Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #17 of Revelation, chapter 14, and we are looking at Revelation14:8:

And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

Last time we looked at several verses in the Old Testament where the Hebrew word for fornication could be found.  It was also translated as “harlot,” “whore,” “whoredom” or “harlotry.”  God only uses the word “fornication” a handful of times, but he uses those other words many times.  We saw how it points to spiritual idolatry.  We are not finding this word used in the context of two people having amoral sexual relations, but we find the word in the context of Judah or Israel seeking after other gods.

This same word, which is Strong’s #2181, translated as “fornication” is found in Isaiah 1:21:

How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

Here our word appears as “harlot,” and God is speaking, in the first instance, of Israel or Judah or Jerusalem, and He is asking the question: “How is the faithful city become an harlot!”  This would represent the New Testament churches and congregations and it is very interesting what we read of the churches in Jeremiah, chapter 3.  Historically, this chapter is describing Judea, but it spiritually points to the New Testament churches.  It says in Jeremiah 3:1-3:

They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith JEHOVAH. Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed.

We can see how this relates to what we read in our last study in Revelation, chapter 2, where God was very angry with the churches and congregations because they “sufferest that woman Jezebel…to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication,” and He gave them space to repent of their fornications and they repented not.  Therefore, He cast them into great tribulation.  Now the time of Great Tribulation is at the end of the world; it is that final “little season” right before Judgment Day.  It was actually a part of God’s overall judgment because the Bible says that judgment begins at the house of God.  So God began judging the churches at the beginning of the Great Tribulation and it would be a few years later that God would pour out the Latter Rain outside of the churches to save the great multitude.  Here, in Jeremiah, chapter 3, God is speaking to Judah that has played the harlot and He says, “Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain.”  This is because of their whoredom, their fornication or their spiritual idolatry.  The churches followed in the steps of Israel of old and of Judah of old and they have done far worse when we look at the New Testament churches at the end time.  They are churches that have given themselves over to every manner of spiritual wickedness that can be imagined – everything under the sun.  You can pick any doctrine of the Bible and you can find churches that teach contrary to it and they do not uphold the Word of God on point, after point, after point, of the teachings of the Bible.  And that is “fornication” and this is why God judged Israel and Judah, historically, and why He judged the New Testament churches, even though the churches’ idols were not physical idols, for the most part.  The churches had learned to a high degree not to worship physical idols, although there are still some that worship idols and statues and things like that.  But for the most part, the New Testament church fashioned their idols out of their own minds – in their doctrine, in their gospels, and in their confessions and creeds and the denominational positions on their teachings of the Word of God; they exalted the teachings of men and their theologians that may have had some truth, but had errors, but they lifted up all the teachings of men, including the errors: “This is what this church adheres to and we will not change it or turn from it.  This is our authority.”  Even though they think it is faithful to the Bible and they certainly would tell you that they hold only to the Bible, but the fact is they held to their church doctrines and to their confessions and creeds.  These things were not to be questioned or corrected and this proved that these things were the actual authorities.  It was “fornication,” spiritually.  It was idolatry, spiritually.  It was bowing down to something other than God and the Word of God.

This is how the “righteous city” became a “harlot” in a moment.  God came to visit after He had given them space to repent during the 1,955 years of the church age.  They had not repented and, therefore, the Holy Spirit came out of the midst and, immediately, they became part of “Babylon.”  And what does God say of Babylon?  Satan was loosed.  Satan rose up and entered into the churches and congregations and took his seat in the temple as the “man of sin.”  The “king of Babylon” now ruled over Judah, in a sense.  He was the authority and the churches became part of his kingdom – they became Babylon.  Again, what does God say concerning Babylon?  It says in Revelation 17:1:

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:

Remember we saw in the Old Testament that the Hebrew word translated as “fornication” was translated as “harlot” or “whore” or variations of that.  Our word in Revelation 14:8 for “fornication” is Strong’s #4202 and it would be pronounced “por-ni-ah” and the word in Revelation 17:1 that is translated as “whore” is Strong’s #4204, “por-nay,” so they are very closely related words.  Strong’s #4204 can also be translated as “harlot,” so we basically have the New Testament equivalent (in these words) to that which we find in the Old Testament. 

