Rev #56~17:1-5 ORIGIN OF RELIGIOUS BABYLON 5-29-10
Today I want to lay a foundation to a most important subject, the {ORIGIN OF RELIGIOUS BABYLON} there are countless people around the world that will not agree or except what I’m going to say, let me be sure and say right here at the beginning that I am not mad at any one except the devil, so please listen and pay close attention and then after the broadcast look these truths up for your self as I did, there was a time that I had never heard tell of what we’re going to talk about, but once we find out the truth lets tell it every time we have an open door.
We’ve come to chapter 17 of our study, chapter 17: portrays Babylon as a religious system and chapter 18 is dealing with Babylon as a political & commercial system.
Two different aspects of Babylon are viewed in these two chapters, two separate aspects of Babylon and her fall (perhaps suggested by the repetition of the phrase “is fallen is fallen” in 18:2 and 14:8).
Chapter 17 describes Babylon in its mystery form, as a religious system or spirit of false worship; chapter 18 describes Babylon as a political and commercial system.
Chapters 17 and 18 are amplifications of one of the main features of the Tribulation, the place, function, and final judgment of Babylon.
Chapter 17, which deals with the destruction of religious Babylon, would have to occur somewhere around the middle of the Tribulation when the Antichrist is finished using her as a means to his rise to power.
Chapter 18 describes the destruction of political (economic or commercial) Babylon as it is portrayed in the term referred to as Babylon, [ROME} the headquarters of the Antichrist.
The Headquarters of the great political and commercial system of the last half of the Tribulation after the woman is destroyed (the religious system), when the Antichrist assumes his great power, Rome will continue to be his primary headquarters also, though a secondary headquarters will be Jerusalem, when he carries out the abomination of desolation OF Matt. 24:14
Rome will be the headquarters of the religious system in the first half of the tribulation, which is also over the political realm as she has always been to a great degree. But she will be destroyed when the Antichrist has finished using her for his political purposes.
Chapter 17 is in part an amplification of chapter 13 in that it shows us one of the ways the Antichrist and his political system rises to power. He uses the religious influence and power of the woman, the religious system of mystery Babylon.
This religious system will have its tentacles in every part of the world where there is any kind of religion at all, which will be apostate Christendom,***{the big umbrella of all religions that pretend to be Christian and are not, all that are not of God} (the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, Protestant unbelieving churches), the Jewish religion, and the cults and any and all Christ less religions you might think of.
These will all come together in one great ecumenical movement, a super world religion, and the Antichrist will use this to extend his authority and power throughout Europe, parts of Africa and into the Americas.
Babylon is mentioned about 260 times in Scripture, and is second in importance only to Jerusalem. Biblically it is viewed as the Devil’s city while Jerusalem is viewed as God’s city. They are always seen in opposition to each other.
Babylon is the result of apostasy against God’s plan of salvation; Jerusalem is the result of God’s call of a man and a nation to perpetuate His plan of salvation. {ABRAHAM AND ISRAEL}
So we find that there is to be two aspects or faces of Babylon, one is religious and is in existence today, and one is political and commercial. Babylon embodies one great Satanic system.
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Here in chapter 17: we’ll read about the destruction of “religious Babylon” and in chapter 18: we’ll read about the destruction of “political & economical Babylon” And let me say again that we certainly have no hatred of people that may be involved with other religions, but we do hate what their involved in.
The great religious harlot is about to be destroyed, along with its political and economic counterparts. This and the next chapter show how God judges a system that had its beginnings way before the New Testament Church was even formed.
This system is a wicked counterfeit system that is both religious & economic in nature. With it being a system that involves both the religious and the economic, it also has influence with the political systems upon the earth.
This chapter shows how God will finally deal with this system that has long deceived worshipers upon the earth. This system has often looked very Christian while involving both apostate Catholic and apostate Protestant groups.
This system is described as a great whore; which is in respect to its unfaithfulness.
This system is also called the MOTHER OF HARLOTS, which is another inference to unfaithfulness.
Since she is a mother, it must be because she has offspring.
The true Church is a called-out assembly that is to be separated from the world. This does not mean that the true Church should be isolated, but it should be separated.
Revelation 17 outlines the judgment on the great harlot, the apostate religious system that exists in the tribulation period.
