Everybody likes a good mystery and there are plenty to go around. I recently read about a few unsolved mysteries. One that I had no idea existed. The Mary Celeste mystery and I am not talking about the NY pizza but about the Clipper Ship of which was completely stocked and seaworthy. It was discovered abandoned in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872. The crew’s whereabouts are still unknown there disappearance has remains a mystery.

India’s oldest known civilization had a culture that stretched from Western India to Afghanistan and had a populace of over 5 million. It was an impressive bronze-age people. The scale of their abrupt collapse rivals that of the great Mayan decline. No one knows where this civilization went.

Alexander the Great at the age of 32, swept across Asia, conquering a land mass from Europe to Pakistan and ruling over the biggest empire in the ancient world. After he died historical documents suggest one of his general brought his body back to ancient Egypt two years later and that his body was held in the city of Memphis while a tomb was built for him in Alexandria but its exact location remains an enduring mystery. Alexander died in 323 B.C., at 32 after being a broken man mentally and he died mysteriously in Babylon.

The Bible has its share of mysteries too and the one we find here called “Mystery, Babylon”. The term “mystery” is given here because it is demonic, it is superhuman, and it has a hidden agenda.

So wicked is this Babylon, that God pours His wrath out at the final vial judgment and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth: In this final judgement God shakes the earth with a terrific earthquake at His coming.

Look at Zechariah 14 and let’s read… He’s going to split the Mount of Olives. Now if you split the Mount of Olives, guess what city you’re going to split? You’re going to split Jerusalem. And then Zechariah describes an incredible thing. There’s going to be an earthquake and then in verse 8, “Living waters are going to flow out of Jerusalem, half toward the eastern sea which is the Dead Sea, half toward the western sea which is the Mediterranean. God’s going to split Jerusalem, according to verse 19, into three parts. Then there’s going to be a spring that God creates right on Mount Zion that’s going to gush permanently through the kingdom, and Jerusalem will be the divide. This has to be Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called, as I said in verse 8 of chapter 11, the great city.

Then the world’s greatest shower of hailstones comes crashing down on mankind. The Greek talent was 86 lbs. and the Jewish talent was 120. Most bible scholars estimate between 75- 135 lbs. Great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. The cities of the nation’s fell. Every city in the world is smashed. All over the world cities just crumble as the earth shakes like it’s never shaken in history.

The only other major city that’s mentioned here, besides Jerusalem, is Babylon. Babylon will rise again as the city that is the capital city of the Antichrist’s empire. And it will be destroyed. And he says, “And Babylon the great was remembered before God to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath.” Chapters 17-18 present another parenthesis, or interlude, we have seen this before. These two chapters describe the destruction of Babylon.

Revelation 17 tells us the future account of the destruction of this final form of Mystery religion. This chapter indicates that there will be a one-world religion dominating the whole kingdom of Satan’s Antichrist. That evil kingdom and its’ religion will be destroyed by Jesus Christ when He returns.

1. The Ancestry of Babylon vv 1.

1. The name Babylon in these chapters can also be understood as an evil
system not in terms of geographical boundaries. To understand Babylonian false religion in the future, we need to understand Babylon’s role in the false religion of the past. We noted that Babylon begins with the Tower of Babel, this is the rule of first mention and it is recorded in (Genesis 11:1-9).

2. After the flood, the descendants of Noah arrived at a place called Shinar. There they decided under the leadership of a man named Nimrod to build a monument to themselves for the glory of man. Nimrod means rebel and Babel means ’gate to God’. So they were rebelling in trying to make their own way to heaven. Behind all false religion is the denial of God’s way to heaven and a trust in one’s own strength and abilities.

Babel later became known as a word meaning ’confusion’ because God made their one language into many. When their tongues were confused, they dispersed, carrying their false religious system into the entire world. Babel later became known as Babylon. It false religion crept into the true church.

3. In the year 306 A.D., the Roman emperor Constantine was threatened by a very powerful enemy. Realizing that his troops needed confidence, Constantine claimed to have seen a vision on the eve of battle. He saw a large blue flag with a cross on it and heard a mighty voice which said, “In this sign conquer.”
He thereupon marched his troops into a shallow river, claimed them to be officially baptized, and ordered the sign of the cross painted on all his weapons. Thus inspired, he led his troops to victory. Constantine then favor Christianity as the religion of Rome, and created Constantinople, which became the most powerful city in the world.

Later, Theodosius the new emperor subsequently made Christianity the state religion of Rome by an edict that all Rome would be Christian. It was said he was merciful, and a devout Christian. For centuries after his death, Theodosius was regarded as a champion of Christian orthodoxy who decisively stamped out paganism.

The Roman priests of Tammuz mythology had to act fast or be destroyed so they discovered that they could easily make the transition into Christianity. With certain deceptive changes they carried their traditions forward without interruption.

You can see how the Church was corrupted. In the last days of man on earth, just prior to the return of Jesus Christ there will be a culmination of all of Satan’s antigod organizations, including one great universal form of world religion. The religious system during the Tribulation in verse one is called the great whore because she is guilty of spiritual adultery and *fornication. That leads us to…

II. The Exposure of Wicked Babylon (17:2-7)

1. According to 17:2, she has committed fornication with the kings of the earth . . . and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. This indicates she has the support of world leaders, and her teachings are so enticing they are described as “intoxicating.”

2. The people of this time are drawn in to her deception. They are made drunk with the wine of her immorality. He’s not talking about real wine and he’s not talking about real sexual immorality. He is talking about becoming a part of the false form of religion. They all get intoxicated with passion for this religion. They are absorbed into it and it is their lives. They give their hearts to this abominable religion. Satan orchestrates this whole thing…all the people and all the leaders come together in this great world religion.

3. Apparently, the most deceptive religion the world will ever know will exist during the Great Tribulation as Satan with his doctrines and demons and seducing spirits do their intoxicating controlling of the leaders and the masses…

It is no wonder that all false religion will be reunited into one great world religion, a one – world church at the end times. Babylon the Great spawned all manner of harlots which are forms of idolatry giving birth to all forms of false religion across the world.

This is the mother of them all. This is the source of all earth’s idolatries. She spawned them all way back in Genesis, we see that. In the end they all come home to mamma and they’re all collected around her again. She is the unholy counterpart to the bride of Christ, whether Confucianism, Islam, Hinduism, spiritism, astrology, Buddhism, mysticism, or whatever else she mothered them all. They all had the same source and they’ll all come back together in the end.

Conclusion:

The final world empire of Satan rules on earth by the Antichrist is assisted by the false prophet it will be a military, materialistic, economic and political kingdom. But it will also be a spiritual and religious one. It will be known in its finished stage as BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
James 4:4