Mystery Babylon. Revelation 17
begins the history of Babylon. Look at verse 1. Revelation 17
1. It says, There came one of the
seven angels. Now these are the messengers
of God that were pouring out the vials or the bowls of the
wrath of God upon the sin, curse, fallen world. We have already
come to that seventh bow, which is the end of all things. And
what he does now is he goes back and gives John a vision of Mystery
Babylon so that the people of God will not be deceived. And
he says, one of these seven angels which had the seven vows, the
vows of wrath, this is all symbolic of God's wrath coming down upon
the world. and literally bringing those
who are not in Christ, the unbelieving world, to their knees. Every
knee is going to bow, every tongue is going to confess that Jesus
is Lord. You see, there's only one way
of salvation. You'd be amazed at how many false
preachers who claim to be Christian who are on the national stage,
who refuse to say that plainly. Christ said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. There's only one way. And there's
only one Christ. The Bible speaks that in the
end of all things, there will be false Christ. And that's where
you have to be careful today, especially in our country. Well,
not just in our country, but in the whole world, but our country,
where so many people claim to be Christian. So many churches
claim to be preaching Christ, and you have to listen with a
critical ear. Now, when I say listen with a
critical ear, understand I'm not meaning you're just listening
to find something wrong. What I mean is, is you're being
what the book of Acts calls a noble Berean. And that means when you
hear something stated doctrinally about Christ, who He is, about
what He accomplished on Calvary, you need to go to the Bible.
You need to be a student of the Word and check it out. That's how you test it through
the Scriptures. I want to know, if I'm sitting there listening
to a preacher, I want to know that he's telling me the truth.
You need to know if I'm telling you the truth. And that's why
I say, you don't just take my word for this now. I don't have
any authority. This pulpit does not give me
authority. This book does. You see the difference? People
say, well, I don't think you should question the preacher.
That is a totally, I'll take it to the nth degree. That's
a totally satanic way of thinking. You ought to question every preacher.
Now, that's so. Test the spirits, 1 John 4. Now,
why is that? Well, look at it. He said, This
angel came with the seven vows and talked with me, saying unto
me, Come hither, come here. I will show unto thee the judgment
of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters. Now, he's talking
about harlotry here, the harlot. And what he's showing us is this
harlot who was already judged back in chapter 16, but what
we're going to be told in chapter 17 is why she is judged. On what
grounds does God judge her? And as you know, the scriptures
often describe false religion under the symbol of a harlot.
I've got listed in your lesson here, Proverbs chapter 7, where
Solomon tells his son not to be taken in by the harlot, the
woman, who is appealing outwardly, but who will bring you down.
And that is a symbol of false religion. It has an appeal to
the flesh and outwardly. You remember he told the Pharisees,
he said, outwardly you appear righteous unto men, but inwardly
you're full of dead men's blood. Their gospel, you remember he
told his disciples, beware of the doctrine He called it leaven. Beware of the leaven of the scribes
and the Pharisees. And the disciples didn't understand
until he showed them. He said he's talking about their doctrine,
their false gospel. How long have false gospels been
around? Well, since Adam and Eve fell.
And Cain was an adherent to the false gospel of salvation by
the works and wills of men. Abel was a sinner saved by grace
who brought to God what? The blood of the Lamb. And there's
the difference. And it's not difficult to understand
and see if you have eyes to see. You remember how many times in
the book of Revelation does the Lord say, He who hath ears to
hear, let him hear. She sets upon many waters. Now
what that means is her influence is worldwide. This is not a concentrated
thing. It's not just concentrated in
the Middle East. It's not just concentrated in
Russia. It's all over the world. It's even in the United States
of America, folks. The influence of this great whore. Because her influence is worldwide,
she deceives all nations. Remember when we talked about
the red dragon, which is Satan, who deceives the whole world? So her method is the method of
the one she follows, Satan, and his method is deception. And
much of the time, it's the deception of false religion and false professions
of religion. Do you remember how John described...
You know, people talk about Antichrist today. And they got their attention
focused on one person coming. But do you know how John described
the Antichrist in 1 John 2? Those who left the truth. Read in 1 John 2 and verse 19.
They went out from us. In other words, these were people
who claimed to believe the truth, but then apostatized. That means
fell away from it unto damnation. They didn't lose their salvation
now. Because John says in that same verse, had they been of
us, they would no doubt have what? Remained with us. So they didn't lose their salvation.
