Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #5 of Revelation, chapter 17, and we are going to be reading Revelation 17:5-6:
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.
I will stop reading there. The Apostle John has been given this vision and he is marveling and he is amazed at what he sees. Again, the woman is a picture of the kingdom of Satan which consists of all the unsaved people of the earth and this kingdom dated back to the very beginning since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. So it really continued for the entire history of the world, except for a short period of time before mankind’s fall when they sinned against God.
Here, in verses 5 and 6, the woman, who is Babylon, has a name: “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” We can understand why she is “THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS” because there was no “Babylon” before man’s fall into sin, so Babylon (Satan’s kingdom) predates the fall of Israel into the hand of Satan or the fall of the churches into the hand of Satan. This occurred before there was any corporate body that was the outward representation of the kingdom of God, so this “MYSTERY, BABYLON” has long existed.
Then it says in Revelation 17:6:
And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus…
Here, again, the Apostle John is given a look at “Babylon” and she is “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.” The “saints” and the “martyrs” are God’s elect. They are the true believers. If we have time, we will look at those words a little later, but first we are going to look at what the Bible has to say about Babylon shedding the blood of God’s people. The woman is drunk with the blood of the saints because she has killed them and she has killed the martyrs of Jesus; both of these groups of people are God’s people, those that God has saved.
In the next chapter God will describe His judgment upon Babylon and we read in Revelation 18:21:
And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.
Then it goes on to say in Revelation 18:24:
And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.
In “Babylon” the blood of prophets and saints were found. In our verse, we saw that Babylon had become drunken with the blood of saints and martyrs, but prophets and saints are also the same people; they are God’s chosen people whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. In “Babylon” is where you will find their blood, the blood of all the elect from the very beginning. For instance, the Bible tells us something in Matthew 23 that I do not think we have properly understood before, but in this chapter Christ is pronouncing “woes” against the scribes and Pharisees of His day, which in turn points to the New Testament churches. And within that condemnation of these spiritual leaders, we read these statements that we had thought only applied to the churches, but when we read it more carefully, it has in view more than national Israel or the corporate churches. It says in Matthew 23:33-35:
Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
If God is speaking to Israel (which represents the New Testament churches), then why is He holding the spiritual leaders of Israel responsible for the blood of Abel? Abel was killed in the beginning, not too long after man’s fall into sin, so it was a time close to the beginning of this earth. There was no corporate body – no Israel, no Judah and no churches. Why does God say they are guilty? He accuses them: “That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son.” When we search the Bible to find out who Zacharias was, we find the account of a descendent of Jehoiada the priest who was slain “between the altar and the temple,” in 2Chronicles, chapter 24. We wonder why God makes the statement, “from Abel,” which would be the beginning of the people of God that were killed physically, “unto the blood of Zacharias.” Of course, in English it makes sense in our minds from the standpoint of “A” to “Z,” with “Abel” representing the first letter of our alphabet to “Zacharias” representing the last letter. But Zacharias was killed hundreds of years before Christ came to earth and, certainly, there were many other martyrs in the Old Testament that were killed after them. Also, there were definitely many of God’s people killed during the church age. Why did God pick these two men?
The answer is that Zacharias, the descendent of Jehoiada the priest, was killed after Jehoiada died and Jehoiada died at the age of 130 and, in the Bible, God has used the age of “130 to point to the end of the world, because the world comes to a close after 13,000 years of history. The year 1988 was the 13,000th year of the earth since creation and 1988 began the time of the end because the Great Tribulation began in that year and we are now in the end stage of the Day of Judgment and the world will shortly end. So God uses “130” because it is “10 x 13,” which represents “completeness” and “the end of the world.” So from Abel, at the very beginning, all the way to the end, upon the spiritual leaders of Israel has come their blood. How can that be the case?
Let us look at the next verse in Matthew 23 and I think we will better understand why it is that in Babylon is found “all the blood” of all the saints that has been shed upon the earth. It says in Matthew 23:36:
Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.
In verse 35 it had said, “Upon you may come all the righteous blood,” and we had thought that Christ was referring to the scribes and Pharisees and lawyers, and so forth, but He had in mind “this generation.” And what “generation” is it? It is the “generation of evil.” The “generation of evil” is the generation of mankind since they disobeyed God long ago. It was the year 11,013 BC that the earth was created and shortly thereafter, Eve disobeyed and then Adam disobeyed and they experienced “evil” and all of mankind was in them and came forth from them, so (unsaved) mankind is all part of that “generation of evil” since that time. The “generation of evil” continues to the point when this world will finally be destroyed.
We read in Matthew 12:39-41:
But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation…
He is referring to the “generation of evil.” The men of Nineveh will rise in the judgment with this generation. At the time this was declared in Matthew 12, it was 2,000 years before Judgment Day, when this would come to pass and, yet, Christ is still calling it “this generation” because it is the “generation of evil.” This is the “generation” that has been ongoing throughout history since the fall.
