| Rev II Tape 2 Malcolm Smith The Woman called Babylon Revelation chapter 17 -18 We shall pick up those bowls of wrath as we come next time to study. We shall zero in now on what is known as the judgment against Babylon. So let us read a few verses from ch 17.
Who is this woman? We have met the Beast before. The beast when we met him in chapter 13 had the mouth of a lion, the body of a leopard, the paws of a bear, - a great monstrosity, and we saw that that monster was a symbolic figure of the nations, the governments of this world. Now the beast is pretty much the same, same heads, same horns, only this time with a body of red. Remember the last time we met a red body was in Revelation 12 when the dragon, the Devil had a body of red. So it is simply identifying the same beast with the dragon, the Devil. And so for this study we will leave the dragon, the beast, basically, and I want us to look at this woman whom John said he saw was riding on the back of that beast. I want you to notice something we shall deal with this in greater detail in the next few chapters, but I want you to notice now some things. Some of you immediately will pick it up, others of you will kick it around, but I want you to see it. You noticed there is a parallel here between God, His Christ, the Holy Spirit and His Church, and the Devil’s counterfeit. Let me just throw a few ideas at you. God the Father, the counterfeit is the dragon, the Father of Lies, the murderer from the beginning. We have on the one hand in this book a Lamb and His Bride, - we have not come there yet, but in chapter 19 it speaks of the Lamb and His Bride. Here in this chapter we read of a beast and a harlot who sits on his back. It speaks of the Lamb and the Bride as coming to marriage. The beast and his harlot – that is prostitution. See the counterfeit parallel? We find in this book the Holy Spirit – the 7 spirits of God, and we know that the Spirit of God glorifies Jesus. We have already met a lamb who was not slain who is called the False Prophet, and do you remember his main task was that all men should adore the beast. So the Spirit of God glorifies the Christ and the False Prophet glorifies the beast. Do you see the parallel? We find the Church is called the Bride – we find this woman is called a harlot – we find that the Bride is called the New Jerusalem, and it states that the Bride, the woman, the Church is also called the New Jerusalem. This prostitute that sits on the beast is called Babylon. So you have two women, the Bride and the harlot, but the two women are symbolised as two cities. Jerusalem, Babylon. When John would see this harlot, it says he was taken into a wilderness, and in that dead wilderness he saw that woman. In chapter 21 it says that he was taken, and there were only two times when it says he was taken anywhere in this book, and in this case he was taken into the wilderness, and in chapter 21 he is taken on to a high mountain, and there he saw the New Jerusalem. So one is the freshness and glory of a high mountain, the other was the deadness and dryness of a wilderness. But in both cases there is one thing that holds true, and that is that it says he was in the Spirit and he saw the harlot, and in chapter 21 it says he was in the spirit and he saw the Bride. The implication is that unless you are in the Spirit you will get the two hopelessly mixed up. If you desire to know truth you will know it. Take these parallels here and open them out. There are two bodies here, two companies of people and they are put under the terminology of two women or two cities, depending where you happen to be looking at them. So Babylon is the woman, the harlot, the New Jerusalem is the Bride of the Lamb, which we know is the Church. Now who is this harlot? We are introduced to her as usual in this book by the name that is on her forehead. Everybody in this book is known by the name on its forehead, and on her forehead its says ‘Babylon the Great The Mother of Harlots’. When I read it before I emphasized it, and I will emphasize it again – the Mother of Harlots, the Mother of the abominations of the Earth. Who is she? It tells us that it is Babylon the Great. And as we have done throughout this book, we must go back and see what that comes from in the Old Testament. And we have been back there more than once as we have been through the book of Revelation. This time we are stopping to see what it really says. I can give you two Scriptures, one is Genesis 10.10, the other is Genesis 11.9. I will tell you right now that that will not tell us what I want to share with you right now, which is unfortunate because this is the first and only time that we go outside of the Bible for a symbol, but this symbol of this woman was so universal in the days when John wrote this, I have no apology whatsoever in going outside of the Bible. We have lost this symbol to a certain extent as a universal understanding but in the days of John when they went back to Genesis 10, Genesis 11 they thought of this woman as well as the man you will find there. The man you will find in Genesis 10 and Genesis 11 is the man Nimrod. And we have talked about Nimrod many times, for he was the beginning of Babylon, Babylon in the sense of its being an Empire a Government. He fits, and we saw this