Synopsis: Babylon is beautiful. Babylon is a lie. In Revelation 17, the Apostle John pulls back the curtain on the world system that has always competed for the hearts of God’s people, and he doesn’t dress it up. He calls it what it is: a prostitute, passing a golden chalice full of death. She seduces with pleasure. The beast beneath her coerces with fear. Together they form a complete system designed to pull you away from God. But there is a better cup. Christ, the King of Kings, drank the cup of wrath you earned, so you don’t have to drink hers.

Text: Revelation 17
Date: June 14, 2026

Introduction

Opening Illustration – Garbage Beach: Years ago my wife and I traveled back to the place where we first in love, when I was a missionary in Thailand. It was a bit of reunion trip to go see my old friends, and her old friends and reminisce. We took nights and booked a hotel on a new island that had beautiful little huts along the beach. You can imagine the brochures. We were so excited. Our first warning that things were not what they seemed was on the ferry to the island. There is no way to describe that trip, other than to say, I am still surprised that we survived that ferry ride. But when we arrived, I quickly realized something about this beach. It was a disaster. The entire island was essentially one massive garbage dump. Trash and filth were everywhere, all through the water. I named it Garbage Island, and spent most of the two days trying to figure out if I could run mayor of the island to help get it in order.

Personal: Temptation to sin is a bit like that brochure to Garbage Island. It’s brochure is always great. It promises the world, but in the end, its offering only filth.

Context: Today we begin our sixth of seven cycles in Revelation. Each cycle in Revelation has told largely the same story, it’s the story of the Church Age—between the resurrection of Christ and the return of Christ. Each time the story is told new imagery and symbols are used to paint different shades and textures on the story. Today’s chapter is telling that stame story, and the symbols it uses are vulgar. Babylon, the seduction of power and culture that draws us away from God, is imagined as a prostitute. Like Garbage Island, the brochure looks nice, but what she offers is death.

Main Idea: Babylon’s offer of a golden challice is only full of death.

Meaning & Application

Revelation 17:1–6 “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled greatly.”

BABYLON’S CHALICE (1-6)

In these opening verses, we see a disgusting image. The words and the imagery are intentionally designed to make us sick to our stomach.

Prostitute: We’re introduce to a prostitute, or in other translations the more crude term “whore” is used. Those two words could be equivalents, and might be. Both terms descibe intense sexual sin. But there are two subtle differences between the words.

Prostitutes make wages. Whore is a derogatory term that could include prostitutes but also speaks of extremely sexually promiscuous women in general, even without the fee.

Further, the word “whore” is a particularly derogatory term. It conveys a peculiar vulgarity, an emotional disgust. Make no mistake, that is what you’re supposed to feel from this passage.

The prophets of the Old Testament often utilized that exact imagery to describe Israel’s waywardness. For example:

Jeremiah 3:1 “… You have played the whore with many lovers; and would you return to me? declares the Lord.”

Seduction: The description of this woman is like something out of a distopian novel.

Verse 2 says that everyone has been seduced by her: kings and commoners, capitalists and socialists, easterners and westerners, rich and poor, educated and uneducated. She is seated on many waters.

Verse 3 says she is seated on a scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns. That beast is the primary character in verses 7-14 so we will save our commentary on that beast for a bit later.

Verse 4 says she is clothed in fine jewelry and clothing and pearls and scarlet. From the outside she is very attractive. She is appealing. It’s not for no reason that everyone is seduced by her. She knows how to sell herself, and she’s effective at it.

Verse 4 again says she has a golden cup (or golden chalice). She is passing wine in a thrilling manner. But if anyone were to take the time to peer inside the golden veneer of her cup, for only a moment, they would see what the offer really holds. It’s a challice of death and abomination. Anyone who drinks from it, will die by it.

Verse 5 says that across her forehead is her name. Maybe this is a crown of sorts, or maybe more sickening it is a tattoo that reads “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.”

Verse 6 is the clincher. She is drunk with the blood of the saints. If you look close you can see the smeer of blood across her cheeks as she has filled herself on persecuting the Church.

