This snippet from Chapter 18 in the Book of Revelation was in reference to the unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem who rejected Jesus Christ as their Messiah and his New Covenant. Jesus destroyed them, using the Roman armies, in 70 AD.
Six Specific Clues as to the Identity of This Woman, the Great Harlot
1. The woman is a great city on earth. Revelation 17:18
And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
a. God Almighty has decreed horrible judgment on this great city.
b. This prophesied judgment will occur at the time of the Second Coming of Jesus to the earth.
2. The city is the headquarters for a vast international system.
a. Revelation 17:15 tells what the waters symbolize,
…The waters which thou sawest, where the harlot sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
b. She sits on many waters, which represent peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues.
c. The headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church is in Rome.
d. The church presides over a billion people from almost every nation on earth.
3. The city sits on seven hills and the beast on which the woman sat had seven heads. Revelation 17:9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.
a. Rome is known as the City of Seven Hills.
b. The seven hills are so famous they each have their own name.
c. The property was called the Vatican before being purchased by the Roman Catholic Church.
d. “Vatican” literally means Divining Serpent and is derived from Vatis = Diviner and Can = Serpent.
Revelation 18:23
... for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.
4. The woman was arrayed in red and purple.
Revelation 17:4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
a. There are two ruling bodies of the Roman Catholic Church:
1) The College of Cardinals
2) The College of Bishops
b. It is the official Roman policy that cardinals wear red, while bishops and non-cardinal archbishops wear purple.
5. The woman was drunken with the blood of the saints.
Revelation 17:6
And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.
a. Throughout the Dark Ages, the Roman Catholic Church was a great persecutor of all Christians who would not join themselves to the Catholic Church.
b. During the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued an edict that every person in Spain had to be baptized Catholic within four months or else leave the country. Their slogan was “be baptized or die.”
c. Estimates of the number killed by the Spanish Inquisition, which Pope Sixtus IV authorized in a papal bull in 1478, have ranged from 30,000 to 300,000.
d. John Huss was burned at the stake for his refusal to pledge allegiance to the pope of the Roman Church.
e. William Tyndale, the translator of the Tyndale Bible, was strangled and then burned at the stake for the crime of translating the Bible into the language of the common people.
f. Martin Luther was declared a heretic at the Diet of Worms, Germany and he was sentenced to die because he had dared question the teachings of the Roman Church.
g. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs records thousands of martyrdoms of Protestants by the Roman Catholic Church.
h. Estimates of the total killed by the Roman Church range from six million to 68 million.
6. Mystery Babylon the Great.
Revelation 17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
a. Roman Catholicism is modern day Babylon disguised under the name of Rome.
b. Babylon was the origin of man-made religion.
c. Over the years, the Roman Catholic Church has changed many central doctrines and teachings of the New Testament Church.
1) There was no sprinkling for baptism ever done in the New Testament Church and no baptism of infants recorded in the Bible.
2) Priestly celibacy has caused the Roman Church horrible heartache.
3) Forbidding to marry is a doctrine of devils according to this passage:
I Timothy 4:1-4:
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
I Corinthians 7:2
Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
D. Mother of Harlots
1. Not only is the false religion called Mystery Babylon but she is also the Mother of Harlots.
a. She has daughters that are also harlots.
b. A harlot is a woman of ill-repute.
2. In the Bible, a church is always portrayed as a woman. The Apostle Paul explained in this scripture, II Corinthians 11:2
For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
a. The true church is symbolized as a woman, a virgin.
b. False churches in the Bible are also symbolized as women but they are referred to as harlots.
c. A harlot is someone who has been unfaithful and has gone out on her bridegroom.
3. Israel became a harlot in the Old Testament. Judges 2:17 And yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them…
a. When Israel began believing in more than one god, or false gods, God said they went “a whoring after other gods.”
4. The false religion of the NT came up with a doctrine which teaches a plurality of deities.
a. The Roman Church decided there were three separate persons in the Godhead – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.
b. When the Roman Catholic Church hatched the doctrine called the holy trinity, they began believing they will see three deities when they get in Heaven.
c. The belief of three separate persons, three separate deities in the Godhead was injected into the church.
d. When this doctrine was formed, this is when Catholicism went a whoring after false deities.
e. The Bible is explicit there is one Lord.Deuteronomy 6:4
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.
f. The new doctrine of the trinity taught, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is three.”
