Revelation 17:3-6

The Mystique of Babylon

A sermon by Pastor Joe Haynes

Preached on July 12, 2020 at Beacon Church.

Merriam-Webster defines “mystique” as “an air or attitude of mystery and reverence developing around something or someone.”[i] Have you ever seen a magic trick that made you feel that mystique? Not the coin-from-the-ear, or the detached thumb—but those more advanced illusions you can’t figure out. Years ago I saw a magician on TV who did a series of tricks that gave me the creeps! It didn’t help that the way he dressed and acted also seemed creepy—sort of dark and almost haunted. So when he did his tricks, not only was I totally baffled, they seemed dark too, and I was disturbed. I thought I had just seen something that was not right, or pure, something unclean, even demonic. That’s why, much later, when something made me think of that magician, I looked up on YouTube how he did it. And I found answers.[ii] Explanations. Little clues in the original video that exposed the camera tricks, edited video, hidden props and so on, all of which proved those haunting mysteries were just illusions. But I was still bothered: I find it offensive that a performer would deliberately act in such a way that his audience concludes there is something dark and demonic going on in order to trick them. I am glad, however, that I am no longer baffled or amazed by what he did.

This morning I want to begin with how this passage ends: I want to start with the effect this vision had on John, and then use the time we have to look closely at what John saw. The rest of the chapter contains the solution to the mystery that shook John when he saw it. But today, let's begin with verse 6 and work back from there: The ESV says, "when I saw her I marvelled greatly". The Greek text reads literally, "seeing her, I marvelled a great marvel". In other words, it deeply astonished John. This is the same word ("marvel") that’s used in John 3:7 when Jesus asks why Nicodemus "marveled" when he heard Jesus say "You must be born again;" and in Rev 13, when the people who live in the land "marvel" at seeing the beast revive from a deadly wound. When Nicodemus marvelled at Jesus, the danger was that it would push him to disbelieve Jesus; when the people marvelled at the beast, the danger is that it pushed them to worship the beast. Like when a creepy magician convinces you that dark powers are at work, you don’t see him as a geek with a camera and too much time on his hands: you marvel because he seems mysterious and supernatural. It's this latter sense in which John was deeply disturbed, that he marveled greatly because of what he saw. As we saw last week, “the great prostitute,” Babylon, stands for an apostate church. In the imagery of these verses, John saw a church shrouded in mystery and what he saw exposes 4 truths about her that help you see through her deception.

She Is Not What She Seems

Why was John so troubled and disturbed when he saw this great prostitute, that he said, "When I saw her, I marveled greatly" (v6)? To answer that, the right place to start is the beginning of verse 3: “And He carried me away in the Spirit…” This is what happened to the prophet Ezekiel when he saw a great vision: “The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley” (Ezek. 37:1 ESV). When this happens to John, in this vision, it doubly emphasizes that this is not just from an angel; this is a vision from God, an inspired visual message from the Spirit of God.[iii] Every detail was inspired in the same way that the Spirit inspires each and every word of Scripture. So when we start to recognize similarities here with Old Testament passages, that’s not an accident. The Holy Spirit intended this. John carefully wrote down whatever he saw in the vision (1:19), and the Holy Spirit inspired how John wrote down what he saw (2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pe 1:21). And as we work through Revelation, we find a multitude of references to Old Testament images and scenes. We need to realize John saw these things and the Holy Spirit led him to record them in a way that we can identify the passages of Scripture these images are based on. They’re called “allusions” or “allusive references.” They add meaning to the many details in the Book of Revelation. The Scriptural background to these allusive images in Revelation 17 help us see why John was so troubled by what he saw when this angel showed him “the Great Prostitute.”

I used to have a lawn mower that had a little primer button to press--it pumped the air out and the gas in-- so that when I pulled the starting cord there was already gasoline in the fuel line and the engine was ready to go. But I can't tell you how often I hurt my hand pulling and pulling that cord before remembering, "I forgot to prime it." If we first load up on the Old Testament background to the things John describes in these verses, it's like priming the pump. It gets us going, helps us be ready to accurately interpret the rest of the details John wrote down. So let me show you three specific Old Testament passages these alluded to in these verses.