We read in Luke 11:50-51:
That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.
It is the “generation” that identifies with Babylon. Again, Babylon is a figure of Satan’s kingdom of this world and his rule over the kingdoms of this earth. Babylon is the “mistress of kingdoms” that rules over all the kingdoms and Babylon goes back to the very beginning. As soon as there were unsaved people to populate Satan’s kingdom, it formed the spiritual Babylon that Satan, as typified by the king of Babylon, would rule over. That is why God declares that all the blood of all His people that have been killed will be required of this generation. We know that just a few centuries ago many of God’s people were physically burned at the stake for desiring that the Word of God be accessible to the people and in the language of the people. God’s people were also spiritually “killed,” as the Bible speaks of God’s people being driven out of the synagogues or churches and this is also likened to killing them. The Bible also says that if you hate someone, it is a form of “murder” or “killing” and, certainly, Satan and his people (the unsaved of the earth) hate the people of God. That was the sin of Cain in regard to Abel, as we read in 1John 3:11-15:
For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
God equates “hate” with “murder,” so when we read of Babylon and her people being drunken with the blood of the saints and the martyrs of Jesus, we do not have to think that it is just “beheadings” or “hangings” or even that it is simply their being driven out of the synagogues or churches, but it can also be the everyday hatred which the world has for God and His Word and the people of God that identify with it. This also could fit the language that Babylon was “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.”
We are familiar with the word “saints” in the New Testament and we understand that it identifies with those God has saved. It is a word that means “holy ones.” Whenever God saved someone, He cleansed them from all sin through the blood of Christ, making them “holy” or “saints,” but we have not seen the word “martyr” as often. The word is almost a transliteration of the Greek word “martus.” It means “witness.” This word is translated as “witness” many times. For example it says in Acts 1:8:
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
The word “martyr” has taken on the connotation of having died for the sake of Christ and it could be due to a couple of places where the Kings James translators translated it that way. For instance, in Acts 22, the Apostle Paul writes under the inspiration of God, in Acts 22:20:
And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him.
The word “martyr” is not used that often. It is used here of Stephen in the Book of Acts and it is used of Antipas, in the Book of Revelation, who was called God’s faithful martyr. It is translated as “martyr” in our verse in Revelation 17, but elsewhere it is normally translated as “witness” or “witnesses.” The idea of a “martyr” is also aided by “Fox’s Book of Martyrs,” and it caused people to think that it is the people of God that have been physically killed, but it means to “witness” for Christ. When we do witness for Christ, we will be “killed” in one of these ways, either physically or spiritually or through being hated by the world. All of God’s true people will probably experience being “killed” in one of these ways, but the word itself means to be a “witness” of Christ or a “witness” of the Word of God, like it says in Acts 5:31-32:
Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.
God’s people are witnesses and the Holy Ghost is a Witness. It is the same word that is translated as “martyr” (martus in the Greek) in Revelation, chapter 17. So we could read our verse this way: “And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.”
When it says that John “wondered with great admiration,” we should not think of it in a positive sense, like when we admire someone. That is not what this word means. This is a word that means “marvel” or “wonder.” We read this same Greek word in 1John, chapter 3, when God said, “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.” That is the same word. The Apostle John is the same apostle that God moved to write 1John, so it could be said that he “marveled” at the woman (Babylon) as he observed her hatred of the people of God as she was drunken with their blood because he had learned through the Spirit of God to say in 1John, “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.” It should be an expectation. Each one of us should realize and expect that being hated goes along hand in hand with being a child of God in this world, as we uphold God’s word and its truthfulness. Now if you want to bend, pervert or change the Word of God, you will fit right in with the world. The world does not mind a gospel that is just as full of deceit and lies as other religions. The world does not mind a professed Christian that says all kinds of things with his mouth, but his heart is not in agreement. The world does not mind those things. You can fit in with the world that way and be a professed Christian with a perverted gospel. Then there is no difference between you and anyone else.
But a true Christian has a new heart and a new Spirit and holds to the true Word of God because God has opened his understanding and granted him the truth of the Gospel and he desires to share that truth with others. Then he should marvel not that the world hates him. Remember what the Lord said in the Sermon on the Mount, in Luke 6:20-23:
And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.
Here, God is encouraging us and letting us know that we should not look upon the world with any admiration or wonder in that sense – do not wonder that she is drunk with the blood of your fellow saints, the witnesses. This has been the case since the beginning, from Abel to Zacharias and from the beginning to the end. She has always done this to the people of God, but now it is the Day of Judgment. Now Babylon has fallen and it is time for Babylon (who meted out the cup of God’s wrath to the churches) to drink of the cup of the wrath of God.