1A. MYSTERY BABYLON
1B. The Adulterous Woman - Revelation 17:1-6
The first part of this is about the adulterous woman- from verses one to 6.
Revelation 17
"1 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, 'Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters.'"
Incidentally, if you will look down at verse 15, the waters on which the prostitute sits are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages. So, whoever this woman is, she has come control over the people all over the earth.
"2 With her the kings of the earth committed adultery and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.
"3 Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns.
"4 The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. "5 This title was written on her forehead: MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
"6 I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished."
Today, prophecy scholars believe that woman is apostate religion- a one-world religion, put together by people who believe everything and anything except in personal salvation through the death of Jesus Christ. She is seen as an adulterous woman because, in the Old Testament, in many places, Israel, as the wife of Jehovah, is pictured as an unfaithful wife because she has gone away from her faith in The Lord. In the New Testament, the Church is seen as the Bride of Christ, and we are to be presented as pure and clean. You can see that if the picture is one of a love relation ship between man and God, then those who turn from Him, who follow false teaching, and idolatry, and witchcraft and astrology, are seen as unfaithful to God, and their religion is seen as adulterous. This, then is a picture of world religion giving its power to Antichrist in the last days.