First, there is God's declaration in Isaiah 2:21, Jerusalem, "the faithful city" had become "a prostitute." In Revelation, the city of Rome, equated with spiritual Jerusalem in chapter 11, had instead become like Babylon. Second, chapter 18:2 makes it clear this is also an allusion to Isaiah 21:1-10 because in verse 9 Isaiah writes, "fallen, fallen is Babylon!" and in Rev 18:2, John saw an angel crying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great!" Also, in Isaiah 21:1 it begins with the words, "an oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea" and in Rev 17:1, John is told that this symbolic Babylon sits on many waters, and in verse 3 he sees her sitting in the wilderness. So the imagery is strongly connected to Isaiah 21. How she can be sitting on the waters and in the wilderness at the same time reminds us again that this is a vision--the waters and the wilderness stand for things that are not hard to fit together, as we will see. Third, you may have noticed, Isaiah 21 did not say "Babylon the great" was fallen but just "Babylon"--the "Babylon the great" a name we find written on her head in verse 4, and wording that comes from Daniel 4--the humiliation of King Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 4 records that one day while the king was walking on the walls of his palace, looking out over the city he had built, he said to himself, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have build by my mighty power…?" (Dan 4:30) And "while the words were still in the king's mouth" a voice from heaven announced, "the Kingdom has departed from you, and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field…" (Dan 4:31-32).

By loading up on the Old Testament background to the things John saw, that he wrote down in these verses of Revelation 17, we are primed to anticipate that this woman is not what she seems: we expect to find a faithful city that had turned away from God; a city that had fallen from what it once was and become like Babylon; a city that boasted with the arrogance, like the ancient, pagan king, until God pulled her down from her high place and majesty--like God decreed to King Nebuchadnezzar, "the Kingdom has departed from you, and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field…" (Dan 4:31-32).

She Is No Longer In Power

There are two common mistakes people make when trying to understand Revelation: some people interpret all the symbols as if they are not symbols; others interpret the symbols as if they are all just timeless truths. But Revelation 1:1 says a) God gave this vision to “show His servants what must soon take place” (meaning that these are events that were about to start happening beginning at about the beginning of the second century); b) God “made it known,” i.e., He communicated it in signs—that’s what this Greek word basically means. This woman, then, is not an individual. She is a symbol for a church as we saw last week. And not only is she not what she seems, she has fallen from her former position of power.

What John sees here in chapter 17 shows the woman at a particular period in history. Again we saw last week that this angel represents the period of the seven final judgments of God—the period between the 17th century and the Second Coming of Christ. So when John sees this Great Prostitute, she represents a prominent church, not 2000 years ago or 1000 years ago, but just before the end of her career. That’s confirmed by what this angel tells John in verse 1: “Come, I will show you the judgment of the Great Prostitute who is seated on many waters…” which verse 15 interprets as meaning this is an international church: “And the angel said to me, "The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages,” (Rev. 17:15 ESV).

The first thing that surprises us here, though, is that John sees this church in “the wilderness.” “And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast…” (Rev. 17:3 ESV). Revelation 12 used the imagery of a woman fleeing into the wilderness to portray a time in history when the true Bride of Christ, the Church, was not only evicted from every place of political power and influence but was preserved by God during that time as a grassroots movement of people preaching and believing the Gospel. That was the condition of the true Bride of Christ during what we call the Medieval period or the Middle Ages in Europe. But at the same time, at the beginning of medieval history, another kind of church was born—a church married to the state, a political entity that became more and more powerful as time went on. The Protestant Reformation was a kind of theological revolution against the power and control of that powerful, political church. Up until that time she was like a Queen with authority over kings and countries. If you will pardon the expression, she was “in bed with” the governments of most of the kingdoms of Western Europe. But the prophecies of the seven bowls in chapter 16, predicted the decay, the decline, and the disruption of the church that was once the Queen of Christendom. It wouldn’t surprise those who follow the Lamb, who know to expect to be hated by the world like He was, who expect to be shunned like He was, who expect to suffer like He did; it should not surprise us to find the Bride of Christ living in exile, in humility. It is shocking though, in light of the last 1500 years, to find this once powerful church in the wilderness. She has been dethroned. 1) she is not what she seems; 2) she is no longer in power,

