The Destruction of the Final World Religion, Pt. 3
Revelation 17:7-8
Revelation 17 is our text tonight in our ongoing study of this great apocalypse. I feel like I need to make a brief apology to those of you who have not been with us in our study of Revelation because you're going to get dropped right in the middle here and you may feel a little bit suspended because you don't know what has gone before for several weeks, many months and even to the years that we've been studying this great, great book.
We turn again to this marvelous chapter and we will pick up where we left off last time as we concluded the first six verses. Some introductory comments, I think, are appropriate as we set the context.
We have learned repeatedly through all of the months of our study of Revelation, the apocalypse, the unveiling of Jesus Christ, that the theme of this book is Christ Himself. And that the truth of this book is not to be avoided but it is to be understood and it is to be incorporated into life. The life of every Christian exposed to this book will be dramatically altered, dramatically changed. And so it should be. The promise of our Lord Himself in chapter 1 verse 3 is, "Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it, for the time is near." That is a beatitude, that is a blessing. We have indeed been blessed as we have studied, as we have read, as we have heard, as we have heeded the great truths of this book.
We have seen its three major divisions...the visions of the exalted Christ in the glory of His resurrection life as He ministers in His church in chapters 1 to 3. And the vision of the glorious and exalted Christ as He appears in heaven in chapters 4 and 5. The visions of the exalted and glorified Christ as He unleashes judgment on the earth, punishing those who are ungodly and reject the gospel, at the same time preserving unto eternal life those who believe and belong to Him. And that in chapter 6 and right on through chapter 18. So that's the section we're in, we're in the section of the unfolding of the judgment of Christ as He takes back the universe which is in the hands of the usurper, Satan himself.
We are already now coming to the end of this period of judgment. It ends in chapter 18. And then in chapter 19 the climactic return of Jesus Christ and that ushers us into the final part of this book which is the glorious vision of the returning, conquering Lord as He comes with His saints to destroy the ungodly, to rescue His own, to establish His Kingdom which will usher in the eternal new heavens and the new earth...all the way on right out to the very end of chapter 22.
And throughout the months that we have been studying this great book we have learned so much. We know where history is going and why it's going there and how it will get there. We know how man's final years on earth will be lived out. We have seen previews of holocausts of judgment that make any other earthly catastrophe a small and insignificant thing. We know that the universe will fly apart into unregulated chaos and the sky itself will fold up. We know about earthquakes and pestilences and famine. We know about the destruction of all of the seas and the death of everything that is in them, the destruction of the fresh water and the death of everything is in them. We know about hailstones of a hundred pounds that will hit the earth. We know about fire.
We know about signs and wonders. We know about miraculous resurrections. We know about preachers in the end time, great powerful witnesses. We know that there will be angels like satellites flying across the mid-heaven in the latter days, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ so that all the world may hear and no one will have an excuse. We know with exact information the future deaths of millions of people and how they will occur.
We know how the career of Satan will transpire and how his millions of demons will operate, and how they will be released systematically at the end time. Some belched up out of the pit itself, others released from their captivity somewhere near the river Euphrates. We know about the future of Israel and its redemption. We know also about the deadly persecution of the Jews. We know about the anticipated joys of the church, the bride of Christ and what awaits them. There is so much we know, so much applicable to life, so much that brings us joy and gives us responsibility. We know the ultimate price of sin and we know the ultimate reward of holiness.
We know that the rejected Jesus is coming again, not to be rejected, but to be exalted. We know the One who came in humility will come in glory, and the One who came and left will come never to leave again. We know the people of God who belong to Christ will triumph over all persecution, all disaster, all death and all judgment. We know where our eternal state is, it's up. How far up, we're not sure. We know what it is like, it is marvelously described to us and we'll get more into that description as we march on through the remaining chapters.
We know where the universe, the world, and everything that is in it and everyone who is in it is headed, where it's going, how it will end. And that's just a little bit of what we know. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could go into every history class and every philosophy class in the world and tell them all that we know?
One specific truth that we know which we are addressing in chapter 17, is that there is coming a time on earth just before the return of Jesus Christ when there will be a worldwide religious system. Everybody will, in a sense, be bowing down to the same shrine. A time when there will be given to Satan a greater control of the world than he has ever had, certainly than he even has now. A time when Satan and all of his demons in the heavens will be cast down to earth, when a certain number of temporarily bound demons in the pit will be released, when two hundred million demons bound at the Euphrates River will overrun the earth. We know there is coming a time when Satan's domain on the earth will reach its apex, its high point.
In the midst of that overrunning of Satan and demons in the world, there will be the collecting together of a one-world empire, ruled by the Antichrist. At the same time there will be a final form of world religion. The final empire of Satan, as we have seen, which will be directed on earth by his demon-possessed leader called the Antichrist, the son of perdition, the man of sin, the little horn, the willful king, whatever of the prophetic terms you want to use, will be the expression of Satan's greatest impact as he makes a final attempt to rest the world from God and to prevent Christ from establishing His Kingdom and receiving His proper glory.
Now this final satanic world empire ruled by Antichrist, the man of sin, is called here in the book of Revelation by the name Babylon...Babylon the great. That is the name given to this empire, both in chapter 17 and in chapter 18.
Chapter 17 and 18, however, though they both deal with this great empire of Antichrist called Babylon do differ. Chapter 17 looks particularly at the religious side, the spiritual side of Babylon where as chapter 18 looks at the economic and political side of Babylon. So as we engage ourselves in the study of chapter 17, we are studying the religious side of Satan's final world empire. As I told you last time, the world is not going to become more and more irreligious, it is going to become more and more religious. People are going to become more and more involved in religion...not the true religion, but the false religion of Satan himself. The closer we get to the end, the more religious they will become.
Satan's empire, then, has two sides initially. We'll talk more about how those two sides resolve into one, but two sides initially...a religious side and a political side, a spiritual side and an economic side.
Looking down at verse 5 in chapter 17 we get the name of the worldwide form of religion. The name of it is "MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." Now that's quite a name for a religion. I don't mean by the name of the religion that some day someone will say to you that I go to the First Mystery Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth church. I don't think you'll see it on the marquee and I question whether it will ever show up on the stationery.
But that is really what it is. It will have a much more subtle and deceptive name. But what it is, is, first of all, mystery, that is it is more than physical, it is more than geographical, it is more than a human organization. There's something deep and demonic and supernatural and even as yet hidden about it. It is Babylon. Why? Because it is the final form of religion when all the world's religions roll into one. And in so doing it is appropriate to call it Babylon because Babel is where all the world religions really began. They were all spawned out of a tower of Babel, that is why Babylon the Great is the Mother of all Harlots. Harlotry in the Bible always refers when not referring to an actual harlot to idolatry. Every form of idolatry and false religion was spawned out of that original false religion that developed at Babel. And when God scattered the people all over the globe in different languages, He scattered their cult, their Babylonish cult as well. And so Babylon was the originating place and all the harlot children of Mother Babylon will come home to mother in the end. And the same Satan who spawned them all will regather them all into one final form of world religion under the name BABYLON THE GREAT.
The term "mother of harlots" because all false religion and idolatry is characterized in Scripture as prostitution and harlotry. And then this is called also "the mother of the abominations of the earth" because nothing so offends God as false religion, nothing is so abominable. It is the supreme blasphemy.
So, a supremely blasphemous kind of idolatry will come to pass that has deep demonic and hidden concepts involved in it and that demonic kind of religion will reform itself around its Babylonish origins. The system will be the spiritual side of Satan's world empire. Jesus, of course, warned about this all the way back in the wonderful sermon that He preached on His own return, the Olivet Discourse. In Matthew chapter 24 and verse 21, "There will be a great tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall." Jesus predicted this time called the Great Tribulation. "A time that unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved, but for the sake of the elect those days shall be cut short. Then if anyone says to you, `Behold here is the Christ, or there He is.' Do not believe him, for false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders so as to mislead if possible even the elect. Behold I have told you in advance." They're going to be so powerful, these satanic deceptions, these satanic seductions, the harlot the whore is going to seduce people into her bed to catch her fatal disease and die there with her, they're going to be able to do that because of massive worldwide deceptions based upon demonic signs and wonders that will deceive the whole world. And so well orchestrated are they that were it possible they would even deceive the elect.
Now, this is a very essential element of Satan's final form of world rule because it is only religion that can unite the world. Politics, economics can't do it. Culture is too diverse. It has to be something transcending the physical, the geographical, the historical. It has to be something in the realm of the supernatural. Satan who gave birth to all the counterfeits from one source certainly has the power with all of his minions to pull them all back, that one who is disguised as an angel of light and whose ministers are as well angels of light, that one who originally deceived Adam and Eve and deceived the people at Babel will again deceive the world and collect them together.
