Religious Bablylon pt. 1
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Intro:
Intro:
Well as we have been making our way through the book of Revelation we are starting to make our way to the end of the book.
we have seen the age of the church, we have seen the rapture of the church, we have seen the start of the tribulation period , the rise of the Anti-Christ and all the 3 sets of judgement that has come upon the Christ rejecting world.
as we start wrapping things up , we are going to look at the fall and the judgement of the system that the anti-christ sets up. This is what we are going to really look at in the next 2 chapters.
See one of the things that we have talked about is the fact that the Church is the one thing that is holding Satan and his plans to really go crazy on the world. While there is still many evils and wickedness, yet we have not seen the level of depravity that will come at the end of times .
but at the beginning of chapter 4, we see the statement.... “after these things”..... there is a change of direction, a change of season. Is in reference to the church being raptured.... Jesus returns for His church, for those who have placed their faith in Him as their personal Lord and Savoir.
and the rapture is what sets off the timeline of the 7 years of tribulation. In chapter 6 we see the start of the tribulation period with the 7 seal judgements being open and judgement beginning on the world.
the first seal that is open brings forth the rise of the Anti-christ. This man rises up into power through political means and becomes a person of importance. A person who will seem to have all of the answers, he will be able to make things happen that no other person has ever been able to do, like peace in Israel between the Jews and the Muslim, like the Jews being able to build a temple on the temple mount in Jerusalem.
eventually , this man will become the world leader with control really of every aspect of the world. Now this would not be possible unless a few things were behind him.
Transition
powers behind the rise of the Anti-Christ
Satan’s power
We have seen that Satan is behind the Anti-Christ. He gives this man power to rise into authority, to deceive the world leaders and the people around the world with miracles, signs and wonders. Without the power of Satan working behind him, he would not be able to have the power and influence that he will come to have.
The Religious System
now there will also be a religious system that will be behind or supporting the Anti-Christ that will help to establish his reign and power.
anytime you have a great leader rise into power over a nation or a group of people, you have had the support of a religious leader or a religious system like a church.
remember that true believers in Christ will be raptured before the start of the tribulation period, but because of the church being gone, it will leave a vacuum if you would, a hole that needs to be filled.
and this will allow for a religious system that either has already existed or that will be a combination of systems that will be the reigning authority. And this system will back and support the Anti-Christ .
The Political and Economic System
there will also be a new political system that will be made up of the new revised Roman empire, a conjunction of 10 kingdoms ruled by 10 kings all under the authority of the Anti- Christ.
With this political power, he will be able to have control of all the economic systems, which will allow him to enforce his power over people , like forcing people to take the mark of the beast in order to buy and sell.
- But all of these systems will eventually come to an end, they will calapse as the Lord will bring His Judgement on the systems and those who are a part of these systems. And this is what we are going to be looking at over the next couple of weeks.
Chapter 17 will deal with the fall of the Religious system that is in power during the tribulation period. And in chapter 18 we will see the fall of the political and economic system that has been set up by the Anti-Christ.
this leads us to chp. 19, the second coming of Christ and bringing judgement of the Anti-christ, false prophet , statan , and the world. Then we will see the 1,000 year reign of Christ in rev. 20, new heaven and earth in chp. 21 & 22. Then we are done.
so you can see that we are almost coming to an end.
I. THE VISION OF JUDGEMENT FOR THE WOMAN ON THE BEAST (V. 1-2)
A. THE JUDGEMENT OF THE GREAT HARLOT (V.1)
Remember that in chapter 16 we saw the 7 angels pouring out the 7 bowl judgements. Now we have one of the 7 angles come to John and he speaks to him.
and he calls John to go with him and he will show John the judgement of the great harlot.
so as we look at this, right away we see that there is a figure which is called the “great Harlot” and we can see that this figure was not good because judgement is coming upon her.
now as you read the entire passage you begin to understand that John did not see a pyhsical woman here. But this “great harlot” is in referrence to a city. We will see that it is specifically the City of Babylon .
I read this commentator say that within the bible you see the “tale of two cities”. The city of Jerusalem, which is called the city of God, which is everything that is good and pleasing to God.
and you have the City of Babylon which is referenced some 300 times in the bible, and it is a picture of everything that is against God.
now the best way to describe this is like the city of Hollywood. We use the term of Hollywood, which is the name of the City, but the reference to Hollywood has many meanings, and is usually in description of what it is known for...... making movies.
so we say “hollywood has a huge influence on social media”, we don’t mean that the city of Hollywood… but what it is known for and those associated with it, like actors, we are really saying that those who make movies who are a part of Hollywood have an influence.
this is the picture you get with these cities.
Transition
so when John sees these great harlot, which we know to be the city of Babylon, it is not saying that John saw this city who sat on many waters, but it is in reference to that which is associated with Babylon sat on many waters.
and the name that John calls her gives us insight into what is associated with the City. “the great Harlot”
see the word “harlot” in the bible is in reference to those who have gone outside of the normal and normal, approved marriage relationship.
a woman who was to go outside of her marriage and to have sexual relationships with other men not her husband was committing adultery, and was considered a harlot. She was taking what was meant for her husband and selling it off to others.
God would use this word time and time again in reference to Israel and His relationship with them. You can get a great picture in the book of Hosea.
that God was a husband, longed and desired to be with his people, His bride, yet Isreal committed spiritual adultery and made herself a harlot as the people would give their affections and worship that belonged to God, and give it to idols and worship false Gods.
this is what John is making the connection with, that the city of babylon had a connection with spiritual adultery, there was an association of being a spiritual harlot.
Transition
the city of Babylon was one of the oldest cities in the world. it was one of the oldest civilizations . you can go back to the book of Genesis and read about this in Gen. 10 &11.
we see in Gen. that there was a man by the name of Nimrod who was the great grandson of Noah. We are told that Nimrod was a “great hunter before God”
yet in the original Hebrew, it actually says Nimrod was “a great hunter against God” . Nimrod was a man that opposed God. His name means “rebel”.
we are told that this man Nimrod was a ruler of the land near Shinar which was in the area where the tower of babel was built in Gen. 11. You remember that the people decided to build a tower to the skies and God saw their hearts in the matter.
so God brought confusion to the language of the people which caused them to stop with the tower. The word babel meant “gateway to God”, it became known later as confusion, today we still use the word babel to describe someone that we cannot understand.
This was the beginning of the city of Babylon. Now from here there are old writings and stories which eventually became the religion of babylon.
the babylonians believed that Nimrod was married to a woman by the name of Simarimus. Now Nimrod died one day and after his death, his wife Simarimus proclaimed that she was pregnant , a miraclous coneption had taken place..... in other words she had not been with a man and she was pregnant.
she would give birth to a son named Tamuz who was believed to be the reincarnation of Nimrod. Now the story goes on like this, that Tamuz was out hunting one day and he got boared by a wild animal and was killed. He was left on the road for 3 days and on the third day he rose again from the dead.
this was what the Babylonian religion was, does this sound fimiliar? This was 1,000’s of years before Jesus would be born. Later on the names would be changed and called differently by different cultures but the fact remains the same......
that from babylon came this confusion, this false religion , a counterfiet to the real thing.... that would spread throughout all of the world and would be the foundation of all of the false religions in the world.
Transition
we can’t go into all of the details for the sake of time, but because of the resurrection of Tamuz, the babylonians celebrated “Istar” during spring . and they would celebrate by taking eggs and painting them.
they believed that Tamuz was born on Dec. 25th, and they would celebrate by cutting down trees and decorating them with silver.
as part of the initiation to the religion, you would have to confess to the babylonian priests, who wore red garments and tall hats. they had one main pontix, who was over all of the priests. They regularly worshipped Holy Simaramus and the son Tamuz
and this took place for hundreds of years until the babylonians were conquered by the meads and persians . but the religion would continue up through the reign of Rome who would adopt this religion. They would actually make the Caesars the holy pontix of the religion.
this took place all the way up until AD 300’s when Emperor Constantine became a Christian. He actually made Christianity the state religion. This may seem like it was a good thing, but the problem was that you had many people including priest from the babylonian religion that were fearful of death and so people declared themselves Christians even though they were not.
Constanstine realized that this was a problem. So his mother actually played a part in bringing in the babylonian religion and the practices into the christian faith, which became the Catholic Church.
so now the celebration of “Istar” the resurrection of Tamuz became the celebration of Easter where we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.
Dec. 25th became the time we celebrate the birth of Jesus. The holy babylonian Pontix, became the pope, the temple virgins became the nuns, the worship of the mother and son, became the worship of Mary.etc.....
Transition
and you ended up with was a church that was initially worshiping the one true God, yet because of the mixing of other religions and practices not in the bible, you ended up with a church that was decieved, that was practicing spiritual adultery. They became harlots .
This is what John is seeing. Many people believe that this religious system at the end is the Catholic church because of everything that we have mentioned but also because of its tendancy of being all inclusive regardless of what you believe.
it is very possible it could be the Catholic church John sees, or it could be a mixture . Just like the church merged beliefs in early church history, so it is possible for the mixing and becoming one with many different beliefs. That is the picture of spiritual haroltry
John sees this religious system sitting on many waters.... or it is talking about this church at the end times will have it’s influence on all the people in the world.
B. The Reason for Judgement (v.2)
we are told here the reason why judgement will come to this religious church or system.
because it caused both those in authority ( the kings of the earth) and the people of the earth to commit spiritual fornication. Which is talking about a sexual encounter outside of what is God ordained.
this religious system influences the people in the world to become drunk in spiritual fornication. or what that is taking about is that this system leads people away from the truth and leads them to destroy themselves spiritually by becoming one with and by mixing with other deceptive beliefs . Compromise.
Transition - application
there is an interesting word that we have to pick up on in v. 2. “made” . it appears that the kings were willing participants in the deception party but the people were deceived by those in authority as they were “made” drunk.
it is very possible that those in authority both in a political sense and in a religious sense have an influence on the world society.
they may take place by laws put into place , or religious practices . it may be by pushing a certain narrative, it may be by the removal of the moral standard.
this is how you influence a group , how you influence a nation.
you remove the moral standard of the day- perhaps like the bible, the constitution .
you control the narrative- thru social media, news, elected representatives etc....
you replace the moral standard with a new culturally approved standard. - new laws, new practices
This is important for us to follow, because even today we see this happening. So as we look into the past and into the future, we can see the tendancy we have.
the fact that we have a society today and those in authority that are trying hard to remove the biblical standard of our nation but also of the world. They are trying to push a certain narrative of what is culturally approved by them and their narrative.
they pressure the world to follow and believe the way they do and they bully those who don’t.
they are replacing our biblical standard with non- biblical and even evil standards.
Application
this is exactly what Satan wants to do. He is desiring to destroy our lives.
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
He is attempting for me and you to go outside of the proper relationship with God, and the proper way of salvation , and to pursue and engage in a wrong relationship with false worship, with idolatry
anything that takes the place of God in my life has become idolatry .
this does not happen over night. This is a slow and gradual thing that takes place.
you begin to be influenced by the narrative of the world rather that by god,
“ i can do these things before marriage” “ it is not a sin to be gay”, “Jesus is all about love and not judgement”, “the bible was for old times, it is not relevant for today”. “there is no absolute truth”
you then replace your biblical standard with worldly approved standards. you replace the word of God with other things..... social media, tv, relationships....
Satan is seeking to destroy you and i and yet often it is a slow process. A process of slow erosion
Erosion - the process of eroding by wind, water or natural agents. the gradual destruction of something.
Satan is often attacking us slowly and gradually with things all around us, even nature good things. Things that cause me to neglect the very things that are meant to keep me alive.
Neglect is where Erosion begins. Satan’s plan is to cause so much erosion in you and i spiritually that we fall apart or fall away.
neglecting spiritual things in our lives will often lead to compromise..... compromise will be the final component in our spiritual demize or fall.
NEGLECT LEADS TO EROSION, WHICH LEADS TO COMPROMISE WHICH LEADS TO A SPIRITUAL DOWNFALL
Danger of Compromise
Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
How to Avoid Compromise
But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
Test all things; hold fast what is good.
Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will dwell in them
And walk among them.
I will be their God,
And they shall be My people.”
Therefore
“Come out from among them
And be separate, says the Lord.
Do not touch what is unclean,
And I will receive you.”
“I will be a Father to you,
and you shall be My sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.”
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.