7. The Scarlet Woman¶
In the previous chapter we were considering Satan’s answer to the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ our Saviour and Lord. The final manifestation of iniquity will be incarnated in one who is named the Man of Sin. It is Satan’s imitation of the divine mystery of God’s Beloved Son. But this is not the only imitation upon which Satan is engaged. God has redeemed and is redeeming unto Himself a church. This church is the company of those redeemed in the blood of Jesus Christ and who by faith have received the Holy Spirit. It is the one society that declares to men the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ for sin, and points men right away from every earthly organisation to Jesus the Saviour of the world. If therefore Satan is imitating the Incarnation in the Man of Sin we shall not be surprised to learn that he is imitating the Body of Christ. Few people understand this fact. They are apt to think that any kind of religion must be acceptable to God. There are, however, two kinds of religion. One is that revealed by God through His Word, and the other is that established by man out of his own reasoning and by his own practices. I have a letter before me in which an enthusiastic Romanist observes that if a person prays about anything it is really a very good thing. In her view it is the praying that matters. If this person were right then Jesus was quite wrong in refusing to worship Satan in the wilderness. Satan was offering Him religion, and if it is religion that matters, and there is no such thing as a true or a false religion then our Lord was wrong! “Thou shalt worship the Lord Thy God and Him only shalt thou serve.” 1. “They that worship Him must worship him in Spirit and in truth for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.” 2
For the purpose of understanding and setting forth this truth for the instruction of the Lord’s people John was taken, during his stay in Patmos, by the Spirit into the wilderness. In that forbidding environment he was permitted to gaze upon a spectacle which filled him with wonder. The angel said to Him: “I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great harlot that sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” To his amazement John saw “a woman sitting upon a scarlet-coloured beast … arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls having a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication; and upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY; BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” She was drunk, adds the apostle, with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. 3 The wilderness was an environment apparent to John as an enlightened believer, the glory of the woman and her magnificence was the attraction she held for the carnal eye of the unsaved. Now this woman is important. We need to enquire whom she represents, then to notice her relationship to the beast and finally to observe her destiny.
She is described in the above verses as “the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.” She is called “Babylon the Great.” A harlot is a woman who prostitutes the sacred relationship of marriage, and this woman prostitutes truth. From the very beginning the truth of God has been countered by Satan. He said to the woman in the garden: “Hath God said?” 4 Ever since that time there have been people ready to question the divine revelation, to add to it and to take from it. Abel, in the exercise of a true religion, offered a sacrifice which was acceptable to God. 5 The knowledge he had of what was true was probably derived from the time when God clothed Adam and his wife with skins. 6 Probably the flesh of the animals was offered in sacrifice as an indication of the way of approach for them to God in future. Abel faithfully obeyed but Cain offered a sacrifice to God after his own ideas. He was religious and if it were merely religion that mattered he ought to have been accepted. 7 All through human history religion has had these two characteristics: that revealed by God and to be implicitly obeyed and that designed by man to express his own ideas. Nimrod, a great-grandson of Noah, is described as a mighty hunter. 8 He was apparently a mighty hunter of souls seeking to exalt a man made religion which found its expression in the tower of Babel, and ruthless towards everybody who differed from him. There followed confusion of tongues and confusion of truth, until God called out Abram to a life of faith that truth might be preserved. Hence Israel became the elect nation 9, but it apostasised and eventually rejected the Messiah sent of God. Since Pentecost, therefore, the Holy Spirit has been calling out from the nations the elect church of the Body. That church has no earthly prefix, it is the church of Jesus Christ our Lord, His church. There is no such thing in God’s sight as a Roman church or an Anglican church. We here in this chapel are not a Baptist Church, we are a company of baptised believers, part of the company of those who, in eternity and time, have been redeemed in His blood. But Satan is most eager to exercise his power through a false religion and a false church. The woman represents his efforts in this direction.
