The EU and Bible Prophecy- Daniel’s Fourth Kingdom- Mother of Harlots -3

“The relationship between church and state is described in the Scriptures as one of “fornication” (Revelation 17:2). Unlike marriage where two people give themselves to each other, a relationship of fornication between a man and a woman is a selfish one, with each trying to get from the other. This is exactly how the relationship has been between the church and the secular European leaders down through history, each seeking its own advantage over the other.”

THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS

Revelation, Chapter 17, describes the Great Whore of Babylon, who represents false religion. Babylon’s political and religious aspects bring down God’s judgment. While political Babylon’s judgment occurs just prior to the battle at Armageddon and results from the Antichrist’s reign, religious Babylon’s annihilation comes through the Antichrist and his federation of kings.

The Antichrist abolishes religion, and persecutes its followers for not worshipping him alone. In Dwight Pentecost’s Things To Come: A Study of Bible Eschatology, Pentecost quotes Scofield, who confirms: “Two ‘Babylon’s’ are to be distinguished in the Revelation…Ecclesiastical Babylon is ‘the great whore'(Rev. 17:1), and is destroyed by political Babylon (Rev. 17:15-18), that the beast may be the alone object of worship (II Thess. 2:3, 4; Rev. 13:15).”

As one reviews history, one realizes the identity of the woman in Revelation Chapter 17. She sits upon many waters, and is arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold, precious stones, and pearls. Her hand holds a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. Upon her head one sees words written in capital letters:

“MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” Drunk with the blood of the saints (martyrs) she sits upon seven hills (Rev. 17:4-5, 9).

Harlotry, in the Bible, equals idolatry. When Israel worshipped other gods, God compared the nation to a harlot. The book of Hosea elaborates on this precept by its description of an adulterous wife and a faithful husband, symbolic of the unfaithfulness of Israel to God through idolatry. The bride of Christ is pure and holy, and she embraces truth. The harlot symbolizes all false teaching. She leads individuals away from the true God, to herself. The mother of harlots encompasses all doctrine, beliefs, practices, and ideology that diametrically opposes the truth of Jesus Christ.

Immorality, sorcery, and idolatry imprinted Babylonian society. The nation was famous throughout the ancient world for astronomy. They were astrologers first and foremost. Sorcerers and necromancers were more popular than physicians. Divination and the interpretation of dreams were common practice. Hepatoscopy, a favorite Babylonian method of divination, involved examining the livers of animals. Ezekiel confirms these Babylonian practices in declaring: “For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the road, at the fork of the two roads, to use divination: he shakes the arrows, he consults the images, he looks at the liver” (Ezek.21:21). Heavily superstitious; the Babylonians were idolatrous, with innumerable gods. Historian Will Durant numbered their gods around 65,000.

The Babylonians worshipped one woman in particular. This woman is Ishtar, whom the Babylonians worshipped for being the mother of God. Her titles include “The Virgin,” “The Holy Virgin,” and “The Virgin Mother.” Ishtar represented the divinity of bounteous motherhood. Those who worshiped her considered her a goddess of war as well as love. She stood over prostitutes as well as mothers. She called herself a caring courtesan. Babylonians represented Ishtar sometimes as a bearded bisexual deity, and sometimes as a nude female offering her breasts to suck. Though Babylonians referred to her as “The Virgin,” this merely meant that her illicit lovers were free from all bonds of wedlock. Revelation 18:7 states: “She says in her heart, I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.” Ancient Babylonian prayers referred to her as “Queen of all cities, Queen of Heaven and Earth, Ishtar is great! Ishtar is Queen! My lady is exalted; my Lady is Queen.” Revelation 17:16 names her “the whore.” In later centuries, among Babylon’s enemies, the upper classes called her the “whore of Babylon.”

FALSE RELIGION

False religion led the Israelites from the true God to its teachings. Babylon’s religious symbols and doctrines bore many similarities to those taught in the Scriptures, in part because the Jews lived within Babylonia and Jewish doctrine influenced their myths. Ancient Jews embraced the Babylonian religion, and God rebuked the Jews for following its practices. During Ahab’s reign in Israel’s northern kingdom, Jezebel, the Phoenician princess, instituted Baal worship and murdered the prophets of God. Baal was the Sun-god, the Life-Giving One, equivalent to Tammuz. Baal worship was part of Babylonian society, and caused the Babylonian invasion of Israel.

In Jeremiah 44:17-20, the Jews acknowledged to Jeremiah that they burned incense, and gave drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven. This passage mentions the “Queen of Heaven” four times. Four in the Bible represents the number of man, and man invented religion. From Babylon this mystery-religion spread to all the surrounding nations, and the symbols remained similar, including the image of the Queen of Heaven with a baby in her arms. Ashtoreth and Tammuz became Isis and Horus in Egypt, Aphrodite and Eros in Greece, Venus and Cupid in Italy, and bore many other names.

The Babylonian religion merged with Christianity during the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine. These combined beliefs became part of the Catholic Church. Historians Will and Ariel Durant recorded that, “Babylonian altars frequently sacrificed a lamb, as the substitute for man who gave it in exchange for his life… priests carried from sanctuary to sanctuary the image of Mardak, and performed the sacred drama of his death and resurrection. They anointed the idols with sweet-scented oils, burned incense before them, and clothed them with rich vestments.”

The woman in Revelation 17 sits dressed as a harlot leading to herself the hearts of men. Revelation 17:2 tells us that the world’s kings commit fornication with the Great Whore. The fornication committed is not merely physical, but spiritual adultery. As men deny the true Church of Jesus Christ by embracing the harlot’s false teaching, they become corrupt in unholy union.

THE WHORE  OF BABYLON’S JUDGMENT

In the end times, the Great Whore sits upon the Beast-joined to his Kingdom-and later the Antichrist and his federation of kings destroy her.

They carry her off, leaving her naked and burned. Her presence indicates political influence. Her destruction by the Beast reveals that she exercises limited power over the Antichrist and his federation of kings. Though present in the kingdom’s early stages, she does not remain long after the entity becomes powerful. Her destruction occurs when the Antichrist claims to be god and demands worship of him alone. His ideology diametrically opposes her precepts. All religions threaten his imposed laws. Revelation 17 and Isaiah 47 describe the Great Whore’s judgment by God. In verse 6, the Scriptures describe her as “drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs.” Verse 7 describes the Beast “carrying her.” Initially the Bible pictures the woman sitting on the Beast-joined to his kingdom-which reveals that she has influence over the Beast. Later they carry her, indicating that she grows into a burden, and in verses 16 and 17 the Bible tells us: “And the ten horns which you saw on he beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire.”

The Whore’s judgment comes from God. Making her desolate and naked, eating her flesh, and burning her with fire indicate that violence will be committed against her-such as spoiling the treasures of her churches, taking possession of her land, burning her Bibles, religious literature, statues, religious paraphernalia, and buildings, and persecuting her followers so that the Antichrist alone can be the sole object of worship. While she initially has influence over the Beast’s kingdom, she does not remain long after his government becomes powerful. Her destruction occurs when the Antichrist claims to be a god and demands worship of him alone. All religions then become a threat to him, and he sets out to remove them from the face of the earth. In the past century many dictatorships arose and each of them eliminated freedom of religion and speech as the state and the dictator act as the objects of one’s sole dedication. The Antichrist will limit these freedoms on a worldwide scale and the nations which do not willingly go along he will conquer.

Several Bible scholars teach that “the Whore” represents a one-world religion, which operates along with a one-world government. These writers cite the ecumenical movement that embraced many religions and supported left wing revolutionary groups as the forecasted one world religion. The movement endorsed liberation theology, which taught that Jesus was the first Marxist. Liberation theology used the Scripture to prove that the Bible provided the basis for Communism. The Catholic Church, one of the largest churches in the world, refused to join the Ecumenical Church.

Some expositors teach that the Antichrist heads the one world religion which launches the False Prophet. This author holds the view that the Whore of Babylon and the Beast operate separately and the Whore’s location, religious teachings and influence over the area of the Beast intertwines them. Revelation 17:7 states that the beast “carries” the woman. The verse uses bastazo, the Greek word for carries which according to Strong’s Lexicon means: 1) to take up with the hands, 2) to take up in order to carry or bear, to put upon one’s self (something) to be carried, a) to bear what is burdensome, 3) to bear, to carry, a) to carry on one’s person, b) to sustain, i.e. uphold, support, 4) to bear away, carry off. This woman clearly becomes a burden to these kings and the Scripture tells us “these shall hate the Whore.” Verse 17 explains that they give their allegiance to the Beast who deifies himself and establishes his own religion (Dan. 11:39). The Revelation chapter specifies that the woman sits on the Beast because she shares the same location. Her teachings influence the leaders and people of the land.