Revelation 17:18: World domination.

18 The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.’ NIV

One final thing to note from chapter 17 is that ‘Babylon’ – this demonic system – profoundly affects the political structures of the world. The rulers are ruled.

‘’We wrestle not against flesh and blood…’’ (Ephesians 6:12).

‘…the abiding and overriding lesson for the church, then and now, should…be clear. The brutal but seductive ‘civilisations’ and national empires, which ensnare the world by promising luxury and delivering slavery, gain their power from the monster, the System of Imperial Power. Some have called this ‘the domination system,’ a system which transcends geographical and historical limitations and reappears again and again in every century.’ Tom Wright: ‘Revelation for Everyone’, p.157.