Since at least the days of Nimrod, men have bound themselves together in secret societies. While clothed with noble pretences, these organisations have but one purpose. After the manner of their grand master, these assemblies of Satan use craft and deception to wage war against God and His law. Given the dishonest and evil nature of their purpose and methodology, it is no wonder why these villains hold their meetings in secret.
Jude was aware of this primordial ordination of the devil. Warning the faithful that these agents had infiltrated and even begun to subvert the church, the brother of the Lord declared:
For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. Jude 1:4
Jude reveals that the purpose of this ordination was the corruption of the gospel, and the denial of the True God and His Son. In spite of Jude and Peter’s warnings, the work of corruption advanced rapidly. As the apostolic church left its first love, the congregation fell under the deceptions of false teachers. The result was the falling away that was prophesied by Paul (2 Thessalonians 2:3).
Prior to the gospel era, Satan had waged an open warfare against God’s people. Through the armies of Babylon and other heathen kings, the prince of evil sought to exterminate the movement of God from the earth. Yet rather than diminish the church, this tactic only tended to increase it. Thus, Satan determined to infiltrate the church, and from within, convert it into his greatest weapon.
By the close of the 6th century, Satan’s masterpiece of deception was fully established. Paul’s prophecy concerning the setting up of ‘the man of sin’ was fulfilled through the papal system, in which Satan’s representative supplanted the place of Jesus. Through the pope, Satan received worship to himself. The man of sin ‘exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God’ (2 Thessalonians 2:4). The rise of this apostate power is described in Revelation 13 with greater detail:
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. Revelation 13:1-2
The beast of Revelation 13 is none other than Papal Rome.* As a leopard with the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion, Papal Rome took on the doctrines and methods of the empires that preceded her. Moreover, that Papal Rome is symbolised as a conglomerate beast illustrates that all these empires are part of one movement. This point is more clearly brought out in Revelation 17, where the seven-headed beast is described a second time. This vision contains a major prophetic detail that does not appear in chapter 13: the symbol of the woman riding the beast.
So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. Revelation 17:3
The vision of Revelation 17 gives us a glimpse into who has ruled over world powers. In Revelation 17, an angel was sent to ‘shew unto [John] the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters’ (Revelation 17:1). The identity of this woman is not kept from us. The name written on her forehead speaks of her ancient heritage and the empire-spanning nature of the movement she has led:
And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
Revelation 17:5
This woman is the mother of harlots. She is the originator of all the false religious systems that exist in the world, as well as their abominable doctrines and practices. In this, we see that the woman predates the Papal system, for Rome’s false doctrines have all been adopted from the various pagan religions and philosophies that came before her.
In vision, John saw this whore in a specific historical context. ‘The wilderness’ in Revelation refers to the 1260 years of Papal supremacy that elapsed between 538 and 1798 AD (Revelation 12:6, 14). During this time, the church of Jesus Christ was persecuted by the great whore. Carried away in vision to this wilderness period of earth’s history, John saw the woman arrayed as a church:
So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
Revelation 17:3-4
During the desert wanderings of ancient Israel, God told Moses to make the tabernacle curtains of blue, purple, and scarlet (Exodus 26:1). By donning the colours of purple and scarlet, the great whore of Babylon lays claim to the royalty, power, and wealth that belongs to God. But the colour blue is conspicuously missing from the prophetic description of the woman riding the beast. Blue represents the law of God, and since the law of God is at the very heart of the controversy between Christ and Satan, it is fitting that blue is absent from Mystery Babylon’s vesture. By clothing herself with two out of three of these colours, Mystery Babylon arrays herself as the movement of God, while at the same time, rejects the law of God. For in her final phase, Mystery Babylon assumes the appearance of a Christian church. Does not Rome claim to be the one and only church – ‘extra ecclesiam nulla salus’ – outside whose communion there is no salvation?
But since the woman is riding the beast, there must be a way of distinguishing her from what she sits upon, which we have also identified as Rome. While it is not wrong to identify the woman as the Roman church, as Protestants have done for centuries, there needs to be some distinction between these two rich prophetic symbols.
‘The beast that carrieth [the woman]’ (Revelation 17:7) is made up of various animals, and represents the earthly powers that she has controlled over the centuries. These are Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome in its various forms. Mighty kings and empires have risen and fallen. In 1798, the Papacy itself was deposed. These earthly powers have been exchanged many times, but the woman riding them – the spiritual movement of Babylon – has continued, seemingly unscathed.
The woman, therefore, represents the spiritual power that has remained constant throughout all time, and which today rules the world through the Roman church. Since the tower of Genesis 11 until this day, this ordination of deception has persisted, ruling over the kingdoms that hosted it. But the beast is representative of the various earthly powers that have done her bidding, which, bar one, have all come and gone.
When God pours out the seven plagues, the kings and nations will know that they have been deceived. They shall ‘hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire’ (Revelation 17:16). When it is all too late, the people will see that they have been deceived by their religious leaders. This not only includes Catholic priests, but apostate Protestant pastors, brahmans, imams, and New Age gurus. All the apostate teachings of these false religions trace back to the mystery schools of ancients times; the spiritual power of Mystery Babylon by whose sorceries all nations have been deceived.
Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. Revelation 18:20
Christopher Sparks
For more information about the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, see this series: