Babylon and the Beast

Summary

The slides open with the structure of the book and the four places where John receives his visions, each marked by the phrase “in the Spirit,” the command to come up, a voice, and a location, then set the stage: chapters 17 and 18 give more detail about the Antichrist and Babylon, who they are and what will happen. The class was asked to consider, “What if it were today?”

In 17:1–6 John is carried into a wilderness and sees a woman sitting on a scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns, dressed in purple and scarlet and drunk with the blood of the saints, with the name Babylon the Great on her forehead. In 17:7–18 the angel explains the mystery: the seven heads are seven hills and seven kings, the beast is an eighth king who goes to his destruction, the ten horns are ten kings who give their authority to the beast and war against the Lamb, who will triumph, and the beast and the ten kings turn on the prostitute and burn her.

Chapter 18 gives the destruction of Babylon: the cry “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great,” the call to “come out of her, my people,” the kings, merchants and sailors who weep as she is ruined in one hour, and the angel who throws a millstone into the sea. The slides summarize Babylon as a future union of church and state controlling government, religion and commerce, rich, powerful and corrupt, persecuting Christians and destroyed at the hand of the Antichrist. The beast is the worldwide governing body that uses her and then destroys her to set up his own order, and the Antichrist will rule, be assassinated, be resurrected, be reinstated, reign supreme and go to his destruction. They close with the reminder that God is directing the entire affair (Psalm 22:27–28).

The two chapters

The class read them in these parts:

Summary of Babylon and the beast

The slides summarize it this way: