REVELATION SIMPLIFIED

 

CHAPTER 17.5b

Gleanings from the Book of Revelation:

A Weekly Verse-by-Verse Bible Study Series

 

The

REVELATION TO JOHN

 

Chapter Seventeen

The Great Tribulation

Parenthesis

Mystery Babylon

 

 

Forward

Literal Babylon most likely will be rebuilt during the Tribulation Period. The city of Babylon is mentioned more times in the Bible than any other city except for Jerusalem. However, instead of knowing its historical background does not suffice when attempting to understand apocalyptic literature. Peering through the religious component of Babylon would allow a better comprehension of what the Holy Spirit is revealing through John. Thus, not only will it become an eschatological symbol of satanic power and deception but will also be the headquarters for Antichrist’s false religious system.

 

Introduction

God’s Prophetic Plan for Israel

The Law

The first of the Ten Commandments reads as follows:

Exodus 20:3-5a – Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God.

 

Israel’s First Family

Terah, the father of Abraham moved his family approximately 600 miles upstream of the Euphrates River from Ur of the Chaldees, a city in southern Mesopotamia where a ziggurat stood and idolatry flourished, then he settled in Haran. God specifically chose Abram and his wife Sarai to move about 400 miles southwest to be separate from the world and give him and his descendants the land of Canaan (Palestine) to form a nation unto Himself. There, He established the Abrahamic Covenant that through him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed (cf. Genesis 11:26 – 15:21; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4). This nation was purposed to be a light of all nations, set apart and free from idolatry, a testimony to His grace:

Isaiah 42:6 – I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles.

 

Isaiah 49:6b – I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth.

 

Isaiah 60:3 – And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

 

Hence, Israel was to be a source and a blessing to all nations by being God's representative on earth which was increasingly leading down the path of corruption as did once before the Flood.

 

The Land of Canaan

As Abraham’s descendants grew into a nation, God selected a prime real estate for them to inhabit. The Land of Canaan would express God’s glory throughout the known world. However, Canaan's inhabitants were extremely idolatrous people and worshipped Baal and other gods. Later, when it was time for the Israelites to enter the Promised Land, God delineated detailed instructions before their occupation:

Deuteronomy 7:1-2, 5 - When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following Me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

 

Israel’s men were forbidden to marry the aforementioned foreign women (later expanded to all foreign nations) due to their allegiance to pagan gods. However, the gods being associated with sexual immorality was a great temptation for indulgence to Israel.

 

Baal Worship

Baal (lord), the principal god of the Canaanites was the enemy to the God of the Israelites. He was universally known by several names, some of which embrace:

1. The king of the gods

2. The god of fertility

3. The lord of the rain

 

Apart from idolatry, widely practiced were incest, homosexuality, bisexual orgies, bestiality, and other grossly immoral sexual behaviours. Naturally, the consequences of such behaviours would produce unwanted pregnancies.

 

Consequently Baal worship, apart from human sacrifice specifically involved and perpetuated child sacrifice. They would sacrifice young children and often bury them in the cornerstone of a house or a public building at the time of construction to appease Baal. The Bible records one such example:

Joshua 6:26 – And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the LORD, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it.

 

Consequence for Disobedience

However, when the time arrived for Israel to enter the land, destruction had not occurred in the invasion of Canaan. The allurement of immorality eventually caused Israel’s disobedience to God and their punishment for seventy years of captivity by the Babylonians, the pretext for Revelation 17 and verse 5…

 

 

(Verse 5)

 

And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

 

Roots of Religious Babylon

The Tower of Babel

Not far removed from the Flood, the descendants of Noah once again began to turn from God as they settled in the Land of Shinar, the region of the Euphrates and Tigris River Valleys. Patriarch Nimrod became the first apostate (cf. Revelation Study 14.6). The biblical account chronicles:

Genesis 10:9a, 10a – He (Nimrod, grandson of Noah) was a mighty hunter before the LORD… And the beginning of his (Nimrod’s) kingdom was Babel (confusion).

 

Genesis 11:1-4 - And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime [bitumen (pitch) – the same asphalt-like substance Noah used for the Ark] had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

 

As the city of Babel was under construction, Nimrod ordered a temple to be built dedicated to the god Belus, who would later be called Baal. At the same time, he oversaw the building project of the Tower of Babel (not specifically mentioned in the Bible but known as such, the gate to God).

 

A tower temple was erected, in the form of a ziggurat, which reached into the heavens to persuade his followers to depart from the worship of Jehovah God. Its purpose was to establish a world federation of super-states that would be governed through religion and politics. This diabolical anti-God organization would sway millions of people, speaking one language, around the world.  And eschatologically, the system would be re-established during Tribulation.

Babel’s heavenly tower was essential as such:

1. The first object of worship

2. The first idol

3. The first point of pride

 

Thus, the tower would serve as a forerunner of later ziggurats built to worship heathen deities.

 

God’s intervention

Seeing that nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined doing (cf. Genesis 11:6), the text indicates:

1. They had one language

2. They  had one mind

3. They had one purpose

 

Intended to escape another possible flood, the tower project was interrupted by God:

Genesis 11:7-8 - Go to (Come), let Us (the Triune Godhead) go down, and there confound (confuse) their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build (stopped building) the city.

 

As a result, a diaspora of humanity spread throughout the world, settling where diverse groups of people spoke similar languages (cf. Genesis 11:8-9). Of course, ziggurats patterned their worship. Tops of ziggurats were utilized by pagan priests to chart stars and the zodiac.

 

The Origin of False Religion

Her true origins are unknown, but according to historian Eusebius and ancient legends, Nimrod had a wife, Noah’s granddaughter, named Semiramis, a later Hellenized form of the Sumerian name Sammuramat (gift of the sea). She also came to be known by a few other names including:

1. The Queen of Babylon

2. The High Priestess of Idolatry

3. The Divine Mother of the Earth

 

Conceived by a sunbeam, Semiramis gave birth to a son named Tammuz (a counterfeit of the virgin birth). At the time, he was hailed as the promised deliverer. During his youth, however, after being gored by a wild boar and pronounced dead, his mother wept and fasted for forty days. Interestingly, at the close of the forty days, Tamuz rose from the dead (a counterfeit of the Resurrection). As a side note, each year temple virgins entered into a forty-day fast in memoriam to Tamuz.

 

Semiramis’ mourning observance later became known as Lent, a Latin word Quadragesima meaning fortieth. After forty days, a festival called Ishtar was held. And intriguingly, the imagery of eggs (the giving of life) emerged from this story. Additionally, early art forms of the mother-child (Madonna and Child) relationship are usually depicted with a glow or halo round about their heads.

 

Proliferation of Idolatry

When God confused (babel) the languages, people moved from Babel and carried their idolatry with them. The temples of Semiramis and Tamuz were often found together. Tamuz was their principal god and Semiramis their goddess. Sexuality was always associated with their religious symbols. Priestesses were temple prostitutes and the Sodomites were male temple prostitutes.

 

Throughout history, her religious practices spread throughout the world and morphed into many disgusting and immoral practices. Not only that, but Archaeology has uncovered temple ruins where jars were found containing body parts of children sacrificed to gods. And, numerous images, statues, and plaques with rudely exaggerated reproductive organs designed to foster sensuality were also unearthed.

 

The Days of Daniel

Significant to Israel’s seventy years of captivity was Babylon’s religious system. Mesopotamia was completely encroached on by polytheism. Pantheons of major gods were worshipped along with thousands of minor gods. Around the second millennium B.C., Marduk (associated with storms, agriculture, judgment, and magic), became the king of gods. He would be a corruption of Baal and the predecessor of later gods such as Zeus of the Greeks and Rome’s Jupiter. Coincidently, his temple resembled that of the ziggurat at Babel.

 

Later, when the Medes and the Persians destroyed the city of Babylon, the high priest, priests, and priestesses fled to Pergamos and transported their religious idols and paraphernalia with them. So in Revelation when Christ addresses his Letter to Pergamos, He says, “I know you live where Satan has his throne (cf. Revelation 2:13, CEB).” And, history informs after Pergamos they fled to Rome. Hence, Rome became the headquarters of the Babylonian cult, eventually paganizing Christianity.

 

Other Biblical Examples

Peppered throughout Old Testament history is Israel’s attraction to the counterfeit religion:

1. According to the Book of Kings, Ahab’s wife Jezebel persuaded him to abandon Yahweh and promulgate Baal and Asherah worship. After Israel became engulfed in idolatry, the prophet Elijah had 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah summoned to the notorious contest at Mount Carmel:

1 Kings 18:19 -  Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves (Asherah) four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table.

 

2. Jeremiah wept as Judah persisted in worshipping the mother-child cult. He warned of their apostasy:

Jeremiah 7:18 - The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger.

 

3. In Ezekiel’s prophecy, he envisions God’s Temple being desecrated by the worship of Tamuz:

Ezekiel 8:14 – Then He brought me (Ezekiel) to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house (the Temple) which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.  

 

Ancient Religions*

Phoenicia was the original land of Canaan where Baal was substituted for Tamuz and Ashteroth for Semiramus, the personification of the reproductive principle in nature. The substitution chart below simply serves as an example to show how counterfeit religious systems spread throughout the world set opposing God’s plan of redemption through His Son Jesus Christ.  

1. Phoenicia (Canaan)

a.  Baal – The storm god

b.  Ashtoreth – Goddess of fertility, motherhood, and war

 

2. Egypt

a.  Osiris - God of the underworld, and rebirth

b.  Isis - Goddess of magic, fertility, motherhood, death, healing, and rebirth

 

3. Babylon

a.  Marduk – The national god of Babylon

b.  Sarpanit – The mother goddess

 

4. Assyria

a.  Tamuz – The sun god of Assyria

b.  Ishtar – The goddess of war, fertility, and sex

 

5. Greece

a.  Eros – God of love and sensual desire

b.  Aphrodite – Goddess of beauty, pleasure, and fertility

 

6. Rome

a.  Cupid – God of desire, affection, and erotic love

b.  Venus – Goddess of beauty, sex, and fertility

 

7. India (a pantheon of deities)

a.  Brahma – The creator god

b.  Ishvara – The concept of a (queen) supreme soul

 

8. China

a.  Shing Moo – China’s holy mother, the gazing mother of the earth

b.  Ma Tsoopo – A vulture (cf. Job 28:7)

 

*NOTE: Presented is a simplistic overview of some major pagan deities throughout antiquity. A wealth of information is readily available for further discussion or research on said pagan deities (i.e., dictionaries, encyclopedias, and Wikipedia).

 

 

Babylon of Revelation 17 represents an accumulation of evil apostate universal religious systems under the control of Satan. All false religions scattered since the Tower of Babel will finally be gathered and re-established from around the world into one worldwide apostate church.

 

A warning against such apostasy is foretold to the New Testament Church:

1 Timothy 4:1-3 - Now the (Holy) Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.

 

Summary

 A worldwide system of apostate religions is involved in a one-world system reminiscent of a harlot pictured controlling illicit intercourse with the world. Recall, a prostitute is someone who sells himself or herself for profit and gives up purity and chastity for money. Likewise, Mystery Babylon is a religion of harlotry, committing adultery and immorality with the kings of the earth. Therefore, she is in view during Tribulation, as THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS OF THE EARTH AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.   

 

In the next lesson and following, careful attention will be given to the discussion of the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and martyrs and a description of the beast and its character.

 

 

QUESTIONS:

1.   Why is God so adamant against idolatry?

2.   Why did God want the Canaanites destroyed?

3.   Why is Baal worship so horrendous?

4.   What was Nimrod’s agenda?

5.   How did God intervene in Satan’s program?

6.   Describe the religious beginnings of Babylon.

7.   Why is Babylon called The Mother of Harlots?

 

 

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