The Great Harlot - Who is She?: Part 4   02.2005

Part 4

"Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, 'Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.'" (Rev 17:1-2)

Last week we discovered that the great harlot that the Apostle John was shown, is referring to the unfaithful church. We mentioned that harlotry in the Bible is connected to idolatry and we also talked about how the kings of the earth have committed fornication with the great harlot and how this will culminate in the union with the anti-messiah, called the beast.

This week we are going to look at some characteristics given of the great harlot and also make some comparisons with the Bride of Messiah. We believe that in the end there will only be two churches. It will be the Bride and the harlot. It will be hard to distinguish between the two without the revelation of the Spirit of God, especially in the beginning. It is truly important to watch and pray in these last days in order to not be deceived.

Babylon the Great

Let's look closer at the name that is given the great harlot in Revelation 17:5, "And on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH."

The number one adjective used about the harlot is the word great. She is both called the great harlot as well as Babylon the Great. The desire for greatness, might, power and influence is the main principle and motivation behind the harlot. She attracts people with greatness. Anyone who seeks and pursues greatness will be very susceptible to succumb to her.

If we compare this with the Bride, we see that the main word used about her is the word holy. The Bible doesn't call her "the Great City, Jerusalem", but "the Holy City, Jerusalem." "One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, 'Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.' And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God." (Rev 21:9-10)

The Biblical word for holy means "set apart". The major aspect of the Bride is that she is set apart unto her husband to be totally His. This is why the first thing you see in the set apart city is its huge, massive wall. "It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, …He measured its wall and it was 144 cubits thick." (Rev 21:12-14,17) The wall is great and high. It has twelve foundations and angels are guarding at all the gates. The wall is at least 70 meters thick. What an impressive wall! Truly the Bride is set apart.

The Bride is set apart through obedience to the word of God. "Sanctify them [set them apart] by the truth; your word is truth." (Jn 17:17) "Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie." (Rev 22:14-15, NKJV)

The great harlot on the other hand is described as sitting on many waters. It is explained in verse 15, "The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages." There are no specific borders here, no clear boundaries between what is in and out. This was exactly what happened after the church became the official religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine. As a result, all kinds of pagan influences quickly swept into the church because the walls were gone.

The great harlot is very impressive, but she is not set apart. The harlot symbolizes mixture. The Bride stands for purity. Our strength must never be in numbers or greatness, but in being set apart unto God through obedience to His commands. Yeshua did not say,"Do not be afraid, great flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom." He instead promised, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom." (Lk 12:32)

The Roman Catholic Church today has approximately 1.1 billion baptized members and encompasses basically every nation of the world. The overwhelming majority of these people have never been born again into the kingdom of God and do not even know the way of salvation. They have instead been taught to believe in a false gospel by being faithful to the church through rituals and sacraments instead of trusting in the Savior who shed his blood for them.

The funeral of Pope John Paul II was by far the largest funeral in the history of the world and perhaps the most-watched live event in the history of television viewed by over two billion people. Over 200 heads of state and government representatives attended his funeral. The gospel was never preached during this ceremony. It says about the great harlot that, "the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries." (Rev 17:2)

Yeshua is the door of salvation. "I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture." (Jn 10:9) The great harlot takes his place and presents herself as the door.

"We have a young sister, and her breasts are not yet grown. What shall we do for our sister for the day she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we will build towers of silver on her. If she is a door, we will enclose her with panels of cedar.

I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers. Thus I have become in his eyes like one bringing contentment." (Song 8:8-10)

The harlot is a door. The Bride is a wall. The church is not the door that leads to salvation. We do not get saved by joining the church, but by believing in the Lord Yeshua and what he has done for us.

Mystery Babylon

Let's look at the next expression in the name of the great harlot. She is called Mystery Babylon. Babylon was the place where mankind first united to rebel against God. Babylon is the birth place of all the false pagan religions that have spread out over the earth from there.

The great harlot is not Babylon, but Mystery Babylon because she has placed a Christian facade on all the false religions, particularly sun worship which was very popular in the Roman Empire at the time of Constantine. The Emperor himself was an ardent sun worshiper, something he never repented of when he said that he became a Christian. Much of these practices were therefore incorporated into the church. Let us just give you one example.

In the middle of the Piazza or Plaza in the Vatican in front of St Peter's Church is a giant obelisk sitting in the middle of the symbol of a pagan sun wheel. An obelisk is a phallus symbol. God commanded the people of Israel to tear them down. The particular obelisk or sun pillar in the Vatican was brought to Rome by Emperor Caligula from Heliopolis, Egypt in 37 – 41 BCE. The Catholic Church erected this Egyptian phallus symbol right in front of St Peter's Church. The piazza around the obelisk is built in the form of a circle with an opening symbolizing the female organ. It is a pagan, occult symbol of fertility that is an absolute abomination in God's eyes, provoking His jealous wrath.

The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy 12:1-4,

"These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess — as long as you live in the land. Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains and on the hills and under every spreading tree where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places. You must not worship the LORD your God in their way."

Catholic theologians often say that since Christ has redeemed everything we are free to use all things in our worship of God. This is however a misapplication of Scripture. Yeshua as certainly redeemed all things but we are still commanded to flee idolatry.

"The Lord's message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia — your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God." (1 Th 1:8-9)

In general, mystery is a central aspect of Roman Catholic faith. At the alleged transformation of the bread and wine into the literal body and blood of Messiah, which is the cornerstone of the Catholic mass, the priests pronounce the words "Mysterium fide." All the sacraments carry a mysterious aspect that only has power through the ordained priests. We can also mention the Mary apparitions, holy water and extreme unction, which all supposedly carry mysterious powers.

Even though all these things clearly point to the Roman Catholic Church as the fulfillment of the description of the great harlot in the Book of Revelation, we believe that there will be a specific end time fulfillment of the great harlot which will be unique. Next week we will take a look at that.

Whatever that end time fulfillment is, it is extremely important to heed the warning in Revelation 18:4, "Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues." We must make sure that we have nothing to do with anything that is associated with the great harlot.