Another Woman: In order to properly interpret this woman we have to recall a similar scene that we read just a few chapters ago. The fourth of Revelation began with a symbolic allegorical tale of a different woman, in chapter 12. By way of reminder, that woman gave birth to a son who the Satan, in the form of a dragon tried to kill. But the woman and the child were swept away to safety. That woman was pure. She was undefiled. She was safe in God’s arms. She was protected. That woman represented the Church before Christ, through whom the Son came.

Here we have the juxtaposition of that woman, in the form a prostitute. The comparison could not be any more clear or stark. Those who follow the lamb, though persecuted are righteous and secure. Those who follow the temptations of this world are unrighteous, and their end is certain.

She is Babylon: Who is this woman? She is identifed as Babylon, the worldly city. We have come across Babylon as a metaphor twice in Revelation.

Revelation 14:8 “Another angel, a second, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality.””

The prostitute is Babylon personified as a woman. In the Bible whenever a system or a thing is personified, it is personified so that we can get a full sense of the thing, understand it on a deeper and more significant level. In Israel’s history, Babylon was that ancient city that captured Jerusalem in 586BC and took the Israelites as captives. But the term “Babylon” became a byword for cities and cultures that were drunk with godlessness and debauchery and sexual immorality. Rome was Babylon. Chicago is Babylon. Chicago is the prostitute. Babylon represents the world as a center of industry, commerce, art, culture, which by all of these things seeks to entice and seduce believers to turn away from God, and to be satisfied in the things of this world.

Experiential: Is this how you see the world Christian? that is the point of this, the Apostle John is attempting to shape our worldview, to see the world accurately. The whole world, every person, every system, every nation, every government, every school, every institution, owes allegiance to God. But they’ve settled for a prostitute instead. The prophet Jeremiah warned of this. He wrote:

Jeremiah 2:13 “for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

Prostitute Imagery: The imagery of a prostitute is interesting here. What does a prostitute offer? The illusion of love. There’s no actual substance. There’s no actual authenticity. She may whisper in your ear that she loves you, but its empty. Her love cannot satisfy, because she doesn’t love you, she just wants your money.

Illustration – Judas: Judas Iscariot learned this the hard way. Judas was one of Christ’s twelve disciples. We’re told throughout the scriptures that he was in charge of the purse. And there were times where Judas’s greed shines through the pages. When the woman with the alabaster jar poured her ointment over Christ’s feet, he immediately responded that it was a waste of ointment and could have been sold for money. Ah, Judas’ heart was immersed in Babylon long before his betrayal. Ultimately, Judas sold out Christ for thirty pieces of silver. He got what he wanted. He got the money. Surely that will be enough for him. Surely, he’ll be satisfied now. But no sooner did he have the money in his hands then he threw it back to those who had given to him, realizing it wasn’t worth it. It was a golden cup full of bitterness and betrayal. Judas would take his own life that night in the siezing agony of selling Christ for Babylon.

Flirting: Babylon, the prostitute, wants to convince you that something other than God will satisfy you, that something other than God can thrill you, that something other than God sustain you. She has a lot of tricks up her sleeve. Money, amusements, sex, success, fame, comfort, safety, self-expression. Many in the Church will rightly, look out at the world drunk on pleasure and say, look how you sold yourself to that prostitute, while quietly flirting with her yourself. We’ve committed to following Christ, but our hearts, in many ways, still love the world. We still find the prostitute attractive. We glance at her. We sip from her cup. The receipts are in our browsing history, and our purchasing history, and our jealousies, and our discontentments.

A Christian is not somebody who never experiences any temptation from the prostitute. A Christian is increasingly learning to find the prostitute’s offer as sickening. There’s remorse for sin in a Christian’s heart. There’s remorse for a heart that still flirts with the sin. And we commit our lives and our hearts regularly to God and say, “Praise God, I’m forgiven, but now root this evil desire out of me that would ever dare to be deceived by that wicked prostitute.”

The Prostitutes Golden Chalice.

BABYLON’S METHODS OF DECEPTION

In verses 7-14, we see Babylon’s methods.

Revelation 17:7–14 “But the angel said to me, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come. This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction. And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast. These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast. They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.””

Seated on Beast: We are told in verse 3 that the woman is seated on a scarlet beast, with seven heads and ten horns, and blasphemous names written on it. We are familiar with this beast. We read about this beast in chapter 13.