So, again, let me read again from Revelation 17:1-2:

…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.

This verse does not include the word “wrath,” but otherwise it is very similar.  Then it goes on to say in Revelation 17:3-4:

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. 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:

Let us look at what God says of this “golden cup” and then we will go back to Revelation 17.  It says in Jeremiah 51:7:

Babylon hath been a golden cup in JEHOVAH'S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.

What have the nations drunk?  It says in Revelation 17:2, “and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.”  Satan was loosed and God left the churches and congregations and turned them over completely to Satan and God loosened the constraints on the hearts of the world at the same time.  We read in Revelation, chapter 13, that the beast would have rule in the world as well as in the churches.  So God allowed sin to multiply, like never before, all over the earth among the nations of the world and that was also an act of drinking of the wine of her fornication.  Of course, there is spiritual idolatry within the churches among those professed Christians that ought to know better, but it is just as spiritually idolatrous for people outside the churches.  They, too, are in a marriage relationship with God through the Law of God and when they transgress, it is adultery, but it is also serving other gods.  It can be serving idols carved with their hands or idols of covetousness and their lusts and evil desires, as they go after the things of the world.  The world itself becomes an idol to the unsaved people of the world.  They serve the world and they serve Satan in this dark world.

So we read here that Babylon has a “a golden cup” and God says that this cup is in His hand because it is all being done (the loosing of Satan and the loosening of the restraint on sin and allowing iniquity to increase in the world) according to the plan and will of God, as God intended it to be this way since the very beginning.  It was His program of judgment to allow the world to “have its fill” and to give it the cup of fornication: “Drink until you are drunken.”  They are “mad” upon their idols and the world is drunk with fornication and drunk with idolatry and with serving anything, and everything, you can think of except the one true God worthy and deserving of that worship.

Babylon is instrumental in all this.  Babylon is that “cup” that has been filled by God with their fornications.  It goes on to say Revelation 17:5:

And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

This is an interesting title.  It is a very interesting title to give to Babylon.  She is just not a “harlot” but she is “THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS.”  You might wonder: “What is the difference?  God is just saying she is a great harlot and so much so that she is the mother of harlots.”  But there is a distinction.  There is a big difference.  It is sort of like saying that man is a liar (“Let God be true, but every man a liar”), but then there is a “father of lies” and we read about that in John 8:41-44:

Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Satan is a liar, like all men are liars, but more than that, he is the “father of lies.”  God says that because lies originated with Satan.  He spoke the lie in the Garden of Eden: “Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”  Other lies were associated with his encounter with Eve.  He began the “lie” and so he is the father of it. 

Babylon is a “harlot,” just like the churches are involved in harlotry and Israel was involved in harlotry and these organizations that were God’s outward representation to the world fell into spiritual fornication.  Also, each individual in the world has at some point committed spiritual fornication or spiritual adultery.  We are spiritual harlots in that sense.  No man has been perfectly faithful and obedient to all the Law of God, except the Lord Jesus Christ, but every other man has sinned and these sins are spiritual fornication.  That is why when God saved Rahab the harlot it is such a beautiful picture of the salvation of sinners, because we can all stand in her place in the spiritual realm.  So it is a beautiful picture of God forgiving the harlot her trespasses and that means He does forgive sinners that have been involved in spiritual harlotry. 

But Babylon is not just a harlot, but she is “THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS.”  I would like to read something about Eve in Genesis 3:20:

And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

Their children came forth through Eve.  She was their mother.  And just as Satan is the father of lies because lies originated with him, so, too, a mother is first and children come forth from the mother.  Therefore, Babylon is “THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS.”  Babylon is the kingdom of Satan that was established through lies and deceitfulness.  Satan deceived Eve through lies and got her to believe the lie and she ate of the forbidden fruit from the forbidden tree and she “died” and Adam “died” with her, in their spiritual existence.   And all men “died” in Eve and the kingdom of Babylon was conceived and born at that time; darkness entered the world and Satan became the ruler (through the right of conquest) over all that Adam had previously been given rule over.   He was ruler over the nations of the world and the children that would be born of Eve from that point on would be conceived in sin and born speaking lies.  They would be born sinners in spiritual darkness and dead in their souls and born into the kingdom of Satan or born into Babylon, “THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS.”