She Is Not Innocent

“And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns,” (Rev. 17:3 ESV). “…and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast” There was a time when this church ruled the beast, when it was in the symbolism of Revelation, not just a passenger on the beast but one of the heads of the beast. That’s the biggest change here between chapter 13 and chapter 17: this political-church entity is no longer one of the heads of the former Roman Empire (that’s what the beast represents), now she has been reduced to merely a church, stripped of real, political power, perched on the back of the beast. “…that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns” The first time the horns of the beast were prophesied was in Daniel 7, where, in verse 20, an eleventh horn, an eleventh kingdom in the former Roman Empire, rises up on the head of the beast to rule over the other ten and to make war on God’s people, a horn that “had eyes and a mouth that spoke great things”—great things against God—verse 25 said, “he shall speak words against the Most High…” In Revelation 13:5, John saw this beast, under one of its heads, “uttering haughty and blasphemous words” and in verse 6, “it opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God.” There was a time when this church ruled the ten kingdoms of the former Roman Empire, led them in speaking blasphemies against God, and persecuted and killed shocking numbers of Christians who would not stop preaching the Gospel of grace. The blood of those Christians is probably why this beast is a deep red colour—scarlet or crimson. But the scarlet colour seems to be a reference to the stain on the once faithful city, that in Isaiah 1:21, God said had “become a whore”—who, 3 verses earlier pleaded for her to repent: “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool,” (Isa. 1:18). The beast, the former Roman Empire and its commonwealth of ten countries, is scarlet because of sin, in desperate need of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

Verse 4 says in a picture what would take many pages to say fully in words. The graphic irony of seeing this church, dethroned, in the wilderness, dressed like she’s going to a ball, or like a queen in all her finery, is meant to expose her delusions of grandeur at this stage in her existence. “The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality,” (Rev. 17:4 ESV). She holds in her hand “a golden cup”—alluding to Jeremiah 25:15, “Thus the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: ‘Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them,’” (Jer 25:1516). So Jeremiah took the symbolic cup of God’s wrath and in his prophetic role, made the nations drink God’s wrath as He judged them for their sins, starting with Jerusalem and Judah, then the Gentile kingdoms, and finally, Babylon. What’s in this cup, in verse 4, represents the guilt of this church that betrayed God. The “abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality” are because, as John MacArthur notes, “[she] deceives the nations into committing spiritual fornication with her.”[iv] This spiritual fornication is another way of saying this woman, this church, was supposed to be a faithful spouse to the Lord Jesus, but what is found in her hand is the evidence of her unfaithful adultery, by which she personally betrayed the Saviour she claimed to serve. So reading this carefully, we have learned that this church is not what she seems; this church is no longer in power; this church is not innocent, and lastly…

She Is Not Alone

Finally John sees that this dethroned, disgraced, and disgusting apostate church seems proud of her betrayal and of her legacy. She displays it on her forehead. “And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations,’” (Rev. 17:5 ESV). Some scholars see here a reference to something Roman prostitutes were thought to do—put their names on bands they wore on their heads.[v] Either way, she flaunts who she truly is, exposed in her adultery, and in the offspring of her betrayal. “Mother of prostitutes” exposes her legacy is one of spiritual infidelity. Unfaithfulness to the Lord is not exclusive to this particular church, though she is the most prominent and was once the most powerful of all churches. Just like a picture is worth a thousand words, it seems to me that these images John wrote down from what he saw in his vision reveal some truths to us that most of us probably have felt but find difficult to put into words.