To show you the deceptive power, only go back to chapter 16 and here's an illustration of it. Here we find a most amazing thing described. In the last days the Euphrates River is dried up in verse 12 in order to prepare the way for the kings from the east. The great empires of the eastern part of the world, that is east of Israel, east of the Middle East are going to come. And in order to cross the plain of Babylon and come to Megiddo for the battle of Armageddon, the place is going to have to be dried up. You say why? Because it will be flooded. It will be flooded like never in history because previous to what happens in verse 13, go back to verse 9. Men were scorched with fierce heat. Why? Because verse 8, "An angel poured his bowl on the sun and it was given to it to scorch men with fire." What happens there obviously is going to be the earth becomes hotter and hotter, it melts the icecaps at Ararat and the mountains north of the Babylonian plain, the water comes rushing down, floods the plain and then comes an angel in verse 12, that angel pours out a bowl of judgment, the water is dried up in order that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
"And I saw...verse 13...coming out of the mouth of the dragon," that is Satan, "out of the mouth of the beast," that's Antichrist, "out of the mouth of the False Prophet three unclean spirits like frogs, spirits of demons performing signs which go out to the kings of the whole world to gather them together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty."
Do you ever ask the question...why would all the world show up at Armageddon? Why would the kings of the east even come? Why do they care? Why would all the rest of the kings of the world gather into the plain of Megiddo and stretch all the way for two hundred miles down to the south, including through the city of Jerusalem? Why would there be this massive gathering of the forces of the world?
They are being gathered for the war of the great day of God. They are being gathered together to fight God and to fight the returning Christ. And who gathers them? Demons performing signs. It is a worldwide massive powerful seduction that gathers all these remaining armies who haven't been devastated by the prior bowl judgments, who aren't dead, to fight against the returning Christ.
Verse 16 says, "They are all gathered together to the place which in the Hebrew is called Har Magedon. Now that kind of deception that gathers all of those armies into Megiddo so that when Jesus comes He can destroy them all and the blood will splatter to the horses' bridles for two hundred miles, as the Scripture tells us. That same kind of deceptive power is the very deceptive power that is going to pull the world together on the basis of a common religion.
So as you approach 17, you approach the discussion of this religion, not its flourishing, but in fact its destruction. Verse 1 begins the discussion, "One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me saying, `Come here, I shall show you the judgment of the great whore, or the great harlot, who sits on many waters."
Now we have three things, the harlot is the false religion, Mystery Babylon, the mother of all other harlots and of all the abominations of the earth. You have three aspects of her described here. You have the exposure of the harlot in verses 1 to 5. Then you have the explanation of the harlot following. And then finally down in verses 16 and 17, as we shall see, if not tonight at a later time, you have the extermination of the harlot...the exposure, the explanation and the extermination.
One of the angels who had been involved in pouring out the final bowl judgments, remember, they're sequential...first the seals, followed by the trumpets, followed by the bowls. The bowls rapid-fire, coming in just a matter of days and weeks with a fury at the end, bringing about worldwide unimaginable devastation described there in chapter 16. One of the angles involved in that then speaks with John. First he speaks of the authority of the harlot. This great harlot sits on many waters. Waters representing nations. Cities were always built by water. And water then became the means of people coming there to trade. And this is a great power that is involved with many waters. It is to say that it is involved with many, many nations. In case you might question that interpretation, look at verse 15 and you can stop questioning it. "He said to me, `The waters which you saw where the harlot sits are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.'" I told you so.
Secondly...secondly, not only do you see the authority of the harlot but you see the alliances of the harlot. First of all, the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality with her. Those who dwell on the earth...that's not the leaders, that's the whole population of the earth, made drunk with the wine of her immorality. She has an alliance with the leaders of the world. She has an alliance with the people of the world. That is, both leaders and people are engulfed in this false form of religion.
And then the third aspect of the alliance, "He carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness and I saw the woman sitting on a scarlet beast." She has an alliance with the Antichrist himself. She is supported by the Antichrist. She is seated on the scarlet beast. The beast then described is full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.
So this false religious system coexists with the political economic system. They coexist. I really believe that the devil knows that the only way to build this world empire is through religion. The Antichrist then allows this religion to flourish because it is the very power that unites the world. It is religion that makes the unity of the world possible.