The harlot is located in the city of the seven hills. 10 On these the woman sits. There can be no reasonable doubt that the apostle refers to the city of Rome. This scarlet woman is that pagan spirit that contests the revelation of God, gathered up in mighty power by an organisation that holds some of the truth of God amidst much error and becomes the admiration of the world. Romanism as we know it today answers to the picture that amazed the apostle when he gazed upon it. Everything in the woman is designed to dazzle and bewitch the carnal eye. She so fascinates and charms that the inhabitants of the earth are drunk with her fornications. Is this true of Rome? Every protestant missionary in work overseas knows that Rome is at this moment the greatest adversary to the truth of the gospel. In the Congo the Protestant missionary seeks to persuade the natives to dispense with their fetishes, but not so the Romanist priest. He would substitute the native fetish with his own, and offers them a crucifix. They can clearly understand such an action and gladly take the crucifix, preferring always to have the fetish of the white man which they think is probably much more potent than their own. As to the blood of the martyrs of Jesus the story, with all its sadness is too well known to be disputed. Smithfield fires are not yet forgotten. Everywhere Rome gets power she seeks to quench the Protestant witness, and she has not changed in spirit through the centuries. Recently I was dealing with a woman who hesitated even to look at a Bible, for she declared that if she did so she would have to confess it to the priest as a sin. Rome is seeking ever to get increasing control over the Press of the world. If you watch your daily newspapers you will observe how frequently our so-called independent press includes pictures and news items that draw attention to Romanism. The Rome correspondent of the “Evening Standard,” describing the visit of Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Halifax to the Pope, told how the English students were described as having come to Rome to learn the Gospel of God at the feet of His representative on earth. God’s representative on earth! Where is the authority of the Word of God for such a startling statement? Does this correspondent affirm that all who do not support the Pope are against God? I read a letter from a youth in Australia who would very much have liked to have become a bank clerk, but he cannot because it is very difficult for anybody but a Romanist to secure a post in a bank in Australia. Over in Ireland somebody enquires of the editor of a Romanist magazine about praying in connection with a sweep. The enquirer wants to have a house of his own and he thinks that if he could get success in a sweep he would reach his goal. He asks the editor therefore if he is right in praying for success in the sweep, and the answer without hesitation is “Yes.” It is simply amazing that Englishmen of all people should be hoodwinked by Rome. Let us thank God for an open Bible. How is it that with an open Bible in our hands we do not see through all this deception? Can you conceive of Jesus taking a title such as “His Holiness”? Where in Scripture is there authority for cardinals, red hats, orders and decorations, papal nuncios to earthly governments, canonisation of saints, worship of the wafer, extreme unction? “My kingdom is not of this world,” declared our Lord. But the man who claims to be God’s representative on earth, plainly declares that he has altered all that and the kingdom now is very much of this world. Her eucharistic congresses are staged with the utmost publicity, and the press of the world is influenced to give prominence both by anticipation of the event and the record of it. With great subtlety Rome is exercising its influence over Anglican clergy. Today a new priest solemnly swears on the altar to be faithful to the thirty-nine articles, and forthwith deliberately proceeds to adopt and encourage practices that defy them and are in subservience to Rome. While he is doing this he takes Protestant money without any qualm of conscience and calls the people to worship the reserved sacrament. And having taken vows on the altar which he never intends to keep he has the audacity to claim that he has a valid ministry of the Holy Spirit and is in the true church, while those who prefer to make less show and fewer vows, but nevertheless endeavour to keep those they make, are declared to be outside the church of Jesus Christ! And people believe them! And Baptists appoint commissions and waste their time seeking to discover means by which they may unite with them! Even in the Methodist communion there are those whose hearts are turned towards sacramentalism. There are prominent ministers who are members of the “Methodist Sacramental Fellowship,” and in our own locality a Methodist minister has approvingly given a lecture on “A Pilgrimage to Lourdes.”