Revelation 13:1 “And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads…

Chapter 13 had two separate that were coopted by Satan to serve his agenda. The first beast we identified as represeing all antiChristian government that persecutes the Church through the Church Age. And the second beast represented all antiChristian religion that persecutes the Church throughout the Church Age. The woman riding on the beast, means the two have interlaced. When empire grows, and culture grows with it, the whore will ride those coattails and offer her golden challice to the masses.

Confusing: Admittedly, verses 8-14 are very difficult to interpret. Even futurist interpreters who take this hyper-literally disagree with each other on exactly what is happening in this section. But let’s go through and pull out what we can from it.

Verse 8 says that the beast “was and is not and is about to rise from the bottomless pit.” We saw similar language to that about the beast back in chapter 13. I believe that is a reference to the recurring nature of this beast. This beast was present in Assyria, then Assyria faded away. But the beast came back in Babylon, then Babylon faded away. But the beast came back in Media, then in Persia, then in Greece, then in Rome. This is a reference to the reality that antiChristian government and antiChristian religion will echo in various forms throughout the ages, yet always the same spirit beneath it.

Verses 9 and 10 are interesting and cause a bit of confusion. The seven heads of the beast are said in verse 9 to represent seven mountains. Rome was the city on seven hills. So clearly, the author is saying that one permutation of the is Rome. But in vere 10 he says that the seven heads also represent seven kings. Which “seven kings” these are and how literally to take this, is difficult. There is a good case that it represents seven caesars of Rome in John’s day: Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligular, and Claudius (“five have fallen”), Nero (“one who is”), then Galba whose reign lasted only seven months (“a little while” (10)).

Verse 12, likewise speaks of 10 kings. This is explainable quite clearly by Rome’s 10 provinces. It could also simply be a metaphorical reference to all the governors and prefects who served underneath Caesar.

Verse 13, the main point of all these forces is that they are of “one mind,” to “wage war against the lamb.” All of these institutions and organizations, and cultural influences, and media influences, all inspired by the same dragon, waging war against the church, sowing distrust in God’s word, offering a different gospel, a different hope, and ultimately a different king.

The Whole Image: Think of the whole image for a moment. It is quite remarkable. We have the prostitute, in all of her grotesque and yet curiously seductive beauty, swirling a golden cup of blood, while sitting on top of a seven headed beast. What a nightmare. Yet, John says that’s your daily reality.

Complete System of Rebellion: Together, this prostitute and the beast she rides upon form a complete system of rebellion to God. They are attempting the exact same thing, only through different means.

The woman offers pleasure. The beast threatens pain.

The woman seduces. The beast intimidates.

The woman says “Come and enjoy yourself.” The beast says “Bow or suffer.”

This is exactly what we see playing out all through the scripture

Israel first wanted a king to be just like the other nations (the prostitute). Then the nations oppressed Israel (the beast)

Daniel first faced the lavish delights of Nebuchadnezzar’s castle (the prostitute). Then he faced the lions (the beast)

Today: Think how these two work together to attack the Church today.

The Prostitute: First, we the Church faces the pressures of the Prostitute. Pastor AW Tozer once lamented about the Church in his day. He said:

“It is scarcely possible in most places to get anyone to attend a meeting where the only attraction is God.”

Why? Because the prostitute has put a better show, and most of have bought into it. And so God seems boring! It’s the prostitute that is the great empty shell. God is the substance.

The Beast: Some, on the other hand are intimidated by the beast’s threats. The beast growls in the other ear “Refuse and you’ll lose it all.”

Where have you refused to speak out, because you know to do so would be lose prestige or position?

Where have you bowed to policies that are ungodly, but you’ve done because you’ve been coerced.

Illustration – Pride Month: Let me make this super practical, in a way that is frankly “fitting” for our passage today which uses the image of a prostitute getting the world drunk on her “sexual immorality.” It’s June in America, that means its the annual secular liturgy of Pride Month. Let’s examine Pride Month through the lens of the Prostitute and the Beast.

Prostitute: How did this begin? It began with the seduction of immorality. Vice dressed up as virtue. The promise of the sexual revolution was that you would discover true love, true happiness, true contentment, true meaning, if you would just abandon God’s law. And for those that are not attracted to the same sex, if you will just celebrate Pride as a good thing, you too can participate in the enjoyment of it all. The great whore has sold in her golden goblet a false love that cannot ever satisfy, and will only lead to sickness and dissatisfaction. But countless youth are sold an empty promise. But if you look in the cup, of what she’s selling, its putrid. It’s a mockery of God. It’s a sick and twisted perversion of God’s beautiful gift of marriage. It makes a joke of what God calls sacred. The prostitute seduces.

