The Abomination of Desolation - St. Marys Coptic Orthodox Church

130 BABYLON THE GREAT WHORE
The woman is arrayed in purple and scarlet and decked with gold and
precious stones and pearls. This refers to the worldliness of this world
power. Contrast this woman with the other woman of Revelation 12,
the Church, who is clothed with the Sun and the moon under her feet.
As we said earlier, the woman is the Church, clothed by the Sun of
Righteousness, that is Christ, while the moon representing the things
of the world is under her feet, despised. What a difference!
The woman has a golden cup full of her abominations and
fornications; she is drinking the sour wine of the love of the world and
even offering the same drink to the people and the kings of the earth,
inviting them and enticing them and teaching them the art of her
fornication: love of the world which is enmity of God.
Her name starts with the word “mystery” meaning code name, not
her real name; a mystery that will be revealed to the faithful whenever
the woman (the world power) appears on the world’s stage near the end
of time.
The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the
bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth
shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the
foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is
not, and yet is. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven
heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are
seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come;
and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast
that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth
into perdition. (Rev 17:8-11)
We dealt with the beast in a previous chapter, suffices to say that he is
Antichrist. The seven heads are seven kings that we also dealt with
previously, they are the previous “prototypes” that Satan erected before
the real thing. Minor antichrists that Satan experimented with before
perfecting the real thing. The five that are fallen are: Pharaoh king of
Egypt, Sennacherib king of Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,
the kings of Medo-Persia, that kept Israel in captivity, and Antiochus
Epiphanes the Greek king, who destroyed and desecrated the second
temple, declared himself God, and butchered the Jews who refused to
worship him. Each one of these persecuted the Church of the Old
Testament, and was a little antichrist, particularly the last one.