What then is the religious outlook for the world? The true church of the redeemed, no more of this world than Jesus was, is waiting for the coming of the Lord to be raptured to Him for all His eternal purpose. The apostate church, with Rome at its head and centre, will be increasingly the power in a religion which has some spiritual truth but which is dominated by doctrines and practices that are contrary to the Word of God and spring out of the imagination of man and the desire to exalt man above God. This kind of religion will always appeal to the carnal man. He loves religion which attracts the eye, which ministers beautiful music and whose teaching never challenges the conscience. Thousands are finding it a haven of refuge to remit to the Roman organisation all issues concerning sin. The confessional is available to deal with any and every sin. Masses can be purchased which will secure the repose of the soul and thousands are passing into eternity unsaved, without Christ and without hope. But the woman rides the beast! The beast is the symbol of political government and the woman is seen in command. Mark once again that this revived Roman empire is seen in the form of a beast. It is the beast with the Antichrist as its head and for a time it permits the woman to ride and to rule. Some think that for a period of about three and a half years after the true church is raptured the woman will rule the beast by her seductive arts and then her rule will end. The beast ascends out of the abyss and is full of names of blasphemy. 11 Gentile government at its heart will prove to be utterly irreligious, whether true or false, and that is a point of the utmost importance. The beast has seven heads and ten horns. The seven heads are the seven mountains on which the woman sitteth, the ten horns are ten kings who agree to give their power and authority to the beast. When the true church has been taken away to the Lord and forever freed from the persecution of the false church, then the woman will discover that her position as ruling the beast will be altered. “And the ten horns which thou sawest, and the beast, these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate, and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her up with fire.” 12
Three factors may operate to produce this result. It will without doubt completely be due in large measure to the desire of the beast to throw over completely any semblance of religion and any creeds or customs that in any way whatsoever indicate supernatural facts or declare the existence of a supreme being. Possibly too there may be an issue in the Jewish question, as the antichrist deals with them in their own land, which will bring the ruling church into collision with the ruling dictator. It may also be that the falsity of all the claims of the woman will be discovered and that in intense anger the peoples will turn and rend the woman, preferring materialism to a religious bluff. We have already seen this in Russia. Communism is the fruit of an apostate church that has been a burden to Russia for centuries but is now found out and has been ruthlessly suppressed. While the attitude of Communists is not to be endorsed, it must be understood. Russia is a religious country, and had she had the gospel as we have had it, Communism in all the power of Satan as we know it today would have never had the chance to rule a great country as it is doing. We may think it is costly to be out and out for Christ, we may find it a great challenge to our courage to stand firm as a believer saved in the blood and believing God in His Word, but of this we may be sure: to be a partner in a false religion which one day the world will find out, will be a more terrible experience than we have ever known.
As John contemplated the marvellous hypnotic power of the woman and then saw her terrible end at the hands of the beast he wondered. He must have been staggered when later he heard the Divine injunction: “Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye saints, and apostles and prophets; for God hath judged your judgment upon her.” 13 The true child of God can never have any part in religious persecution. Just as the nations of the earth are to be judged by their attitude to His brethren so the apostate church will be judged by the antichrist in the same judgment wherewith it has judged the true church of the Body. How little we recognise the eternal counterpart of all our actions, thoughts and attitudes! Do you ever stop to recollect that God watches every detail of human experience and that nothing is escaping His eye? If we do it will make us much more willing to exercise compassion, even upon those who afflict and persecute us for the measure wherewith they afflict the Body of Christ is the measure of God’s judgment upon them.