back in chapter 13, he fits the Beast, he was the first of the heads, he was the first world government, the system of government controlling men like government coming down in dictatorship and the power of authoritarian government. He had a wife, and we have never talked about his wife before, but if you thought Nimrod was bad, think about his wife. Her name was Semiramus. She appears in most ancient history and she was basically a nobody. She was however, extremely unusually beautiful, according to every report we have in history, and she also was a harlot of the first order, and she was the wife of Nimrod. When Nimrod was killed, which is another story, she immediately took matters into her own hands. Nimrod was also adored as a political leader who had emancipated people from God. She took matters into her own hands, and said that he was not really killed, it only looked like it – actually he gave his life for the human race, and she called him Zoroastra – you may have heard that name. Do you know what that means? In ancient Chaldean that means ‘The seed of the Woman’ she said Nimrod was the promised Messiah of Genesis 3.15 for that was very fresh in the mind of the race at that time. And he laid down his life to emancipate the race, and he has now been deified, and Nimrod was the first human being to be worshipped after his death as a man become god. But she decided very quickly that she had better get in on the act. If her husband is being worshipped, she had better be worshipped too. And the way she did it was that she stated that Nimrod came back to earth via her womb, and how she ever did it I don’t know but she claimed to be a virgin, and she claimed that her husband Nimrod was born through her womb, and she had statues erected all through Babylon of herself, she was a flaxen haired very white lady, and she had statues of herself erected with a little child at her breast. She was the mother, and the child was her husband child and they were worshipped together, and that symbol went throughout the entire world. It went under every name you could imagine. She became known as Venus, that is where Venus came from. She spread throughout the whole earth, worshipped as the Divine Mother, worshipped as the Great Goddess, worshipped as the Queen of Heaven – you will read about that in Jeremiah many times. She was worshipped under all the names of Greek goddesses. Her husband suddenly disappeared in twin-significance, he was still there, but he was no longer what he had been before she was deified. And so she became the original, the Mother of Harlots. She was the first one, first she deified her own husband, and then she deified herself. And out of that one place, that one city there went to every nation of the world a peculiar form of idolatry centred in a woman and a man who was there somewhere. But the woman took the main place, and her title was the Queen of Heaven. And it runs right through the whole Bible, you can find it if you are looking for it. Every time God spoke of Babylon he spoke of this wretched woman who had originated idolatry who was the Mother of Heathendom who spread her corruption to every nation of the world. It is very interesting that she claimed to have given birth to Nimrod the second time round, on December 24th, and December 25th was called Child Day as far back as 2000 BC. I won’t go any further, I think you can see where the Church has come in these years. There was Nimrod and he was the beginning of world government, and riding on him for that is what she did was the Mother of Heathendom – the originator of every idolatrous religion of the world. She rode on the back of the political Nimrod. What did she do? She corrupted nations. She corrupted them body soul and spirit. For her appeal was to the appetites. She offered an alternative religion, and I don’t care whether you look at it in Egypt or Greece or Rome, Babylon as Syria or Europe, but wherever you find a trace of this woman’s religion, and it is right here in America today as old as Babylon, wherever you find it it appeals number one to the lust of the flesh. You meet that all the way through the Bible and you meet it today, that states the appetites of sex, your body, the lust for food, your body, is all that really matters. It was the expression, ‘eat drink and be merry, tomorrow we die’ that was the religion of this woman, and as it spread I say again it went under many different names. You drop in this country and it is only after a while of looking at their religion you realise it is the same thing, for it demanded sex taken to the most hideous extremes. Perversion. It demanded great feasts where they ate and ate for days at a time. But it always had the lust of the flesh. It demanded the lust of the eyes – it was greed, for wherever this religion went it said, money, money, money. Affluence. The priest craft that went with this religion is unbelievable. If you study ancient religions, the priests were loaded with gold and silver. Their temples were ornate. Filled with statues and pictures, it was unbelievable affluence wherever this religion went. And any one that was directly attached to it was right in on the action. Kings and emperors attached themselves to it and became rich because of it, but right at the heart