The Book of Revelation 17-18 - Mystery Babylon, The Harlot

The day is coming and drawing so near; the prophet's words are being fulfilled. The times and seasons are at hand for the glorious arrival of the Son of Man. His lightning flashes from east to west. The earth will endure the Lord's test. Be saved by His name while He can be found; seek His face before the trumpet sounds.

The day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night. For that day, keep your lamp trimmed. The day of the Lord is full of wrath — in that day, who can endure? "Peace and safety" — then sudden destruction, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. The powers of heaven will quake the earth, shaking everything at the Lord's word. The day is gloomy and full of darkness; the sun and moon will lose their brightness. When the nations prepare for the Lord's sacrifice, His sickle is coming — the harvest is ripe.

The day of the Lord is the day of vengeance and redemption restored. The Redeemer is arriving with power and glory. The fig tree is blooming and has begun to bud for the King of Kings to pierce the heavens above. Sons of the light and sons of the day: be sober, watch, and walk in His way. The Lord is zealous and will roar like a lion; He will sit on David's throne, dwelling in Zion.

Hide me in Your secret place. Shelter me under the shadow of Your wings. Cover me in the day of trouble. Shield me, Your holy arm, to the end. Shine like the stars of heaven. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved from the fire, to the end. Shine like the stars of heaven — shine so bright.

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Shalom, friends. My name is Chadwick Harvey. You have reached Faithful Performance. Thank you so much for joining us tonight as we continue our series on the Book of Revelation, chapters 17 and 18 — the Mystery of Babylon the Great, the abomination, the mother of all the abominations of the earth.

My apologies for the music playing on loop at the start of the stream. We will be going through Revelation 17 and 18 tonight, and tomorrow night we will cover chapter 19, which is the second coming event — the Day of Yom Kippur. We will look at the scriptures that tie that together with the three major battle points of the second coming: Armageddon, Jezreel, Jerusalem, and the Jordan Valley. Then later this week, probably Wednesday or Thursday, we will go through Revelation 20, and chapters 21 and 22 to close out the series as we enter into the month of Elul.

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Every time we go through biblical prophecy, I think it is very important to recognize what I call the table of nations. Please understand that the biblical prophets would have had a clear set of guidelines defining what their biblical world looked like. Just as with the calendar, the feast days, and the covenants, the table of nations is another essential prerequisite. It is in Genesis 10 for a reason — placed at the beginning of Scripture so that we would understand the biblical world through which the prophets spoke.

The prophets were not psychics. They were prophets, and that means they had a defined reference point. We have to understand the Torah: the calendar is introduced in Genesis 1:14; the divine appointments — the feast days — are in Leviticus 23; and the everlasting covenants are the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 12, 15, and 17; the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7; and the new covenant in Jeremiah 31. We have to read the Holy Bible the way it was laid out — with the right calendar, the feast days, the divine appointments, the covenants, and these seventy nations that God tells us to watch in the table of nations.

This is why Gog and Magog carries the numerical value of seventy — it goes back to the table of nations. That is just another confirmation of the biblical world we must understand. The Antichrist kingdom will be composed of those seventy nations. In Ezekiel 38 and 39, when Ezekiel wrote about Magog and the other names we are unfamiliar with today, he was drawing directly from the table of nations in Genesis 10. He was telling us that everything has already been prophesied. We do not have to guess the names of these kingdoms — he tells us exactly who they are.

In my personal opinion, Revelation 17 and 18 is only a mystery to people who have not read Isaiah 21. I recognize that many people would disagree with that, and I will present the various views that are being debated so that everyone can research it for themselves. But the table of nations is foundational.

The table of nations in Genesis 10 gives us the genealogy of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth — the seventy nations. Without this foundation, biblical prophecy becomes a guessing game in which anyone can insert whatever nation they choose, based on who they personally consider the greatest enemy rather than who Israel's actual historical enemies have been. This is an Israel-centric book. I know that statement offends some Christians, but that is what it is. After Israel, the focus moves to the surrounding nations that immediately border her — the brothers who have hated her for five thousand years — and then to the outer nations. America, Europe, and China will be involved in the end, but they are not the primary nations. We have to return to the question of who has been Israel's consistent enemy, who has hated the children of Israel for millennia. The consistent answer is the inhabitants of the Middle East and North Africa.

Even Josephus stated that the Roman Empire's eastern leg was composed of Turks, Arabs, Egyptians, and Muslim peoples — what we would recognize as the people of that region today. We have to put all of this together to arrive at the correct understanding: this is a Middle Eastern family affair, a family feud among brothers fighting over the deed to the land of the Abrahamic covenant. If we understand that, if we understand Genesis 10, if we understand the Abrahamic covenant, then it becomes clear why inserting Russia, Rome, America, or other Western nations into this picture misses the point entirely. Where are those nations in the table of nations? They are not there.

On the map of the table of nations from Genesis 10, the descendants of Japheth should be placed in the Turkey region — not extended into Europe. Yes, those descendants eventually migrated to Europe, but that is not what Genesis 10 is addressing. It is addressing where these people originally inhabited. The Antichrist kingdom, as revealed in Genesis 10, is located in that Turkey region down through the Middle East and into North Africa. That is the only biblical world that Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other prophets would have known and understood. Every biblical atlas confirms this. This is the world of Genesis 10, and it is the lens through which all biblical prophecy must be read.