In Revelation 18 the judgment of God on religious Babylon is linked up with His judgment on commercial and political Babylon. The disintegration of human society in its sin reaches its climax in the collapse of all that civilisation built up on the foundation of Babylon. The true church having been raptured, the false church is free in the power of Satan to attempt dominion over the nations, and the lust that it has ever manifested in this direction will then be satisfied. For a time the nations of the Beast will be content to endure this religious domination but as we have seen it will ultimately be repudiated and the result to the woman is destruction. The process of disintegration, however, reveals an astounding fact. Business collapses, politics deteriorate. The merchantmen weep, the kings wail and lament. Their distress is due to the realisation that when society throws off religion it destroys confidence, and when confidence is destroyed international affairs and commercial affairs suffer. Who supposes that the true church is the mainstay of modern civilisation. The suggestion that the refuge of society is in the little companies of the Lord’s people scattered all over the world has but to be made to be ridiculed, but so it is and God is determined to demonstrate its truth. First the true church will be withdrawn, but for a time things will proceed as usual while religion vaunts itself in organised grandeur. The apostacy will meet its condign judgment from God through the peoples of the earth. “Men gather them and they are burned,” 14 declared our Lord concerning the branches that abide not in Him. And the world which may rejoice that religion at last is a dead thing will then discover to its horror that under the judgment of God on religious Babylon, Babylon commercial and Babylon political will perish as well. Nothing of Babylon is of any value to God in the era of the reign of righteousness. The things that men value most must be swept away to prepare the way of the Lord. It is a terrible thought that the heart of materialistic Babylon is an apostate church thriving on the imitation of truth. In such circumstances the child of God has need to take heed. Paul said of Satan that he was not ignorant of his devices, but perhaps we cannot say so with the same confidence. We have need to be more than wary. Unless we are resolved to test everything by the Word of God we shall find ourselves lured by imitation. In particular let us beware of all that specious propaganda in religious circles whereby the issues are declared to be as between the church and the world. The issues are between the world and God’s Beloved Son. It is His glory which is to be our concern. Let us also watch the campaign for re-union. The church is and always has been One Body. Every true believer in that Body recognises the Holy Spirit in other believers and will be utterly unconcerned about the particular denomination to which he may or may not belong. Re-union which is based on the give and take of denominational headquarters can never be of God. The religious leaders of our country are always pleading for honesty and sincerity in our statesmen. May we not with all kindness ask them to proceed along the same path? Why do not our leaders of the State church and the Free churches discuss the possibilities of closer fellowship on the basis of what is the teaching of the Word of God? There might be room and would be room for honest differences of judgment on certain passages, but immediately many truths would emerge that would need to be learned by all Christians. Wherever the Lord’s people go right down on their faces before God to know His will from the Word, then before doctrine can be amended lives must be adjusted. When thus our hearts are put right before God other things would be perfectly clear. It would be abundantly clear for example that there can never be any official relationship between the church and the state. There is not a trace of it in the New Testament. The idea that a Prime Minister in the Government can nominate archbishops and bishops would be at once such a spiritual monstrosity that the relationship would have to be broken. It would also be perfectly clear that the church can never be entered by forms and ceremonies. By admitting to the Ordinance of the Supper all who at age of fourteen or sixteen present themselves for confirmation or any other ceremony we fail to maintain before the world that the church is a company of those who are redeemed in the precious blood of Jesus Christ and have received the seal of their inheritance, even the Holy Spirit. Even in the Free churches it is held by some that the sprinkling of the baby admits it to the church as a child of God, and thousands in both the Free churches and the State church are under the impression that having conformed to certain requirements they are absolutely right for all eternity, when the awful truth is that they are lost; they are without Christ and therefore without God and without hope. 15
Furthermore we see that the final apostasy manifests itself in the effort of the apostate church to rule the rulers of the world. Inter-nationalism is sapping the life blood of the churches. World peace between nations is the goal of so many pulpits, but that is not the goal of apostolic teaching. It is so easy to be engulfed in these things if we slip away from the Word of God. Let the reader beware! A faithful testimony in the Word of God, a watching and a service in line with His coming is what is He asks of us. If we render it in humbleness of spirit we shall one day stand in His presence and not be ashamed before Him at His appearing. If not, trusting in ceremonies, traditions, ecclesiastical decrees and bulls, edicts and creeds of men, we may find ourselves being swept into a religious vortex wherein religion increasingly is sucked down into the Whirlpool of national and international politics. While actually in God’s sight it will be sinking into the abyss, it will probably appear to be a masterly expression of power and influence, but the end is destruction. God grant us the heart and the eye of the apostle to perceive the spiritual wilderness amidst all the present vaunting of religious ceremonial. Without doubt we shall be cast aside now, but we shall be filled with joy at His appearing 16 and that is the issue that matters.