Listen, if God saves you by His grace, He'll keep you by His
grace. Now I know what people say, well then I can just go
out and sin as much as I want. No, God's grace is powerful. It's not just some kind of an
esoteric idea floating in the air out there. It changes the
hearts of his people, gives them a new heart to cling to Christ. But here's the deception. We've gone over these scriptures
so many times, I've probably quoted 2 Corinthians 4, 3 and
following several times, you know, where it talks about those
who are deceived by Satan, but they're deceived away from the
gospel. And let me tell you something, if Satan's deception, it pleases
Satan to have people in a false church listening to a false gospel
clinging to a false refuge. anywhere but Christ and His blood
and His righteousness alone. That's what he wants because
that's the deception and that's the method of the great harlot
here who sits upon many waters and it's worldwide. Now one of
the things that you can always, when you read passages like this,
is notice the contrast between the great harlot here and over
in Revelation 21 and verse 9, the bride of Christ. The Lamb's Wife. You see there's
a stark contrast there. We'll read about the Bride of
Christ later on. But the Bride is His Church.
And the Bride is arrayed, now we're gonna see later on how
the Great Harlot is arrayed in scarlet and all that. I'll tell
you about that in just a moment. But the Bride is arrayed in white. And that white is the imputed
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, she's
arrayed in a robe that she didn't make. That's the church. We stand
before God. We who are saved by the grace
of God. We stand before God dressed in a righteousness. And that's
symbolic language now. Doesn't mean it's just an outside
thing. But it's charged, it's accounted to us a righteousness
that we had no part in producing because why? We're sinners. And
sinners are saved by what? Grace. And grace reigns through
what? Righteousness unto eternal life. By who? By Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans chapter 5 and verse 21. So my right and title of acceptance
with God, of blessings from God, of eternal life and glory is
not something that I've earned or deserved. It's something that
was freely given to me conditioned on Christ and not on myself. And I didn't get it by walking
an aisle or making a decision. Did I decide for Christ? Yes,
by the power of God the Holy Spirit. But that's not how I
gained this. This is not how I earned this.
This is not how I empowered it. It's all by His grace through
and through. Grace saves us, grace keeps us,
and grace will bring us to glory. And you know what? If you know
that, you can really sing Amazing Grace now. You know, I've often
made this statement. If God were to judge me at any
second in my life based on what I do or don't do, I would deserve
nothing but eternal damnation. And I'm as serious as I can be
on that. Well, you see that contrast. There's all kinds of contrast
in Revelation. Like, for example, Babylon. We're
going to see the word Babylon. You know the word Babylon has
its roots in Babel, the Tower of Babel. You remember the Tower
of Babel back in Genesis chapter 10? You know what the word Babel
means? Anybody know? We think of it
as confusion, but you know that's an etymology. You know what etymology
is? That's the changing the meaning
of words down through the ages. You know what the original word
Babel meant? Gate of God. What were they trying to do at
Babel? They were trying to build, they say a tower, literally it
was probably just a city, but it didn't matter, they were trying
to work their way to God. That's what Babel was all about.
Sinners trying to earn their way by making themselves righteous,
safe and secure and earn God's favor. And what happened there? Well, God brought confusion down
and since then the word Babel has come to mean confusion. But
originally it meant gate of God. They were trying to build a way
of God. It was sinners like Cain trying to make their work their
own way into God's favor. But now it's just Babylon. It's
Babel. It's confusion. And that's what
false religion is. It's deception. It's darkness.
It's confusion. It's encased in pride and self-righteousness. Thinking that I can rise above. That I have it in me. Here's
what it is. Thinking that I have it in me to rise above the rest
of fallen humanity and make good and right decisions which God
will, as a response, bring me into His kingdom. That's Babylon. That's confusion. The Bible doesn't
teach that. You know what the Bible teaches? It teaches if God leaves me to
myself, I'd never choose Him and His way of salvation. Now
I can choose religion now. I can choose even to be a good
person as men and women on earth count goodness, but not as God.
Remember when the rich young man came to Christ in Matthew
19 and said, good master, what good thing must I do to inherit
eternal life? And he said, why do you call
me good? There's none good but God. You know what he was doing
to the young man there? He was showing that his standard
of goodness was way too low. As we compare with each other,
we may consider ourselves good, but how are we when we compare
ourselves to Christ? Because that's how good we have
to be, that's how righteous we have to be. Act 1731, God has
commanded the world, all men everywhere to repent because
he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness
by that man whom he has ordained, in that he hath given assurance
unto all men that he raised him from the dead. Anything less,
Babylon. Now you know about the city of
Babylon. Let's go on, look at verse 2. He says, this great
whore, this great harlot, and it says, verse 2, with whom the
kings of the earth, now the kings of the earth represent all authority
that is opposed to Christ and the gospel. And it says, have
committed fornication. Now it's talking about spiritual
fornication. Now this is rough language, isn't
it? This is not parlor talk here. This is not for the faint of
heart. This is just bare facts in technicolor. And what he's actually saying
is that anyone who adheres to the false gospel of Babylon,
the false gospel of salvation by the works and will of men,
is literally committing spiritual fornication. In other words, any other way
but Christ and his righteousness alone, by the grace of God, is
spiritual fornication. And it says, and the inhabitants
of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
The reason he uses the symbol of wine there is because if you
drink too much wine, what does it do? It saturates everything.
It saturates your mind, confuses you, You can't make right judgments. They say your reaction time goes
way down. All of that. What they are is
they're drunk on false religion. They're in a spiritual darkness
and stupor. And that's what it's talking
about. It's the wine that Babylon, the great whore, serves is her
false doctrine. that influences and controls
the minds, the hearts, the affections, the will of all who follow her
and commit this spiritual fornication. We've all seen men who are drunk
on pride. Drunk on selfishness. Drunk on
self-fulfillment. That's what this is. Drunk on
false religion. And I'll tell you what, that's
the case with man by nature. He's consumed with his own abilities. He's consumed with his own, what
he perceives now as his own goodness. Why does the Bible say there's
none good, no not one? There's none that seek after
God, no not one. There's none righteous, no not
one. Do you suppose that that is talking about some segment
of society that is below you? Or do you suppose, well, now
look, man, I was born in South Georgia. I was on the cradle
row. We're born in sin. And that's
offensive to the natural man. And why is it offensive? You ever had a situation where
you had a drunk and you're trying to convince him or her that they're
drunk and they get mad at you? Oh, I can drive. That kind of
thing? Well, that's the way it is with
false religion. This is offensive because he or she is drunk on
their pride and their self-righteousness and their self-will and their
own perceived goodness. They have no righteousness, the
scripture says. They're spiritually dead. And
that's why if you have eyes to see and ears to hear, You're
a walking, talking miracle of God's grace. That's why Christ
said you must be born again or you cannot what? See the kingdom
of God. You must be born again or you
cannot enter the kingdom of God. He spoke of the Pharisees to
his disciples. They have ears to hear but they
will not hear. Why? They're drunk on their own
self-righteousness. and their false doctrine which
feeds the flesh and feeds their pride. They're the captain of
their fate. They're the determiner of their
destiny. It's all based upon what they've
done for God. And every time you hear that
and it pleases you, it's like drinking a bottle of wine to
get drunk on, spiritually speaking. Is that too harsh? Well, that's
what this is saying. You see, John is intent here,
the Lord is intent here on showing John and the church not what
necessarily we want to hear, but what we need to hear. Look
at verse three, he says, so he carried me away in the spirit
into the wilderness. Now John is getting a vision
here. And he's not talking about being picked up and whooshed
through the clouds here. The wilderness here is representative
of the sin-cursed fallen earth. And he's saying, in this vision,
I was carried away in the spirit. That is, in his mind, his affections,
his wills, this vision is being given to him. He said, I saw
a woman sit on a scarlet-colored beast. Now there's the scarlet
color. What does scarlet represent in the scripture? Represents
sin. Isaiah 118, come let us reason
together, though your sins be as scarlet, be as crimson. Be as red, they shall be like
wool, they'll be white as snow." That's talking about sinners
in Christ who have their sins washed away. But this woman is
sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast. That is, she's all about
sin, but it's not just what the world recognizes as sin. Look
on, he says, full of names of blasphemy. Now blasphemy is an
onslaught to God. See, blasphemy is misrepresenting
God, saying things that are not true about God. Blasphemy is literally idolatry
and it says has seven heads and ten horns. Now we've already
talked about that symbol and I'm not going to go into that
this morning because I don't have time, but that represents
her complete deception. Seven being her work, her finished
work, and ten being the judgment that she has brought down upon
the earth. It's complete. That's what that means. Verse
four, the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color and
decked with gold and precious stones and pearls. See, this
is outward beauty. These are things that are appealing
to men and women by nature. Purple, that means royalty, that's
like authority. She wouldn't lie to me. And then
it says scarlet color, that's the sin. Decked with gold, there's
another symbol of deity. In other words, she's claiming
to have the authority of God. Precious stones and pearls, things
that draw your attention. And then it says, having a golden
cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication. You see, it's sinful, but it's
served in a golden cup. And that is a perfect symbol
of false religion. Remember what I said about what
Christ said to the Pharisees. Outwardly, you appear righteous. Religious. But inwardly, like
an open grave. You see, sin and false doctrine
and false gospels are deadly. They're an abomination, no matter
how beautiful the cup they're served in. And that's where we
get to the deception. Look at verse 5. It says, And
upon her forehead... Now the forehead represents the
mind, because that's what she's after. If she can get your mind,
she'll have your heart. And upon her forehead was a name
written, Mystery. Now, what is a mystery in the
Bible? You know, we think of a mystery. You know, we all love
a good mystery. We think of a mystery as something
we either read or see or something that we have to get clues and
then figure out. That's not what a mystery is
in the Bible. A mystery in the Bible is something that men and
women by nature cannot see and understand unless God reveals
it. In other words, listen, unless
God uncovers, unless He removes the darkness and removes the
covering here, you're not going to understand this as far as
recognizing it for what it is. And he says, mystery, Babylon. Now you know Babylon, we talked
about the Tower of Babel. Remember the Babylonian Empire
that overran the country of Judah, the southern kingdom, and brought
him into captivity at the end of Jeremiah's prophecy. And that's
where you pick up with Daniel and Ezekiel. In other words,
they were the great enemies of Israel in the Old Testament,
the people of God. And they came down from the north.