Then we see something of the apparel of the harlot. In verse 4, "Clothed in purple, scarlet, adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls and in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality." And here we come to see the apparel of the harlot is purple, scarlet. She is wealthy with gold and precious stones and pearls and the gold cup, however, she holds is full of abominations and the filth of her immorality.
The abominations of the harlot are described. The unclean things of verse 4, and the abominations and harlotries in the name in verse 5. And then in verse 6 comes the accusation. This is a brief review. The accusation against the harlot is that she is drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. False religion born at Babylon and flourishing through all the world has martyred the true saints throughout all of human history. False religion has always been the killer of the true and it will be so in the end. So we see the exposure of the harlot.
Now let's tonight come to verse 7 and the explanation of the harlot...the explanation of the harlot. I'm quite confident we can't get through this whole chapter. I want you to stay with me. This must be understood because of the blessing attached to it and because God has gone to these lengths to get this word to us. We must understand it. I'll do the best I can to make comprehensible what is perhaps at first apparently incomprehensible.
Let's start with verse 7. "And the angel said to me, `Why do you wonder?'" Well that seems a rather silly question, doesn't it? At the end of verse 6, John's writing, "And when i saw her I wondered greatly," and we don't argue with that, we wouldn't question that. If you saw something like that you'd wonder too. But the question is not supposed to attach itself to that kind of understanding. What the angel is really saying is...why are you so worried about what this means, I'm going to tell you. I shall tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her which has the seven heads and the ten horns.
Again we note verse 7, the angel is speaking. This incredible section here goes between what John hears in his conversation with the angel and what he sees in his vision. It goes back and forth from the seeing to the hearing. This angel who is identified in verse 1 as one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls is here by God's dispatch to describe to John the meaning of this harlot, to fill in what John really doesn't understand. The angel is saying you don't need to wonder, you don't need to be left in the dark, I'm here and I'm going to explain it. I'll take care of your confused amazement, your confusion at this point. I'll tell you the mystery. I'll explain it to you.
Now let's go a little more into this. The mystery to John is surely not that this is a religious system. That's not the mystery. But the mystery to John is how does this system relate to this scarlet beast? By now John knows about the beast because he was introduced in chapter 13 and very, very clearly defined as the world ruler whom all the world worships. Do you remember that? Back in chapter 13, the whole world worships the beast.
Now when a new component is introduced on the religious side, a harlot who is pulling together a worldwide system of false religion, the question comes into John's mind...Wait a minute here, if the whole world is worshiping the beast, how does this thing fit in? How is the woman connected to the beast? Who is the beast? How does this all work together? And then perhaps this question...How...how can they have such a vast influence over the world?
It may well be that the key idea is implied when the angel says, "I shall tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her." That little phrase "that carries her" to explain to you their relationship because that is essentially what the rest of this section explains.
Now would you please notice that this beast, this one who is really the ultimate and final Antichrist, though there are many antichrists...John says...there is an ultimate and final form, which is the most heinous and powerful of all. This one is defined as having seven heads and ten horns in the vision. By the way, that is also stated in verse 3 where the scarlet beast full of the blasphemous names has seven heads and ten horns.
Now before we look at this beast and the description of the beast that starts immediately in verse 8, let me rearrange these verses because I think it might help you a little bit, okay? The question in John's mind is, how does this harlot religious system work together with this beast that the whole world is worshiping? How can there be two if there's one world religion?
Now let's...let's look first at the harlot. Since in verse 7 John is told, "I'll tell you the mystery of the woman, the harlot," let's look first at the harlot, okay? To do that we go to verse 18, all the way to the end...all the way to the end. And verse 18 says, "And the woman whom you saw is the great city which reigns over the kings of the earth." Now keep this in mind, he's explaining who this woman is, who this harlot is. First was the exposure, verses 1 to 6, now from verse 7 on is the explanation. I'll tell you about this woman and the beast...and when he says that he digresses for all those verses in the middle to discuss the beast, but let's go right to the woman because I think it's easier to grasp.
Who is this harlot? Who is this woman? Well, this woman, this religious system is the great city which reigns over the kings of the earth. Is this actually a geographical city? Well all I can say is it says "city." Now you can get real exotic and make it mean anything you want, but that's pure speculation. Apparently, safest, literal, grammatical, historical interpretation of the text would tell us that apparently in the final form of world religion connected to the Antichrist, Babylonish, political, economic, spiritual, religious empire, the ancient city of Babylon will play a role. It has been fascinating to us in the last few years to recognize that Saddam Hussein has been rebuilding Babylon. How interesting.
