Memory Text: “A second angel followed and said, ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.’ ” Rev. 14:8
In light of Revelation 17, which we studied last week, we are better able to comprehend the message of the second angel, that “Babylon is fallen.” Last week, we saw that “Babylon” is another name for the woman that rides the beast, which symbolizes the corrupt church that set itself up in the seat of the Roman Empire. So Babylon is another name for the Roman Catholic Church.
The second angel’s message is not that literal Babylon, the Mesopotamian city, has fallen—in John’s day, everyone already knew that—the message is that the false and corrupt church that would take over pagan Rome’s seat was heading ultimately toward destruction. When John wrote the Apocalypse, that corrupt church was yet in the future, but prophetically it had already fallen.
The second angel’s message is brief in Revelation 14, but Revelation 17, 18, and 19 have much more to say about Babylon. Revelation 18 starts out like this:
After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. With a mighty voice he shouted:
“Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!
She has become a dwelling for demons
and a haunt for every impure spirit,
a haunt for every unclean bird,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal.
For all the nations have drunk
the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”
We might envision birds flying over the ruins of ancient Babylon, and wild animals scampering over the mounds constituting its remains, but that is not the point of this passage. Rather, the prophetic message is that spiritual Babylon is full of false religious doctrines, beliefs and teachings, and these had made their way to Rome, and were about to be incorporated into the fallen, corrupt church that was to take the seat of pagan Rome.
Of course, we can see this very clearly in retrospect, the world having already had well over a millennium’s worth of sad history with Roman Catholicism. The Reverend Alexander Hislop, author of the famous work, “The Two Babylons,” first published in 1853, wrote:
"It has been known all along that Popery was baptized Paganism; but God is now making it manifest that the Paganism which Rome has baptized is, in all its essential elements, the very Paganism which prevailed in the ancient literal Babylon, . . . the Providence of God, conspiring with the Word of God, by light pouring in from all quarters, makes it more and more evident that Rome is in very deed the Babylon of the Apocalypse; that the essential character of her system, the grand objects of her worship, her festivals, her doctrine and discipline, her rites and ceremonies, her priesthood and their orders, have all been derived from ancient Babylon; and, finally, that the Pope himself is truly and properly the lineal representative of Belshazzar. In the warfare that has been waged against the domineering pretensions of Rome, it has too often been counted enough merely to meet and set aside her presumptuous boast, that she is the mother and mistress of all churches—the one Catholic Church, out of whose pale there is no salvation. If ever there was excuse for such a mode of dealing with her, that excuse will hold no longer. If the position I have laid down can be maintained, she must be stripped of the name of a Christian Church altogether; for if it was a Church of Christ that was convened on that night, when the pontiff-king of Babylon, in the midst of his thousand lords, 'praised the gods of gold, and of silver, and of wood, and of stone' (Daniel 5:4), then the Church of Rome is entitled to the name of a Christian Church; but not otherwise. This to some, no doubt, will appear a very startling position; but it is one which it is the object of this work to establish; and let the reader judge for himself, whether I do not bring ample evidence to substantiate my position" (The Two Babylons, pp. 2–3).
Some of the points Hislop argues are that mariolatry originates in the Babylonian worship of Semiramis, and that the worship of the mother and child also originates with the Babylonian worship of Semiramis and her supposed god-child, Tammuz, that she immaculately conceived after the death of her husband, Nimrod. (In Ezekiel 8:14, we see that this Babylonish worship being embraced by some Israelite women). There are some mistakes in The Two Babylons, but I think it is largely correct in its analysis, which relies extensively on ancient sources, and has held up well over the past 170 years.
Contrary to the assertion in the above quotation from Hislop’s introduction to The Two Babylons, however, there is a sense in which Rome is correct in her claim to be “the mother and mistress of all churches.” Rome is indeed the “mother of harlots” in Revelation 17:5, meaning that the Protestant churches that left the mother church did not forsake all of Rome’s false doctrines, most prominently including Sunday worship, arguably the most important element of pagan Babylonian religion that was incorporated into Roman Catholicism. This would be one of the core messages of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination that would be coming into existence shortly after Hislop wrote his masterwork in the 1850s.
