. She effectively draws them into her house of ill repute, dragging them into relationships with someone who is not God. Any such relationship is illicit and purposefully misleading. The average, unwary individual does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of hell (Proverbs 9:18).
The entity revealed as the great harlot is also called that great city. They are one and the same. The earliest inklings of the great city are foreshadowed. When Abel made an offering to God of the firstborn of his flock (Genesis 4:4), he was obedient to the essential prophetic lesson of the Lamb who was to come and bear the world’s sin. The role of the coming Savior was real to him and central in his worship. Cain’s offering of some of his crops was his own idea, not God’s. Obviously, he thought his idea was a good one and, under the influence of Satan, was convinced that he didn’t need a Savior; he could save himself. The effect of regarding his own ideas above God’s resulted in murder and a fracturing of the first family. He never saw his parents again. Such woe! After Cain departed from the presence of the LORD and his family, he built a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch (v.17). This action has been repeated many times over: Their inner thought is that their houses will last forever, their dwelling places to all generations; They call their lands after their own names (Psalm 49:11).
The first city ever built by man has a direct connection to the last. Of course, this last one is symbolic and covers the entire earth: MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT, out of which has been birthed every conceivable false religion; hence, the rest of her identifying title: THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH (Revelation 17:5). The spirit of this city has spread like a virus over the world and is not of God. It is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.
Satan, who has lent his power to this entity, moves like a shadow into every country and into every home on planet earth. But the gospel message is great news; far greater in fact than the “greatness” of the great city which reigns over the kings of the earth. The power of the great news of the pure and everlasting gospel (14:6) is found in the true greatness of our magnificent, magnanimous Savior. The kings of the earth are the antithetical parallel to those of heavenly citizenship which is in that grandest of all cities: the heavenly Jerusalem! To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1:5b-6) Hallelujah! Satan’s end is prophesied and absolutely certain.* If your ideas are out of alignment with God’s expressed will, the sooner you relinquish them, the better!
*Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings that they might gaze at you. You have become a horror, and shall be no more forever. Ezekiel 28:17,19b