was not only the lust of the flesh, but the lust of the eyes – I want it, I must have it. And money buys everything, and of course right at the very heart of this religion was the pride of life. You will remember all these references, I John 2.26 All that is in the world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, what is the pride of life? It is that arrogance that says, I am above judgment – I can do as I please, I will be god unto myself, and no-one can drag me down. I, I will do what I please to do. It was the religion that came out of Babylon, under its many guises. Of course very few people realised what they were into. Very few. Notice it says here, mystery, and Babylon religion was a mystery from the beginning. You could not even know what was going on unless you were initiated into it. And when you were initiated it, you went step by step, you never knew it all. You were always discovering new mysteries and when you knew the mysteries you could not tell anybody about it, it was a mystery religion, and so it was as it spread through the earth. But everybody was affected by it, and so as we saw right at the beginning of our study that many people back there in the days of John, to belong to the trade union you had to worship Venus. Who is Venus, I don’t know who Venus is – we go to her feast once a year, just to be in the trade union. But their whole life was controlled by the religion of Venus. We could give many illustrations – it just seeped into the people that the way to celebrate your life, the way to live according to the priests, and they know everything, don’t they? The way is celebrate your appetites. If you feel like it, it must be right. You enjoy it, it must be right – the priest said so. Do you want money? – well, look at our religion - they tell us that affluence is where it is at man – and they got caught up into greed and lust after things, power in affluence. Do you mean to say that we are going to get touched? Oh, no no one can touch us. We are beyond being touched, we can do as we like. As long as you enjoy it there is no law. We are absolute unto ourselves. And they didn’t realise where it came from for the most part but they were simply celebrating a religion that had begun with the mother of harlots, and right at the very heart of it all, all that woman wanted in Babylon, and all she ever wanted as the spirit of the thing spread across the world was that she should be worshipped and anybody who worshipped the true god should be destroyed. And so there followed her a trail of blood – for under whatever name she happened to be operating, she destroyed those who refused to go her way, and to confess the true God instead. Babylon, its religion under many names but in those days mainly under the name of Babylon, corrupted Israel. That will explain to you why there are so many chapters in the Old Testament describing the downfall of Babylon. If you care to read them, they are far too long for us to discuss now, Isaiah 13, Isaiah 14 she is even put alongside the Devil himself. Isaiah 21 – chapter 46-48 deal with Babylon and its destruction. Jeremiah chapter 25, chapter 50-51, and probably summed up very well in Daniel chapter 4.30, so you want to be rich, accepted. You don’t want to be on the outside do you? You want to be part of the world, part of the Church. Well, you go my way, or you die! I will destroy you. In fact this woman is a bloodaholic. She is drunk with the blood of martyrs and saints. She is the one in one sense who sits on the red horse, and she is the one who sits on the black horse. She is the spirit that sits on the back of governments. If I look at New York City I can look at it as a political machine, but if you go into New York City there is something else there – you can smell her perfume. There is the very spirit of this harlot. She is still around. Do you follow the symbolism of this? You go to London and take a whiff – it is the same perfume. She rides on the back of governments. Can I talk about New York without talking about her? Can you talk about Sodom without its spiritual condition? You can’t. The government, the politics, the machine are so mixed up with her, she is the spirit of this world. She is a world spirit. Where is she today? The calls to the appetite – they haven’t changed. Do you want joy? Celebrate your appetites. Do you want peace? Eat, drink be merry, have sex, tomorrow we die, who cares? We are too materialistic. In one sense at least the Ancient Babylonians were spiritual they admitted they were worshipping a goddess. Today we are not even spiritual. We just worship our appetites. The rituals haven’t changed – the rites of the goddess are still the same, we just do not bother to name her any more. It is the world system. Every theatre on Times Square on 42nd Street is a Temple reared to the goddess Venus. Semiramus fills New York City. And I am sure all around these parts – if I knew this city as well as I knew New York City there are temples here, theatres and bookstores that are reared in the honour of Semiramus. She is the Spirit of this world. Let us face this – from the very beginning she was a religion. And I am not knocking one religion more than another but I am totally impressed that there is today that which belongs to all