The True church is raptured out of this world in chapter 4: and the unbelieving professing church will go into the tribulation period and a great religious system, under the domination of the great harlot will arise, with the False Prophet as it’s head.
Ø John has given many details that give the description of this system.
(1) The system bears the characterization of a harlot (Rev 17-1-2 15-16) It claimed to be Christ’s bride, but the True Church left in chapter 4:.
(2) The system is a leader in ecclesiastical affairs [religious affairs] (Rev. 17:2, 5). Spiritual fornication. Is a reference to a false system.
(3) The system is a leader in political affairs as well (Rev. 17:3). It is seen to be controlling the Beast [R.R.E.] upon which this religious system sits.****she sitting as the RRE supports her.
(4) The system has become very rich and influential (Rev. 17:4).
(5) The system represents a phase of the development of Christendom** {the Hugh umbrella of a Christian appearance. that is here unveiled (Rev. 17:5) in that it is called a “mystery.
(6) The system has been the great persecutor of the saints all down through the ages, [fox’s book of martyrs] (Rev. 17:6).
(7) The system is an organized system of worldwide scope,**-[many waters] (Rev. 17:15).
(8) The Religious system will be destroyed by the Beast, the Antichrist, the head of the Roman coalition,** [ about 3½ years into the tribulation]**so that his supremacy may not be threatened (Rev. 17:16-17)
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Ø WHO IS THIS HARLOT:
Ironside has given a good description of this system and how it began.
I’m going to read to you what he says about this system and it origins, here is what he says.
The woman is a religious system, who dominates the civil power, for a short time. ***
In the Gen.10: account we learn that the founder of Bab-el, or Babylon, was Nimrod, he persuaded his associates and followers to join together in “building a city and a tower which should reach unto heaven.” ... they called their city and tower Bab-El, which means, “the gate of God;”
Gen. 10: 8-10 And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. 9He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, “Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.” 10And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel,
Ø But it was soon changed by divine judgment into Babel, Confusion.
Gen. 11:3 we are told “they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.” An imitation of that which is real and true has ever since characterized Babylon, in all ages.
Nimrod, was a son on Cush and grandson of Ham, the unworthy son of Noah . . . Noah had brought through the flood the revelation of the true God . . . Ham on the other hand seems to have been all too readily affected by the apostasy that brought the flood, for he shows no evidence of self-judgment ... His name. HAM. . Means “swarthy,” “darkened,” or more literally, “the sunburnt.”-
And the name indicates the state of Hams soul . . . darkened by light from heaven . .
[Ham] begat a son named Cush, “the black one,” and he became the father of Nimrod, the apostate leader of his generation.
Ancient lore tells us that the wife of Nimrod was the infamous Semiramis.
She is said to have been the foundress of the Babylonian mysteries and the first high priestess of idolatry.
Thus Babylon became the fountainhead of idolatry, and the mother of every heathen and pagan system in the world.
The mystery-religion that originated there, spread in various forms throughout the whole earth . . . and is with us today . . . and will have its fullest development when the Holy Spirit has de-parted with the True Church and that’s when the Babylon of the Apocalypse will be in control.
Building on the promise in Gen. 3:15, of the woman’s Seed who was to come, Semiramis bore a son out of wedlock whom she declared was miraculously conceived! And when she presented him to the people, he was hailed as the promised deliverer. This was Tam-muz that we read about in Ezekiel.
This is how the mystery of the mother and the child, a form of idolatry, is older than any other known to man.
The rites of this worship were secret. It was Satan’s effort to delude mankind with an imitation so much like the truth of God that they would not know the true Seed of the woman when He came in the fullness of the time. . ..Gal.4:4
~~~Remember I’m reading to you what DR. Ironside says about it.~~~
Ø From Babylon this mystery-religion spread to all the surrounding nations.
Everywhere the symbols were the same, and everywhere the cult of the mother and the child became the popular system; their worship was celebrated with the most disgusting and immoral practices.
The image of the queen of heaven with the babe in her arms was seen everywhere, though the names differ as languages differed.
It became the mystery-religion of Phoenicia, and by the Phoenicians was carried to the ends of the earth.
