Revelation 13:1-4: “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.
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?”
The unthinkable is at hand. God has become the final toy of the world’s religious leaders. His name is no longer important. The only important thing is unity. To them the only unpardonable sin is to believe that the Bible is the infallible Word and the only God to hate or reject is the God of the Bible. To finish the vision that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to John the Revelator, we must see this One World Religion as it helps empower Satan and the Antichrist for their evil part.
In the book of Zechariah we see three evil women representing the political, economic, and religious systems as they unite to deliver the world over to the Antichrist. Zechariah described his vision:
“Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah [the third woman is in the ephah] between the earth and the heaven. Then said I to the angel that talked with me, whither do these bear the ephah? And he said unto me, ‘To build it an house in the land of Shinar (Babylon) …’” (Zechariah 5:9-11a).
The religious system in Zechariah’s prophecy is the seventeenth chapter of Revelation and its One World Religion. The Holy Scripture has perfectly foretold of this One World Religion that would give credibility and power to the One World Political System. This religious system or its primary leader is called a beast and/or a false prophet. Here is John the Revelator’s first description:
“And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon” (Revelation 13:11).
Several functions of this religious order are clearly described. Please note carefully how important these actions are in promoting this New World Political System or New World Order. The one world religion has the same power and authority as the one world political order and is the authority that requires the people to worship the Antichrist.
The head of this religious order will resurrect the Antichrist after he is slain with a sword. This will be a kind of mimic of the resurrections of Jesus Christ. This religious giant will also have power to animate a statue of the Antichrist and cause the statue to speak and pronounce judgment. The new world religious order will be the force behind the mark of the beast and will require one and all to receive this mark.
Since the mark of this beast (666) is a religious mark identifying the person as a worshipper of the new godhood of Satan, no person can be redeemed or saved after receiving this mark. They are lost forever. “And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone” (Revelation 19:20).
This new world religion is called “The Great Whore.” The description of this false religion becomes even more graphic as the picture unfolds. It is called a beast or false prophet in the previous explanation, but after receiving power from the Antichrist and great acceptance and worship from the world population, this new world religion becomes a mammoth force. It is now called “the Great Whore” and is seen on top; riding a “scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy…” (Revelation 17:3)
Let’s read carefully John’s description:
“And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored 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: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.” Revelation 17:1-6
Please note her characteristics and vileness. This religious whore is a great fornicator and is guilty of changing, twisting, and debauching the Word of God. God has pronounced judgment on anyone who adds to or subtracts from the Word of God.
“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” Revelation 22:18-19.
This is one of the ultimate sins already dominant in the church world.
She is rich, but spends her riches on herself. She is proud and worldly and decks herself with costly jewels. She drank from a golden cup but its contents are vileness and abomination. She is also the mother of harlots and all her offspring are as wicked as herself. There are many different religious ideas that unite with this mother of harlots. Her greatest hatred is for the true believers who hold to the Holy Bible and its infallible truths. She is drunk with the blood of murdered saints.
Nothing is as vile as religion that has lost its way and departed from purity and holiness. There have been many dark moments in the past when this has happened. Jesus came in a time when the Jewish religion was a botched form of greed and selfishness. He walked into the temple with a whip and drove out the temple-evangelists. The Reformation came after a thousand years of Madonna-worship, indulgences (buying sin-rights from the priest in advance), and distorted communion.
Again, the Holy Spirit drove out the priest and the pope and then the gospel was heard by millions. Even the Reformation leaders became just as vile as the system they replaced. Very soon religion will be more vicious and vile than ever before and multitudes will either worship a false god or will be tortured and slain. The Son of God will arrive on schedule to cleanse this earth of the last religious deception and He will be installed as King, Prophet, and Priest.
1 Timothy 4: 1-2: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.”
This chapter must be seen as part of this entire seven years of the Great Tribulation. From chapter six to sixteen, this prophecy of a one world religion overshadows and functions in the midst of all else that is occurring. In fact, this one world religion is developing as I write and is practically ready for the seven years to begin. The Antichrist spirit is overspreading almost everything that is occurring and will be the tool of the Antichrist himself.
The second beast in Revelation chapter thirteen is the mastermind of this religious system. Do not confuse this chapter seventeen with chapter eighteen. This chapter is about “Mystery Babylon” or a religious form of Babylon, while chapter eighteen is about the literal city of Babylon, the physical capital of the Antichrist himself.
