Here’s the great prostitute of whom John writes: “And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (17:6). She sat on “a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns” (17:3). These individual items do have significance, but it seems to me that the overall picture is one of grotesqueness and chaos. Of course, the woman is the great Babylon, which seems to me be a picture of the worldly and satanic powers that are always, but particularly at the end of the age, opposing God and his people.
Babylon prospered for awhile – “the great city that was clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, with jewels, and with pearls!” (18:16). However, “in a single hour all this wealth has been laid to waste” (18:17). The prophets asked, and the Psalmists asked, “Will God look the other way while his people are unjustly treated? Will he vindicate them?” The answer is right here. Of course, God will vindicate his people, and he will judge those who have so wrongly treated them! We know that God will one day make all things right. It’s good to be able to live with that assurance, isn’t it?
Look, ye saints, the sight is glorious:
see the man of sorrows now!
From the fight returned victorious,
Ev’ry knee to him shall bow.
Crown him! Crown him!
Crowns become the victor’s brow.
Crown him! Crown him!
Crowns become the victor’s brow. -- Thomas Kelly (1809)