Astoreth and Tammuz, the mother and child, then became Isis and Horus in Egypt, Aphrodite and Eros in Greece, --Venus and Cupid in Italy, and bore many other names in more distant places.
Ø Within 1000 years Babylonianism had become the religion of the world, which had rejected the Divine revelation.
Linked with this central mystery were countless lesser mysteries . . ..
Among these were the doctrines of purgatorial purification after death, salvation by countless sacraments such as priestly absolution, sprinkling with holy water.
The offering of round cakes to the queen of heaven as mentioned in the book of Jeremiah, dedication of virgins to the gods, which was literally sanctified prostitution.
Weeping for Tammuz for a period of 40 days, prior to the great festival of Istar, [Easter] *** who was said to have received her son back from the dead; for it was taught that Tam-muz was slain by a wild boar and afterwards brought back to life.
To him [Tammuz ] the egg was sacred, as depicting the mystery of his resurrection, even as the evergreen was his chosen symbol and was set up in honor of his birth at the winter solstice, *** when a boar’s head was eaten in memory of his conflict and a Yule-log burned with many mysterious observances. ---CHRISTMAS HAM---
The sign of the cross was sacred to Tammuz,*** {think of the Catholics today that make the mark of a T on their chest} as symbolizing the life-giving principle and as the first letter of his name. It is represented upon vast numbers of the most ancient altars and temples, and did not, as many have supposed, originate with Christianity.
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Ø From this mystery-religion, the patriarch Abraham was separated by divine call; and with this same evil cult the nation that sprang from him [Israel] was in constant conflict.
Only by being sent into captivity to Babylon itself did Judah become cured of her fondness for idolatry. Baal was the Sun-God, the Life-giving One, identical with Tammuz.
Though Babylon as a city had long been but a memory, her mysteries had not died with her.
When the city and temples were destroyed, their high priest fled with a company and their sacred vessels and images to Pergamos, where the symbol of the serpent**{ on the buildings of many medical facilities across the land, A SERPENT ENTWINED AROUND WHAT SEEMS TO BE AN OLIVE BRANCH } this was set up as the emblem of the hidden wisdom.
From there, they afterwards crossed the sea and emigrated to Italy . . . .[Church of Thyatira 2:18] There the ancient cult was propagated under the name of the Et-rus-can Mysteries, and eventually Rome became the headquarters of Babylonianism.
The chief priests wore mitres [head pieces] shaped like the head of a fish, ***{the pope and the so called priest head dress that they adorn today } in honor of Dagon, the fish-god, the Lord of life—another form of the Tammuz mystery, as developed among Israel’s old enemies, the Philistines.
The chief priest when established in Rome took the title Pontifex Maximus, and this was imprinted on his mitre.
When Julius Caesar (who, like all young Romans of good family, was an initiate) had be-come the head of the State, he was elected Pontifex Maximum, and this title was held henceforth by all the Roman emperors down to Constantine the Great, who was, at one and the same time, head of the church and high priest of the heathen!
The title was afterwards conferred upon the bishops of Rome, and is borne by the pope today, who is thus declared to be, not the successor of the fisherman-the apostle Peter, but the direct successor of the high priest of the Babylonian mysteries, and the servant of the fish-god Dagon, for whom he wears, like his idolatrous predecessors, the fisherman’s ring.
During the early centuries of the church’s history, the mystery of iniquity had wrought with such astounding effect, and Babylonian practices and teachings had been so largely absorbed by that which bore the name of the church of Christ, that the truth of the Holy Scriptures on many points had been greatly obscured, while idolatrous practices had been foisted upon the people as Christian sacraments, and heathen philosophies took the place of gospel instruction.
Thus was developed that amazing system which for a thousand years dominated Europe and trafficked in the bodies and souls of men, until the great Re-form-ation of the 16th century brought in a measure of deliverance. *****PRO-TEST-ANTS---Martin Luther---
The false doctrines and practices found within Romanism are directly attributable to the union of this paganism with Christianity when Constantine declared Rome to be a Christian empire.
It is thus concluded that the harlot represents all professing Christendom united in a single system under one head.
The Catholic church today is made up of three religions,--Christianity-mention Jesus, exalts His mother Mary--Judaism-priest, incense—Paganism-counting beads, chanting, est. *****