Beast: But then the beast roars his ugly head. The beast doesn’t seduce, he coerces. If you don’t bow the knee to our language, and our new law, then you are the wicked one. If you will not claim yourself an ally, then you are the antiChrist, you are the bigot. So company’s pressure employees to sign statements that they are an ally, to put their pronouns in their communications, to attend workshops of pride celebration.

Oh Church, as your pastor let me be very clear, not for the sake of division, but for the sake of resistance to tyranny, there is no such as thing as gay marriage, it doesn’t exist. God and God alone defines marriage. A Christian can no more be an ally to pride, then we can be an ally to Satan, or to witchcraft, or to polygamy… But the beast puts so much coersive pressure, that the average Christian feels ready to break at any moment if they set their foot the wrong way.

Babylon’s Methods are seduction and coersion

CHRIST THE CHALLICE DRINKER

Lastly, let us look to Christ, the lamb who drank the challice on our behalf. Look at verse 14-17

Revelation 17:14–17 “They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.” And the angel said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages. And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire, for God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled.”

There are three simple ideas in this that I want you to see.

Self-Destruction: First, the ways of the world are inherently self-destructive. In the end, the beast turns on the prostitute, and strips her naked, and destroys her. There is an intentional play on words happening here. Like Haman, in the book of Esther, she fell into her own trap. This is the end for every system and power that rejects God or tries to out-love God or out-truth God. Every antiChrist movement carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

Conquerer: Second verse 14 is one of those incredible verses that you can easily miss. The beast in all of its horrid power and strength and many heads wages war on a lamb, and with the breath of his mouth, the lamb conquers the beast. How? How does a lamb conquer a beast? The answer began in another garden.

Matthew 26:39 “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.””

What was in that cup? Revelation 17 has already shown us. It was a cup full of the consequences of abomination, a cup filled with humanity’s rebellion, a cup filled with our grotesque lusts, and secret idolatries of the heart. Every act of lust. Every act of greed. Evey betrayal. Every compromise. Every time we drank from Babylon’s cup and found it satisfying.

That cup belonged to us. Yet in Gesthemane, the Father placed it in the hands of His Son. And the Lamb willingly drank it. Every drop.

The prostitute’s cup promised life and delivered death. Christ, our King, drank death in full.

This is the wonder of the gospel. The lamb did not conquer simply by crushing his enemies. He conquered by standing in the place of sinners. The beast makes war against the lamb. Babylon seduces the nations. Hell unleashes its fury. And what the does the lamb do? He drinks. He suffers. He dies.

This is the love of your God. That though you and me commit idolatry in flirting with the prostitute and have drunk from her cup, “the king of kings” and “Lord of Lords” would pay the price on your behalf in order for you to be forgiven in full.

His Purpose: Third, there is a great comfort in verse 17. It tells us who is really in control of world history. Verse 17 says that in the end, even evil serves the ends of God’s eternal decree. Satan believes he is acting according to his own design, that he is resisting God. The fool is only a pawn serving God’s ultimate agenda. While we cannot understand God’s ultimate plan and how evil fits into all it. In the end, when we stand in glory and look over the finished puzzle piece, we will see and understand how all the pieces fit together, and we will glory in the wisdom and goodness and the love of God.

Closing

Revelation 17, like much of Revelation puts two options before us. We can serve the whore and settle for cheap thrills and a false love that can never satisfy. If we do that, our end will be complete. We will perish with her. Because with every breath we breathe we rage against the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

Chapter 18: But the next chapter is an anthem of sorts. After the destruction of the prostitute and the beast, the world is in turmoil trying to understand where they went wrong. And in the midst of the chaos and confusion of a fallen empire, an angel speaks tenderly to those who would have ears to hear.

Revelation 18:4 “Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues;”

Oh Church—do not even flirt with Babylon. Come out of her. Don’t take part in her sins. Cleanse yourself by faith in Christ.

Main Idea: Babylon’s golden cup will kill you. But Christ offers life. Choose today whom you will follow.