Babylon then may well here refer to a city, but not just a city. There are many students of prophecy and Scripture who would strongly hold to a literal rebuilding of Babylon, and I'll show you why in a moment. But it can't be limited to that, it is Babylon, perhaps, as a city, a capital city for the Antichrist's empire. But it is also Babylon as a name for a worldwide system of satanic rule. It is also Babylon to describe a worldwide cult and false religion.
The evil religious system will come to the place where it started, as well as to the ideology that it started with. It will apparently reach its zenith in the kingdom of Antichrist where there will be a rebuilt capital city, a rebuilt Babylon. Just to affirm that, go to chapter 18 for a moment, verse 10. "Woe, woe, the great city Babylon, the strong city for in one hour your judgment has come...verse 18...what city is like the great city?" It seems to be a literal city. Verse 21, "Thus will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, will not be found any longer." Now again I think there is a real city, what role it plays I'm not sure, it may be a ceremonial city, it may be a capital city, whatever. But I think it is also emblematic of an entire world empire. Through and including the city of Babylon, the empire of Babylon, the harlot mother will reign over the kings of the earth by her seductions.
Let me just give you some thoughts on the literal character of Babylon. And don't look these up, we don't have time. In Isaiah 13 and Isaiah 14, in Jeremiah 50 and Jeremiah 51, you can jot those down...Isaiah 13 and 14, Jeremiah 50 and 51, the Old Testament prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah spoke about the final destruction of Babylon. They gave a very detailed description of how Babylon ultimately would be destroyed as a city. And when they were talking, they were talking about the literal city of Babylon. What they predicted only partially happened in history past to this day. Some of what they predicted took place to Babylon when the Medo-Persians conquered the Babylonian Empire. Some of what they predicted took place in the gradual slow decline of Babylon in the centuries that followed. But by no means have all the aspects of the prophecy against the city of Babylon ever been fulfilled. And because of that, there is reason to assume that it will exist again in order that the final predictions stated specifically about that place may come to pass.
Like many Old Testament prophecies, the judgment predicted for ancient Babylon had a near fulfillment, and then a far fulfillment. Let me read you the words of one historian. "Babylon indeed will be permanently destroyed as recorded in the very next chapter, but this has not happened yet. The prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah also refer to the future destruction, not merely to Babylon's present day condition as is evident from the following considerations...among others. One, the destruction will take place in the time that the stars and the sun are darkened, it says in Isaiah. Two, the city will be become as desolate as Sodom and Gomorrah, burned completely with no remains whatever, according to Isaiah and Jeremiah. Three, it shall become desolate forever with neither man nor beast entering it anymore, so say the two prophets. Four, it will be a time of judgment not only for Babylon but for all the nations of the world. Five, its destruction will be followed by universal rest and permanent peace. Six, its destruction is directly associated with the casting of Lucifer into Sheol, Isaiah 14. And seventh, Babylon's stones will never be used in future construction elsewhere, whereas the present-day ruins of Babylon have been frequently plundered and reused in later constructions," end quote.
In order for all of those components of the prophecies against Babylon to be fulfilled, Babylon has to be there and destroyed finally in the end. So there's prophetic reason for a rebuilt and then finally destroyed Babylon. It is more than a simple curiosity, is it not, that Babylon is being rebuilt? Would you remind yourself that Babylon is a very great to build a city from which to rule the world, if indeed that is to be its use. It is near the world's richest oil fields. I don't know that you know this, but it is near the geographic center of all the earth's land masses, located strategically at the crossroads of Asia, Europe and Africa and it has an immense water supply. In fact, the historian Arnold Toinbe(?) used to stress to his students that Babylon would be the best place in the world to build a future world cultural metropolis.
So, the world religious system will somehow be connected with the great city of Babylon which will be, in a sense, the capital city of the whole Antichrist empire. Now go back to verse 15. "And he said to me, the waters which you saw where the harlot sits are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues." As I said earlier, remember now that cities were built by water, Babylon by the Tigris and the Euphrates, a great water supply coming from Mount Ararat and the other mountains to the north and flowing right down through the Babylonian plain down to the Gulf. The waters in the imagery and the harlot sitting beside represent this great Babylonish world religious economic system with its capital city as being the focal point for nations to come. The water that is alongside the harlot city represents the worldwide influence just as the wat