Revelation 17:7
And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
The angel's question about marveling opens the disclosure of the hidden meaning of the woman and of the beast bearing her with its seven heads and ten horns.
The woman stands for a church, with a pure or virtuous woman standing for a pure church and a vile woman standing for an apostate church.
In this chapter that woman is Babylon.
Because marriage pictures the covenant bond between Christ and His people, her unfaithfulness pictures a church withdrawing its trust and affection from Christ and giving them to worldly things.
The beasts linked with this disclosure grow out of the union of church and state, a union that turns deadly and oppressive to both civil society and the church itself and crushes all opposition.
The disclosure belongs within Revelation 12 to 18, prophecies now in course of fulfillment.
They form the last warning message to be heard by everyone.
It stands just before the very last call to the churches in chapter 18 now to be given.
It also stands before the events pictured in chapter 19, when the beast and the false prophet are taken and cast into the lake of fire, the dragon who instigated the great rebellion against heaven is bound in the bottomless pit for a thousand years, the wicked are resurrected, Satan and all the wicked are finally destroyed, and Christ finally triumphs and reigns on this earth.
It belongs to God's warning to His people of the perils before them, showing what will exist in the last days.
What John beheld was a deceived company working counter to God and standing in opposition to Him.