religions, not one, the idea is to amass – greed, vast political machines called denominations that amass to themselves silver and gold. We have come a long way since Peter said, ‘Silver and God have I none, but such as I have I give unto thee’. Today religion can tell you its bank accounts. Today religion can weigh its wealth in gold and silver, sculptures and pictures. Today religion is worth a billion billion dollars. The religion of Babylon has come right into the Church. The religion of Babylon, right down to the 24th December, and I could give you other dates that would make your hair stand on end. The Church embraced the whore of Babylon and said we will give to you if you give to us. And the Church that we meet today is a church which has taken to itself the grasp and desire for gold and has forgotten what the church is all about. I am speaking of every denomination. If I mentioned one I would have to mention them all. I don’t know one that is not tainted in some way. The desire for politics, the beast has got into the church, the hierarchy, the dictatorship, bearing down, ‘Do this or die’ Of course we don’t shed blood any more, we excommunicate it’s a lot cleaner, but it is the same spirit of the beast, and right there the smell of the whore’s perfume is through the corridors of our churches. It is a terrible thing to say, but I want to be an honest man with you.. Where do I find her in the world today? I don’t only find her in appetites, but in religion which is among us. If you turn to chapter 18 it describes the fall of Babylon, and in describing the fall of Babylon it describes all the people that are affected by that fall. Notice verse 3 – 'for all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality. The kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her. The merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality'. This is very poetic language. What is it saying? Somehow the kings of the earth world leaders and somehow merchants by having some form of spiritual intercourse with her, have become rich. V. 9 – the kings of the earth who committed immorality, who lived sensually with her weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her that weep. It says, And the merchants of the earth mourn and weep over her because no-one buys their cargoes any more, so the intercourse they had with this woman was expressed in the fact that they could sell their cargoes, and when she is gone, we can’t sell our cargoes any more. V.12 Cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones pearls, fine linen, silk, purple, scarlet, every kind of scented wood, articles of ivory, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, cargoes of horse and chariots and slaves, that is human souls. Everything from cinnamon to slaves – we have suddenly got ourselves out of business because the judgement of God has fallen on this harlot called Babylon. It says that the fruit you longed for has gone away. All things that were luxurious and splendid have passed away from you, and men will no longer find them. This woman brought about commerce, trade, affluence, luxury, splendid things. The merchants of these things who became rich from her will stand at a distance because of the fear of her torment weeping and mourning and saying ‘Woe, woe the great city. In one hour such great wealth has been laid waste. And there is another group of people who lament her – every shipmaster, every passenger, sailor and as many as make a living by the sea, stood at a distance and were crying out as they saw the smoke of her burning. In a Roman world that meant the whole system of travel – they only travelled by sea –all the communications, all that had to do with commerce and trading they wept – everybody that had to do with the purchasing and selling also those that travelled within that. They threw dust on their heads, weeping and moaning and saying ‘Woe, woe, the great city where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth! V 22 – another group of people, the musicians, were affected, and it says the sound of harpists and trumpets and flute players will not be heard in you any longer, and no craftsman of any craft with be found in you any longer. The sound of a mill will not be found in you any longer – the lighting of the lamp – the voices of the bridegroom and the bride. Your merchants were the great men of the earth because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery. It says art, sculpture, all the beautiful things, they originated there. What is all that saying. It is saying that wherever this woman is she does not only appeal to the individual to the base appetites of the flesh, not only is she is in fact a religious factor, although far from true religion, she is also the key to affluence, luxury, riches, trade, commerce, travelling. She is in fact behind all beauty which leaves God out. What is the most beautiful symbol of art – is it not Venus? Ever seen the lady with no arms? That is the statue of Venus, it is art – you go to any art museum, gallery – it is beautiful, but says this it originated with Babylon if God isn’t in it. Music, craft, all the beautiful things, she took them putting herself up as the beginning of beauty. Come worship at the shrine of something that was so