Several ancient civilizations worshiped the sun, including Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Babylon, and Rome. In The Worship of Nature, the famous cultural anthropologist James George Frazer notes, “In ancient Babylonia the sun was worshiped from immemorial antiquity.” — (London: Macmillan and Co., 1926), vol. 1, p. 529. Sadly, even the Israelites sometimes fell under the spell of sun worship, as seen in Ezekiel 8:16, and 2 Kings 23:5, 11.
If you have a copy of The (New, Illustrated) Great Controversy, you’ve seen the many illustrations of how sun worship moved from Babylon to Rome, and then into the Roman Catholic Church. And although modern Christians do not view it in this light, it is clear that worship on Sunday, the day of the sun, stems from sun worship, not from Bible Christianity. The change from Sabbath to Sunday as the sanctified day of rest is all the doing of the Roman Catholic Church, inspired by Satan himself:
The great apostate had succeeded in exalting himself “above all that is called God, or that is worshiped.” 2 Thessalonians 2:4. He had dared to change the only precept of the divine law that unmistakably points all mankind to the true and living God. In the fourth commandment, God is revealed as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and is thereby distinguished from all false gods. It was as a memorial of the work of creation that the seventh day was sanctified as a rest day for man. It was designed to keep the living God ever before the minds of men as the source of being and the object of reverence and worship. Satan strives to turn men from their allegiance to God, and from rendering obedience to His law; therefore he directs his efforts especially against that commandment which points to God as the Creator.
Protestants now urge that the resurrection of Christ on Sunday made it the Christian Sabbath. But Scripture evidence is lacking. No such honor was given to the day by Christ or His apostles. The observance of Sunday as a Christian institution had its origin in that “mystery of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:7, R.V.) which, even in Paul's day, had begun its work. Where and when did the Lord adopt this child of the papacy? What valid reason can be given for a change which the Scriptures do not sanction? Great Controversy, p. 53.
By the early Sixth Century, the Roman Church had established itself in great power:
In the sixth century the papacy had become firmly established. Its seat of power was fixed in the imperial city, and the bishop of Rome was declared to be the head over the entire church. Paganism had given place to the papacy. The dragon had given to the beast “his power, and his seat, and great authority.” Revelation 13:2. And now began the 1260 years of papal oppression foretold in the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation. Daniel 7:25; Revelation 13:5-7. (See Appendix.) Christians were forced to choose either to yield their integrity and accept the papal ceremonies and worship, or to wear away their lives in dungeons or suffer death by the rack, the fagot, or the headsman's ax.
Now were fulfilled the words of Jesus: “Ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for My name's sake.” Luke 21:16, 17. Persecution opened upon the faithful with greater fury than ever before, and the world became a vast battlefield. For hundreds of years the church of Christ found refuge in seclusion and obscurity. Thus says the prophet: “The woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three-score days.” Revelation 12:6. Great Controversy, p. 54.
Scripture clearly warns against associating with this false system of worship:
Then I heard another voice from heaven say:
“‘Come out of her, my people,’
so that you will not share in her sins,
so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
for her sins are piled up to heaven,
and God has remembered her crimes.
Give back to her as she has given;
pay her back double for what she has done.
Pour her a double portion from her own cup.
Give her as much torment and grief
as the glory and luxury she gave herself.
In her heart she boasts,
‘I sit enthroned as queen.
I am not a widow;
I will never mourn.’
Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her:
death, mourning and famine.
She will be consumed by fire,
for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.
We must be clear that we are not attacking individual Catholics, many of whom are, to the best of their ability, living up to all the light they have. Today’s Catholics have an easy access to the Bible that Catholics did not have during the 1260 years of papal persecution, and many of them are making use of it and know the Scriptures well. In many cases, they put us to shame with their obedience to duty and their knowledge of the Scriptures.
But the Apocalypse could not be any clearer that this religious system, this woman who rides the beast, is evil and corrupt. This church is fallen, spiritually, because it syncretistically incorporated all the errors of paganism and then, during the prolonged era of its supremacy, used torture and the threat of a painful death by burning at the stake to force people to accept those errors. Christians must steer well clear of this false system, or we will be visited with the plagues and the consuming fire intended for it.