Revelation 17:18 –
“And this woman you saw in your vision represents the great city that rules over the kings of the world.”
The woman is tagged as the “Great Prostitute” and rides in on a 7 headed beast. The seven heads represents kinds while the beast also represents a king. Many like to speculate on who these may be to gain insight on the end times. When I first read this verse years ago I made a note in the Bible to indicate the “city” was New York City. And here are my “justifications” to this note. First, the United Nations, which is housed in NYC, attempts to rule over all the nations of the world.
It’s a stretch, but Staten Island is one of the locations with “seven hills” in verse 9. Also, you can take this even further and say we are in end times now because there have been 8 “kings” or Secretary-Generals over the UN to date. Then as they describe the “Great Prostitute” it almost sounds like America. We have corrupted the world with the concept of “consumerism”, while may seem wonderful is putting a huge divide between us and God.
We become more interested in stuff that following God. Years ago when I first started this email one thought that I had was eventually packaging it into a book, selling it and making tons. My motivation was wrong; I was doing this for the glory of Chuck and not God! I let stuff pervert something that was masked with God’s desire. Well it took some time but I finally realized that these writings were not for my glory, but for God’s, I started posting them in a blog. Sure it would be nice to be out of debt and be able to get “stuff” that we need, but honestly while I have writing this God has opened other doors that has helped my debt reduction plan reach 40% so far!! That includes homes and business debt from the failed shop!
Oops, I went on a tangent there!! The Great Prostitute has long been a subject of speculation on “which city” it may be. We look at many cities with 7 hills as a possible “Prostitute” city. San Francisco has been targeted as one because of their loose lifestyle. Many argue Rome since that is the home of the Catholic Church. Moscow because of the “evil empire” that ruled there. Jerusalem could also be because of the religious turmoil that perpetuates there. Istanbul, Barcelona, Annan, Los Angles and Tehran also top the list of cities that could qualify. When you start digging you realize it is all speculation and we will never know, until it’s over!!