18 And [kai] the woman [gune] which [hos] thou sawest [eido] is [esti] that great [megas] city [polis], which [ho] reigneth [echo] [basileia] over [epi] the kings [basileus] of the earth [ge].     KJV-Interlinear

18 ‘And the woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth.’     NASB

What is a city anyway?  It is a center of population, a center of commerce, a center of culture and activity.  It is a place where people socialize and promote.  Typically they promote themselves.  Cities in ancient times were walled, in order to provide protection from outsiders who would do harm to the cities. 

Today our cities are concerned with how they look, their skyline.  And to that end the city fathers will establish building codes, and regulations for what can be done and where, within the boundaries of the city.

Cities will seize property in order to build facilities that contribute to the common good of the city.  Things like roads and bridges and schools and parks will be built.  Even recently, property seizure has reached some considerable controversy as cities are attempting to seize ‘unproductive’ property (usually poor residential neighborhoods) in order to build new ‘productive’ properties in order to raise their tax base and generate more property taxes.

From the time of Adam, the first city builder of record was Cain.  The next city recorded in the Bible was Babel.  Both were built by men who were negative toward God. 

Gen. 10:10-12

10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 From that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah, 12 and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city.    NASB

The Israelites did not live in any cities (though they built cities for the Egyptians), until they began the conquest of the promised land in Canaan.  And there, their spiritual status disintegrated as the Israelites began their association with the former unbelieving inhabitants of the land.  This continued through the times of the conquest, through the times of the Judges, and until the time of David and Solomon, then the decline continued throughout their history until 70 A.D.

Babylon is the prototype of human ego and ingenuity and rejection of God.

The woman is described as a harlot, complete with all of her characteristic vulgarity and filth.

The harlot sits on the beast, who is the anti-christ of the Tribulation, and of whom represents Satan, since his fall from grace, through rebellion, in eternity past.

Now the woman is said to be the great city who in fact reigns over the kings of the earth.

The kings of the earth?  All leaders or would be leaders.  All who pursue influence over others by virtue of their own selfish desire to be seen by others as an authority.  All who desire to define their own life and history to the exclusion of God.

Satan began the pattern of rebellion.  Cain continued the pattern of doing things his own way, rejecting Gods way.  Nimrod decided to build his own city, an integrated center of activity and thought, excluding God and truth.

The city represents the systems of thought an attitude, from the religious to the secular.  All of which reject God and Gods truth as it relates to mans everyday life.

This activity of thought is supported by man and in turn becomes mans master.  The harlot, though she sat on the shoulders of the beast, was in fact his master.

In rejecting truth in life, man becomes a slave to the environment and philosophies which he tries to invent, in hopes of bettering himself.  The result is not his betterment but his own destruction.

Today we live in a fast paced world.  What with television, internet, satellites and such, the world is a highly competitive place.  The news media becomes our global example of satisfying massive egos at the expense of truth.  They jump on stories before any facts are known.  They try to influence the masses of peoples in the way that they (the media) want the masses to think, through manipulated polling questions, through reporting practices that tilt the direction of a given story, and through the bombardment of the public with their (the medias) own views.  The complete picture of truth gets lost in the shuffle along the way.

Those who see through the fog of reporting and rhetoric, simply ignore it and are not affected by it.  That leaves those who are naïve, and therefore that means that the politicians, the celebrities, the media are pursuing leadership and influence over the stupid.  They are attempting to build an empire out of the uninformed.

Why do I pick on the media?  Because that is the nature of our time in history.  It is our viewing window, allowing us to see the nature of our current time in history.

In the times prior to Christ, the Bible emphasized the rise and fall of empires that would have ruled the ‘known’ world.  Where are those empires now?  Gone to history.

What has occurred in our current dispensation?

Well, instead of the emphasis being on global empires, the trends of our times have been on global expansions of peoples.  The powers of the future Tribulation (North, South, East, and West) have gelled together. 

Even China did not really become a world power until after World War II, and that was just in the last century, after 1945.  The powers of the South, the Arab states have come together, somewhat, through their common product, oil.