beautiful, had become so distorted. Who made a woman’s body an object of lust? The worship of Venus. A woman’s body, something so beautiful, could become so degraded in the name of art. What is more beautiful than the ability of man to sing songs? Who turned the singing of songs into something that is almost a religion by itself? Venus, Semiramus. All that is in Babylon. Do you realise that the merchants of America, the great corporate businesses, all the travel across the seas in the name of great corporate businesses, when Babylon falls they will lament. She is the one who makes rich. She is the one who says ‘come my way’ the sweet sweet smell of her perfume, ‘I will make you rich, rich, all the splendid things, all the luxury items, rich. She has an outlet in almost in every home, at least one and she comes on the screen every few seconds and says, if you worship me, you can have this, then you would really live! Do you realise what this whole chapter is saying. There is one verse I consistently left out as I read it, it comes up more than once, that is that she is drunk with the blood of saints. Underneath the craving for luxury, for appetite, underneath is a fist that says, ‘God I hate you, and God I hate your Church’. Because we live in America we don’t feel how much she hates, but in every other nation of the world they know if. That if you do not go her way, the way of the world system, the way of the flesh, of greed and lust and idolatry and heathenism. And she will probably drink your blood. She is the original Vampire. And as always it is a mystery religion. Who of the Corporate executives who have given their lives to Semiramus, who have sold their lives for riches and possessions how many realise they are worshipping at a shrine that is 5000 years old? It is a mystery religion and most of those involved in it do not even realise they are in it. What do we do in the middle of all that? Be aware. Refuse to be involved in her worship. The Bible says we are in the world, we are not of it. I don’t know how long you can do business and not become involved in her – God only knows that. I say, for God’s sake be aware of it. I was flying back today from Dallas and reading Time Magazine, and had a very terrible experience. There is an article in this month’s magazine – it says what it will be like in 1997 if the energy crisis keeps on, and nothing is done. You had better believe what I say. Everything they described there in 1997 is how I was raised most of my life. The great lament of that essay ‘You won’t have any more cars’ I never got in a car until I was 14 years old. We had to ride bicycles to work and walk, and I never knew anything else for the first fourteen years of my life, in fact would you believe the first 20 years of my life. It says that there is no refrigeration except the snow and the ice. I never knew refrigeration until I came to America. It says in the winter we have to wear heavy clothes and there is no heat, only at dawn and then you have to get up and put coal on the fire. For the first twenty years of my life all I ever did was get up and dawn and put coal on the fire. That is the truth. It says there is no air conditioning you have to fan yourself. I almost wept as we flew across America. I wondered, for this study was very much in my mind, how much is the average American totally sold out to Semiramus? Luxury items, the splendid things of life. We cannot do without them. ‘Worship at my shrine or I will take them away’. America already is lamenting if Babylon fell, put dust on our heads – she can fall. If you can’t do without what Venus offers you, you had better examine your Christianity. When Babylon falls, and this chapter says she is right on the way. When Babylon falls ask yourself now – will you be lamenting or will you be amongst the saints of God, celebrating that that which had at its heart the death of God and His Saints – and praise God for his judgments. This is a solemn chapter. I would go one step further and say there are a lot of people in the Charismatic movement who have never repented. I question this. I spent the day in the plan today just going over and over this. And I realised that there are a whole lot of charismatics who came into this movement because they were healed. You don’t come into the Kingdom because you are healed. You come into the Kingdom because you repent, and repent, means to change your mind. And you look at the Beast and you look at the False Prophet and you look at the Harlot and you change your mind. And you say now there is only one Kingdom and it is His Kingdom, and there is only one Messiah and that is Jesus, there is a new atmosphere, not the world, but as I John 22.26 says 'He who does the will of God shall abide for ever. The world and all that is in it will pass away'. Babylon is going to go. But he who does the will of God shall last forever. There are a lot of people in our charismatic movement and they have never seen that self and I is part of the beast and affluence and a big house and riches and two cars and a boat is all part of Babylon. Can you live without it, that’s the point. I do not say have a bonfire to prove a point. I am saying can you live without it. Anything you can’t do without – you don’t own it, it owns you! Anything