If something dies and its body is left lying on the ground, it decomposes, surprisingly quickly. But if it is buried before it has time to decompose, its organic matter is gradually replaced by dissolved minerals that preserve the outward shape of the thing that was once alive. It becomes a fossil. True local churches can decline and die but they can also fossilize. It can happen so quickly: genuine, born-again, Spirit-filled, Bible-loving, humble, gracious, followers of Jesus die off, or leave, and are replaced by inorganic minerals—people who look and sound like Christians but lack the life of the Holy Spirit. They fill the places left by the born-again believers, and they preserve the outward shape of the church—but it is no longer a living thing. In a single generation, a true local church can become a fossil—an institution that calls itself a church but is no longer faithful to Jesus. The inner life of a church--devotion and love for Jesus; fidelity to His Word and a love for sound doctrine because of love for every Word His Spirit has breathed out through His prophets and apostles into Scripture; love for each other, as Jesus taught us; personal holiness; grace and humility; repentance and faith; joy and purity—these things are replaced by ceremonies, traditions, empty rituals; by opulence, bling, external trappings that catch the eye. The inner beauty and purity of a local church that once was part of the Bride of Christ can so quickly be replaced by sensuality and seductive immodesty in the name of religion. You can see churches like this everywhere. But Babylon is the mother of them all. Doesn’t this false church make you long for the real thing?

The true Church of Jesus, the Bride of the Lamb isn’t revealed to John as who she really is until Rev 21:9, when the same angel says to John, “come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” But this false church is impossible to miss. She is flashy, she is not hidden, she is not modest. My cousin recently sent me a little pamphlet published by the Baptist church I grew up in, the church my grandfather pastored for many years. The pamphlet is a summary of the sermon he preached on Sunday evening, May 22, 1932, entitled, “The Doom of Babylon the Great.” In that sermon, 89 years ago, Grandpa Haynes observed that this false church, Babylon the Great, “is one of great prestige and power. The true church has a holy relationship to the Lord Jesus, but this other church has a shameful relationship to the ‘kings’ of the earth.” That “this church is one of great arrogance and pretensions. She is royally clothed, in purple and scarlet, and ‘decked with gold, precious stones, and pearls.’” That “this church is one of great corruption. Outwardly she is queenly, inwardly, she is wicked and abominable.” And that “this is a persecuting church. She is seen to be ‘drunken with the blood of the saints.”[vi] “And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus,” (Rev. 17:6a ESV). For centuries she persecuted the people of the true Bride—those who are “martyrs of Jesus;” lit. “witnesses” whose testimony is about the Lord Jesus Christ and His Gospel, those who are the faithful offspring of the true church, “who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus” (Rev 12:17); those “who follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (Rev 14:4); “who keep… their faith in Jesus” (Rev 14:12); those who overcome “the beast and its image and the number of its name” (Rev 15:2). If you are one of the people of the Lamb, a member of the True Church, your testimony will not be about you; your testimony will be about Jesus; not about where you go every Sunday or that you were sprinkled as a  baby; or about the good things you do—your testimony will be only about what Jesus did for you, about His sacrifice, His grace, His mercy, His love—if you are a witness in a long line of faithful witnesses of Jesus. So many gave their lives for the sake of this Gospel—would you?

From our vantage point in history, armed with what John foresaw about Babylon the Great, we have no excuse: we ought to be able to see through her deception; we certainly should not be impressed with her; we should not give her or her clergy any of the reverence only Jesus deserves. And at this time in history, you know what? People need the real Church. Your children need the real thing. Your neighbours need the real thing. Your co-workers need the true Church. True Christians. Followers of Christ who are faithful, who endure, who love Jesus, whose lips are ready with a testimony to the Saviour of sinners. Today can be the day you repent and join the Bride of Jesus. Today can be the day you put your faith in Jesus to save you and stop trying to be good enough through religion. Today can be the day you start to show, by your faith in God’s lovingkindness and grace through Jesus, that the True Church is alive and real. You can be baptized as Jesus commanded; and join in fellowship with a local congregation of the Bride of the Lord. One day, as John was shown in Rev 21:9, we will get to see the True Bride of Christ revealed in all her beautiful purity and glory. But right now, those who truly follow Jesus do not seek our own glory on earth—we seek His glory; we don’t seek power or vengeance on earth—we trust His power and justice; we don’t seek riches on earth—we seek treasure in Heaven; we don’t seek a Kingdom in this world—we wait and pray for His Kingdom to come, for His will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven. For you and me, if we belong to the Bride of Christ, that starts here.