Bible Study Seattle

“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.”  And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.  The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality, and on her forehead a name was written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”  And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.”  Revelation 17:1-6

“ I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.  Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.  To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as a queen and I am not a widow, and will never see mourning.’  For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong.”  Revelation 18:4

Who is Babylon the Great?  Many have identified her as the Papal system.  And the Protestant spinoffs as her daughters.   Ezekiel chapter 16 talks about the wicked religion that Judaism had become thousands of years ago, which also applies to what the church had become a few centuries after Christ.  But some bible students who assume that Christ’s return is imminent will look askance at you if you have anything to do will mainline churches.  But some who assume they are out of Mystery Babylon are in fact still a part of it.  Jehovah’s Witnesses come to mind, as well as every other religious system.  Although some are much closer to the truth, all have some aspect of the Babel misunderstanding in them.  We are all wrong to some extent.  Let us not be too quick to judge and assume someone will be condemned because they are in such-and-such church.  It will take several centuries to squeeze out all the falseness out of our understanding of God.  Let us not be like the Pharisees who assumed only they had it all right!  The return of our Lord is not as imminent as some suppose.