“And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. 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 17:1-3).
The main purpose of this chapter is to show the judgment of the false religious system that has or is serving the Antichrist. This system is called, “The Great Whore” and she rides upon the back of the Antichrist called, “a scarlet coloured beast.” No description in this book is more direct and revealing than this woman and the beast she rides.
The idea of every symbolic name in the Bible is to express the character. The woman is the one world religious system of every apostate or pagan religion united together. The ecumenical system of the World Council of Churches is preparing this whore/woman at the present. The term “woman” is the biblical type of religion.
This harlot system has induced the world into a false religious mindset. Instead of godly saints that serve and honor the Father and Jesus Christ, this one world religion has duped the world so far beneath truth, the infallible Bible, that it’s all an apostasy. Apostasy means a religious idea that claims to be right but lives so far from right that there is no biblical identity.
Very simply, apostasy is the loss of biblical identity and biblical obedience. A person that does not live by the totality of Scripture, obeying all truth, does not have the right to claim Christianity. This one world system will go even further than that. It unites all religions, paganism, animalism, New Age, occultism, etc., into a single package and claims that all gods are actually part and lot of each other. It is the darkest religious order of human history. It is a whore, a debauched religious order.
The kings of the earth, rulers of the many levels of governments, dictators, or presidents will all love this emerging system. The one world order of religions will unite with this one world order of government and the two will support and unite the one world order of the economy. All of them will be rich together for a short, brief period.
This unity will fall apart, as it appears, a rift will start over three major cities, Babylon, Rome, and Jerusalem. Other cities will likely be a part of this rift over prestige, wealth, and political advantages. They will all be drunk with lust, power, pleasure, and wealth. The world population will join both the love of money and pleasure and then the rift of cultural pride and political advantage.
This woman sits astride the political system identified with the exact order of the Antichrist kingdom. The religious order will combine many religious ideas from the different religions united together, and probably incorporate many new imaginations of religions concoctions. All of it will be blasphemous against God and the truth.
The image of the Antichrist erected in the Jewish temple will certainly be to blaspheme the Bible, the infallible Word of God. This kind of deception is already happening in much of the church world. “Truth has fallen in the streets.”
“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: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration” ( Revelation 17:4-6).
The true faith of Christ will always be simply held, simply obeyed, and simply presented to the world. It’s easy to see when religions goes amuck. False religion must present itself in the flash and grandeur of the world to cover up its emptiness. When religion must dress its leaders in scarlet color and deck them with gold, you know they have lost the way.
The lowly Nazarene left us the biblical example of the Bible faith. This new world religion joined to the political pomp will always follow the wealth and the lifestyle of fornication and abominations. At this point the religious leaders will be so wealthy that she will dazzle the carnal church world to her feet.
2 Thessalonians 2:8-10: “And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”
God hates religion that has lost its humility and simplicity. Religion that is all flesh, wholly given to building grand cathedrals, controlling the governments, and flashing its wealth is an abomination to God. God Himself calls this whore system, “Mystery Babylon.”
Why does He call it “Mystery Babylon?” Babylon is the seat of Satan and “Mystery Babylon” is Satanism or Babylonianism dressed up in a mystery form to hide its true nature. When paganism can incorporate itself with Christian concepts and ideas, you have a mystery form of Babylon. The name “Mystery Babylon” is perfect in describing the emerging One World Church.
And she is drunk with her slaughter and hatred for the true saints of God. Millions of saints have been martyred since Pentecost in A.D. 33. God has always had a Pilgrim church that is true and devoted to Holy Scripture as its one and only way. There has been some form of “Mystery Babylon” since the first century of the church world.
At times the slaughter of saints has been a catastrophe. No time in history will match what is about to happen. The seven years of Tribulation will witness this One World Church baptizing the world with the slaughter of Bible-believers. The entire crowd in Revelation chapter seven verses nine through seventeen was martyred by this religious Babylon. This one world religion is drunk with the murder of anyone professing biblical Christianity.
“And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space” (Revelation 17:7-10).
This woman is marvelous to behold. She is rich, powerful, and universal. She holds sway over the whole earth and is an intimate part of the Antichrist government. Her wealth, her power, and her incredible religious facade create a picture of genuineness and greatness. Any person that has an air of being religious will love this developing system.
John had wondered himself at this whore of religion “with great admiration.” The angel now rebukes him for being so undiscerning. But of course, John only saw the outward sight and not the inward deceit and destruction and that’s often how people look on the religious façade that fills our world already.
