Mystery Babylon
By Richard P. Joseph
Who or what is Mystery Babylon? Well, I guess that depends on who you ask. Because of rampant false theology, most people identify the Catholic Church as Mystery Babylon. But just look around and you will see just about anything. I see posts on Facebook that the United States is Mystery Babylon. Others believe it is future Israel. I suppose the list goes on and on because once the truth is removed from the equation, anything goes. Depending on when you live and what type of false theology you listen to, the answers could be just about anything. That is why audience relevance is so important.
Let’s go back in time, for example to the days of Jeremiah the prophet. Jeremiah lived in the 6th century before Christ. The prophet foresaw the approaching disaster of Jerusalem by the Babylonian army. My question to you about this is, “if Jeremiah had predicted the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, and it never happened, would you still consider him a prophet of YHVH”? I wouldn’t. So, if John, predicted that, what he identified as Mystery Babylon, was going to fall, and it never did, would you consider him an inspired apostle of Jesus Christ? I wouldn’t.
The book of Revelation introduces Mystery Babylon in this manner:
And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
This harlot was sitting on the base of the Roman empire. As we all know, Rome was the occupying authority of Israel during the first century. Then John marvels at the sight of her riding this hideous beast.
6 I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
John spends at least 3 chapters discussing who the harlot is and the fall of Babylon. One question might come to mind and that is why would a Jewish Apostle spend so much time on the fall of a nation? My guess is that it is because it is his own nation. It is the nation that slew the prophets and the Messiah. It is the nation that rejected the pure worship of YVHV and allowed all manner of cults to flourish in their land. As Jesus put it:
34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing! 35 See! Your house is left to you desolate; and assuredly,[f] I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”
Jesus tells us that Jerusalem shall become a place of desolation. Jesus wasn’t concerned about the United States, Russia, the Catholics, Ronald Reagan or anyone when he made this statement. He was thinking about the covenant people of Israel. He then gives us a time marker.
47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48 In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’ 50 that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.
Even the Catholics did not meet this criteria. The only people who could possibly meet this criteria was ancient Israel. The buck stops at AD70. All of those “end times” seminars that people flock to are leading people so far astray that it is mind numbing. People who know nothing about the history of Israel then get on facebook and spew their ignorant statements about the “end of the world”. I remember being a new Christian and believing that stuff too. God led me to his real truth and history which I am attempting to spread as much as possible myself.
I think Peter would also agree with Jesus and John. In 1 Peter 5:13-14 he actually says that he is in Babylon. He is responding to the book of Revelation which he recently read. I like how Ed Stevens correlates this by showing that Peter, not only read the book of Revelation, but actually said he was in Babylon. We know that Peter was in Jerusalem during his last days so the question arises again; If Peter was in Jerusalem, which he called Babylon, then how can Peter be in the modern Catholic church, the United States of America, the Soviet Union or where ever the faulty theologists claim he was? The answer is, he can’t. This solidifies the fact that John was calling Jerusalem, Mystery Babylon because she abandoned her true husband for idolatry , fornication, blasphemy and all manner of worldly sin. They alone are the ones who killed the prophets, the Messiah and the saints. Although Rome had its hands in on the murdering of the saints it was because the Jews handed them over to Rome. The book of Revelation, which was certainly written no later than AD 64, was the announcement that the parousia was about to begin which included the transfer of the law from civil to Spiritual in Jesus Christ and the end of of the old covenant and the consummation of the new covenant in the blood of Christ. Anyone placing Mystery Babylon after AD 70 is totally ignoring the scripture for a make believe religion.