What we are seeing now is a struggle in the Southern powers, between the will of terrorists and the existing rulers of the Arab states. Likewise, on the global scale, the news media is active in their efforts to control the direction of history through their tearing down of those they do not like.  Those enemies of the media, include anyone who pursues any facet of truth.

The media will eventually (even as they are currently) become more and more of the instrument of Gods permissive will, in their role in human history as defined in verse 17.  And by the way, that is not a good role for them.  It is mans pursuit toward self destruction.

The World War II generation is nearly gone now.  The hippie generation are the people who were growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s, who oppose and reject many of the conventional standards and customs of society, advocating liberalism in social and political attitudes and lifestyles.  These folks are in their 50’s and 60’s now, and they will be leaving this world in a couple of decades.

This will leave their offspring, a more practical and possession oriented society who would be in their 30’s now.  From which we see all sorts of attitudes from the very patriotic to the very liberal, which has set up a huge divide in society these days.

Their offspring who will have and will be born this past decade and next, will have their own mindset, but most probably will slide away a bit more, from doctrine and God.  In a global economy which is now very prosperous, people tend to not need God in their lives, thus their children will grow up not hearing the doctrines they need to hear.

And a prosperous generation which does not have God in their thoughts, when trouble strikes, will raise up yet another generation who will be an angry generation due to the mixed prosperity and troubles they will likely inherit.

Now that history (in our dispensation), has populated the planet, and has defined the four global powers, all that remains is the establishment of peoples attitudes that will exist at the time when the Rapture occurs.

The Tribulation will begin with a global mindset.  The same mindset that existed when the Tower of Babel was under construction.  Back in Nimrods day, there was one language and one attitude and most of mankind was oriented toward that anti-God attitude.  They all pursued the same goal – building the tower to heaven, their own path to Paradise.

We know today that their goal was a silly one, because we know that heaven is not in the clouds nor even in our solar system.  Even if a person could build a tower to the edge of our atmosphere, no one could survive up there due to the lack of air.  They would never get much beyond 30,000 feet, which is just a bit more than the height of Mt. Everest.

But then the goals of mankind today are just as silly.  Negative man today doesn’t see himself as silly, just as those ancient folks did not see their efforts as silly.  They were naïve as to what existed beyond the clouds – the truth of outer space, the universe and so forth.  But too, so is man of our current day naïve, by not having doctrine and therefore not understanding the unfolding of history.

When the Tribulation arrives, the worlds mindset will be just like those of Babel.  That is one reason that I believe that the last generation of our dispensation is going to be a very difficult time in history.  With a large over population of people in the world, with a relatively small percentage being Christian, and fewer still being mature believers within that Christian group.  Leading the world to problems that will plague the populations of the world and serve as a catalyst for bringing the anti-christ into power when the Rapture occurs.

It is interesting to note that ours is the greatest dispensation of them all.  Ours is the dispensation of the Royal Family.  We have set before us the completed canon of scripture, the greatest of opportunities ever in all of history.  We have available to us the greatest of blessings and privileges from God, than anyone who has ever lived before our dispensation or who will ever live after our dispensation is closed.

The last generation of people of our Church Age, our Royal Family dispensation, who will be alive when the Rapture occurs, and of whom will have rejected Christ, will be the greatest bunch of fools in all of history. 

They, for their refusal to think six simple words, ‘Father, I believe in Jesus Christ,’ will lose out on the greatest of opportunities in all of history.  And for that they will go into the Tribulation and suffer beyond imaginable suffering, the most horrible of circumstances in all of human history.

Today we can see and hear the direction of human history through radio and television and movies and publications and the news of our day.   If you cannot recognize the very liberal worldly and secular views which are attempting to tear down the fabric of truth in society, then you lack Gods view inside of your soul. 

If you do recognize the slow growing degeneracy of human society, then you need to get with and stay with your daily Bible study for your own sake.  The Rapture will not likely occur for another hundred years, but that should not be of any consequence to you.  Your life and destiny depends on Bible doctrine in your soul, not on the possible date of the next spiritual event of history, whether it will occur next week or a century from now.

End Of Lesson

Study to show thyself approved (mature) unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing (studying/discerning), the Word of truth.