John gets to hear the mystery of this woman, both for him and the true church. She is a mystery as the spirit of iniquity has always been a mystery. No one will ever truly understand Satan’s scheme without spiritual discernment, which most of the world does not have. Wickedness in religion is the worst kind of wickedness and the most impossible to understand.
This woman is the most deceived form ever witnessed. In this picture the beast she rides reveals more about her than all else. This beast is the Antichrist government that is busy uniting the world as seen in Revelation chapter thirteen. Governments have been deceived in giving full power to this final form of human government. This woman and her one world church is helping the beast create the one world government. Both the woman and the beast are using each other to their own benefit.
This beast is a great demon spirit, a fallen angel that had been assigned into the bottomless pit but now possesses the “man of sin,” the Antichrist. Again, we have reference to the deadly wound the beast received but had been miraculously recovered to deceive the world. The angel reminds John that this beast will go into perdition at the close of this seven-year period. The scene of this miraculous recovery will be so spectacular that the world that has not been converted and sealed will be instantly deceived and will glorify this great religious person and event.
The angel gives us a bird’s eye view of one geographical tidbit to help us discern: “The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth.”
It’s agonizing to read Catholic materials and see the fear they have of an Antichrist taking control of their church. Bible-believers that adhere only to Scripture see the presence of the Antichrist all the way back hundreds of years. It is correct to say that discerning Catholics and discerning believers see the same prophecy occurring shortly. The city of Rome will be a focal point of the coming One world church and will be united with the government of this world with even stronger ties than presently in force.
History records that great governments have ruled the known world. This Scripture speaks of five before the Roman government that ruled as John was receiving this vision. Rome was the sixth and then one more is the beast this woman is riding. Anyone that knows history should recognize this prophecy and vision and then know that the book of Revelation is a masterpiece, not just of end times prophecy, but also of history or better stated, His-story.
“And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful” (Revelation 17:11-14).
The configuration of the coming one world government system has been described in different ways. I do not believe anyone can perfectly pre-form the governments, as they will fulfill these verses. It will be the revival of the ancient Roman system, especially the Eastern configuration but lines will be crossed.
The Antichrist comes out of the Assyrian people, but they are scattered over several Eastern countries. The seventh and eighth are connected. Maybe this is because the seventh is killed and resurrected, and then when he is resurrected, he will be possessed by the spirit from the bottomless pit and will be a transformed person, a living beast of a man.
1 John 4:1-3: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit hat confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.”
All the governments are now ready to give all power to the Antichrist. Each of them will be given certain rights and positions of power and will have their moment in the sun. They are now uniting themselves and the object of their unity is rejection for the Lamb of God. They will have developed a hatred for God the Father and God the Lamb, and this world will unite to establish the one loved “woman,” the harlot church. There will be a readiness to march and destroy Jerusalem because this city will have become intimately connected to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.
“And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth” (Revelation 17:15-18).
Once the world is united to the beast, it will appear that he is close to his ultimate dream. The angel clearly said that the world population is committed to him. “The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.” But something happens that causes the one world order to hate the one world church. We can do nothing but speculate what may cause this sudden split. I believe Babylon will declare itself The eternal city, which Rome has long ago declared for herself. The woman rides the beast and the beast uses her until she is no longer needed. The Antichrist hates Jerusalem, but the False Prophet loves Jerusalem. But, now, the rift over the three cities must be settled.
Before this army is prepared to attack Jerusalem, the Antichrist and his government decide to destroy Rome. The Antichrist strips the world church of her glory and her wealth, and sets a torch to Rome and burns the city to the ground. Sages within the Catholic system have prophesied that this will occur. One prophet, now labeled a saint, sets the very next pope as the occupant of that city when it will be burned.
Conclusion
The perfect Revelation of God cannot but fill our heart with rejoicing. False religion has plagued the world. Any system that creates its own theology or that builds a wall with a part of truth cannot stand the test of time in doing God’s business. The pilgrims and the pilgrim church have been hated and chased to death but have continued until this hour.
Now, we see that religion that unites itself apart from infallible truth will finally be destroyed by the very powers they promoted and served. God will actually use the Antichrist army to destroy the false church pictured in the whore woman. She is the perfect illustration of what God thinks about religions that have left the Bible behind.
jrc@pawcreek.org