The north represents the judgment of God. In other words, God was
judging Israel for their sins. And then later on, he released
them from captivity. They were in captivity 70 years. That's the completeness of God's
judgment upon them. And then they were allowed to
go back to their homeland and rebuild the temple. It wasn't
even close to what they had with the Temple of Solomon, but it
was there. In other words, and of course you know what all that
was all about, God was keeping them together even in their captivity
until the time of Reformation, which in Hebrews 9 is the time
of Christ coming into the world, and then that whole economy would
end. And then they would, the new covenant began. But Babylon
represents the enemies of the church, the enemies of Christ.
Babylon the great, he says. the mother of harlots and abominations
of the earth." Now, I understand he's talking about religious
deception there. You read 2 Thessalonians 2. I probably referenced that passage
quite a bit in our study of Revelation because there's a couple of key
phrases in 2 Thessalonians 2 where Christ is talking about the end
and how the man of sin, Antichrist, would come. And one of the things
he talks about is the deceivableness of unrighteousness. The deceivableness
of unrighteousness. Now what he's talking about there
is an unrighteousness that is deceptive to the natural man.
In other words, he's not just talking about open immorality
there. Because even lost people, even
idolaters can recognize to some extent that open immorality is
sin. I mean even ungodly nations and
governments have laws planted upon their conscience whereby
they enact social behavior. Now, we can talk about some issues
there, you know, that vary between cultures and stuff like that,
but on the whole. But what he's talking about is
a deception that we, well, by definition, a deception is something
that somebody can't recognize. But he's talking about an unrighteousness,
an abomination here, that man by nature just will not recognize
unless God opens his eyes. That's the deception. We'll look
at verse 6. He says, and I saw the woman
drunken with the blood of the saints. That has to do with the
martyrs. Throughout the history of the
true church, certain Christians, true Christians, have been called
on to give their life for the cause of Christ. And that's an
amazing thing. And you know who shed more Christian
blood than anybody else? False religion. Now, I know the
Roman Empire back in the days of the early church shed a lot
of blood. That was really a false religion, too. They considered
Caesar to be God. And anybody who wouldn't bow
to that were insurrectionists. But false religion down through
the ages. has shed more blood. The Catholic
Church shed more blood. Christian blood, true Christian
blood. And that's what he's talking about. The saint is a sanctified
one. A sinner saved by grace. That's
what a saint is. If you're a believer, you're
a saint. You don't work your way up to being a saint. Somebody
said, well, I'm a Christian, but I'm no saint. Well, you're
not a Christian then. Saint means sanctified one, that
one who is set apart by the grace of God for Christ. That's what
that is. Nobody is canonized into being
a saint. God makes saints. And so he says,
and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, he's describing them,
it's the same thing, it's not two different classes of people
here, but he says, and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. Now the way that's translated
is a little bit misleading in the English language here. John
certainly, a child of God, a sinner saved by grace, and one who is
an apostle is certainly not standing in admiration of the great whore.
Some translators, or some commentators rather, say that the admiration
here is towards the martyrs. But it says, I saw her, I wondered
with great admiration. They say that what John is talking
about is he's standing in awe of these who gave their lives.
Now that's what some commentators say. The word admiration there
literally means astonishment. And I believe what John is saying
is that he is just astonished and amazed that any who claim
and profess to be followers of Christ could be the very ones
who would kill men and women who truly believe Christ. But
now you can take that either way on that, but you gotta be
careful sometimes. That's why we have to really Study the scriptures
and the words and all that. So John is either, his admiration
is for the martyrs. In other words, he's thanking
God for his grace. But that word admiration does
mean astonishment. He's just astonished at these
things. You know, I can understand that because in John's day, all
this stuff was just beginning. We've seen a lot of it in the
history as we look back upon the New Covenant age, and then
we're seeing a lot of it in our days. We don't want to get callous
to it, but we're kind of used to seeing it. You know, one of
the signs of the end is that the gospel, religion will flourish,
but the gospel will get less and less and less. You'll see
that.