you are afraid to lose – you don’t own it, it owns you. As I come to this chapter, and see what it is saying, I realise that the things of this world are to be held and enjoyed, but held very lightly. They can go, as surely as they came. Always, and probably this is the greatest thing in this chapter, but it is the hardest thing for an American to see – anywhere else in the world it is easy to see, but it is the hardest for an American to see is that underneath all of that is I want what I want and I will have it, and at the heart of that is a desire to kill God Himself if he gets in my way, and if a saint dares to say anything against me, I will kill him if necessary. We don’t do that in America, and therefore it is very hard to see that at the heart of Babylon she is drunk with the blood of martyrs and saints. Ponder that one, it is a heavy statement. What is the end of this woman? The end is v.16 it says the ten horns, the beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked and will eat her flesh and will burn her with fire. The Devil’s kingdom does not work. The Beast turns on his mistress. The kings of the earth that have been made rich by her, are the very ones who turn on her, rend her, destroy her. That is rather stupid. But that is what it states they do. Why? Because at the heart of the whole issue the Devil’s kingdom doesn’t work. There is an alliance between the Beast and the Prophet and the Woman – but what is the alliance held together with? ‘I want what you’ve got’ And she says, ‘I want what you’ve got’, and any alliance based on such selfishness is sure to explode for that kind of ‘love’ is total selfishness. And as soon as lust has had its fill, it turns to ashes in the mouth – it is sour, bitter. And the kings of the earth took all she had to give, and she took from them because she sat upon them and rode them, and they turn upon each other, because the Devil’s kingdom is not built on love, it is built on selfishness, and it doesn’t work. And I think that of all the judgements of this book, that one is the one that announces loudly and clearly, God doesn’t even have to judge the whore, those that she served become disgusted with her and turn and rend her. And is not that the case? You talk to a man who gave his life to make riches, and he will turn upon those riches and hate them. You turn to a person who gave his life to appetite, and he will despise it. This judgment is on a magnificent scale. It is saying that at the heart of the whole matter, those who served her hate her in the end. All the pleasures of this world, says the Bible are for a season, then they turn to ashes. As it says in Proverbs, the laughter of this world is like the crackling of thorns under a pot. That is a beautiful picture, they make a blaze and a roar and a pop and crackle – ashes, full of them. That is the way of this world. And the judgment falls upon Babylon. And men throw ashes upon their head, and they weep and lament that such a tragedy has occurred. For although they hated her, they want her. That is the sign of hell. Total restlessness, hating what I have and wanting what I have now just given up. The restlessness and the burnings of hell. It states that the Lamb overcomes in the end. Chapter 17.14 – these will wage war against the Lamb and the Lamb will overcome them because He is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings and those who are with Him are the called and the chosen and faithful. It says He will overcome them because HE IS Lord of Lord and Kings of Kings. It doesn’t say he will become Lord of Lords and King of Kings. No. It says of course He will overcome, the end is sure because He is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. When does this happen? If you had eyes to see it happens every now and again in history. In a minor way we have seen it happen in our own political history, when she who rode the beast and the whole thing blew up in our faces. And we even saw the leaders of this world and the rich men lamenting and weeping on television as they lamented that Babylon, Babylon is fallen. But it hasn’t gone. There was a judgment but we await a final judgment which is known only to the mind of God and shown not to men, but a day when the world and all in it will pass away, but he who does the will of God shall live for ever. Put all we have said tonight together – don’t just take one, put them all together, for over against this Whore, over against this Beast, we are part of 144000 who stand on Mount Zion, and exalting God, the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus, the world – they are put against each other. It is not for the Christian to look at the world and say ‘Oh dear, what are things coming to?’ What are they coming to? Just what God said they were coming to. Stop don’t be so silly, do what the Church is supposed to be doing – don’t look at the Whore, not even looking at America and saying what is she coming to, as if she were not part of the Whore – but looking at the Lamb on the Throne worshipping Him, following Him wherever He goes, and understand there is a grand canyon between the Harlot and the Bride. Amen. The original set of 12 tapes can be obtained from
Malcolm Smith's web site.
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